leg workouts on floor only question
- Thread starter Seymour42
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Nabbe47
Cathlete
Yes, you can absolutely build strength in your legs and rear at 60 using only floor exercises, but it requires consistency and progressive overload. Floor movements like glute bridges, clamshells, and straight leg raises build the stabilizer muscles necessary for balance and daily function:
Glute Bridges: Lie on your back with knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Lift your hips, squeezing your glutes at the top. This is a highly effective movement for posterior strength. To increase the difficulty, try single-leg bridges.
Clamshells: Lie on your side with your knees bent at a 45-degree angle, keeping your feet together. Lift your top knee while keeping your core stable. This targets the outer glutes (gluteus medius), which are crucial for hip stability and walking.
Straight Leg Raises: Lie on your back, keep one leg bent and the other straight. Lift the straight leg to the level of the opposite thigh, engaging your quadriceps. This builds knee-supporting strength without putting body weight on your joints.
Donkey Kicks: Start on all fours (hands and knees). Keep your knee bent at a 90-degree angle and push the sole of your foot straight up toward the ceiling. This isolates the gluteus maximus (the largest muscle in your rear).
As these bodyweight movements become easier, you can steadily increase the resistance by adding ankle weights or hip resistance bands to continue challenging your muscles.
Wish you quick recovery!
nickisteen
Cathlete
Good information Nabbe47
Gosh, it's hard to maintain or build strength without lunges or squats for the quads, but not impossible. Hopefully you have consulted with a qualified physical therapist for ideas too- that's primary! Can you still do deadlifts and hip thrusts for the glutes/posterior chain? Hope so as I found glute work was helpful when I had a bad knee injury that limited my quad work. Also, I'm looking at the chapters in STS2 Leg workouts & recall Cathe said she was going to include only the most effective exercises in STS2. Well, there's Hamstring Hip Hinges, Firewalkers and Pizza Presses in the BP-Legs workout's bonus. In LB1 she includes Hamstring Roll-ins and a Straight-leg Quad Lift w/the Stability Ball (be careful to do these slowly so as to not overextended the knee). Can you do wall squats? They're in LB2 as well as Step-ups - which are great for quads altho you may have to use a lower step and you may want to try these without weights at first. I'd also look at her floor work in older workouts like Butts&Guts, Xtrain Legs, PureStrength Legs, BodyBlast Legs&Glutes (as well as the standing work w/ankle weights in L&G- those get the quads good), GymStyles Legs and ICE To the Mat. The newer LMR and LMRE both have exercises in them using loops that are good too. Then there's all the bonus barre/chair work in Kickmax, Lower Body Blast, Lean Legs& Abs, Great Glutes, Xtrain, & Killer Legs. FitTower and LIS TurboTower obviously also have barre/chair work. Be cautious of the quad work though in barre and be sure to only do min-squats/partial squats if you do the quad portions and keep your feet flat, not heels raised (I skipped them if my knee was bad that day). In addition, floor work that has you on all fours (like Pizza Presses) might be a problem too - I modifed these to standing as in barre exercises. Hope this gives you some ideas, but please be sure to get your physical therapist's okay with specific exercises before proceeding as you can cause further damage depending on the injury.
ETA: I was just looking at the chapters in BossLoops Glutes&Core for some glute activation exercises. She has a bit of floor work in there too that uses the fabric loop (a latex firewalker could be subsituted).
Best wishes for your recovery!
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nickisteen
Cathlete
Debinmi, more good options!!
Nabbe47
Cathlete
Excellent suggestions using Cathe's available exercises. Didn't think of that since the request was for floor exercises. Wish you, however, quick recovery so that you'll enjoy non-restrective exercsicing!