When looking to strengthen your lower body and booty, you'll often hear people say do ‘squats’. Yes, squats are a great compound exercise, but there are other things out there if they’re not your cup of tea, like this workout. Not only is there no squatting involved, there’s no heavy weights either and all the moves are gentle on your joints. All you need is a small resistance band and 20 minutes.
Using a pair of dumbbells or an Olympic barbell are great if you're looking to build a stronger, more defined lower body, but you can 100 per cent see results without them. Resistance bands are one of the best (and affordable) pieces of home gym equipment that you can own, with one study showing they can even deliver similar results to traditional free weights. Your muscles are under tension throughout the entire movement, placing more stress on them, which helps them to grow.
For this workout you're going to need a small resistance band (also known as a 'booty band'). All eight exercises are performed standing, so we suggest wearing a good pair of workout shoes for extra stability. You'll do each exercise for 10 to 12 reps per side, with a 30 to 40 second rest in between, and you want to try and complete two to three rounds in total. Hold onto a chair to help you balance and make sure you watch the video above if you're unsure how to do certain exercises. Here's the workout:
- Glute kickback
- Side to rear tap
- Hamstring curl
- Single leg RDL
- Monster walks
- Knee extension
- Calf raises
Here's five other alternative exercises to squats that you can also try, which you can do either with equipment, or simply using your bodyweight. We've also got another low-impact lower body workout that'll only take you 20 minutes (plus there's no squats or lunges involved). Need something even speedier for those busy days? Give this 15 minute bodyweight workout a go to build muscle in your legs.
