Strong legs and glutes are crucial for whole-body balance, athleticism, pain-free movement, and injury prevention.
So, whether you’re an experienced with exercise or just getting into fitness, read on to learn exactly why you should train the lower body
1. Improved Athleticism
The legs (quadriceps, hamstrings, adductors, and calves) and glutes (all three muscles) are involved in numerous activities.
Developing them gives you the strength, power, and endurance to move more freely, reach new training milestones, and perform better in sports.
Here is a brief look at some of the roles of these muscles:
Gluteus - hip extension (driving the hips forward when standing up)
Quadriceps - knee extension (straightening the legs) and hip flexion (bending at the waist)
Hamstrings - knee flexion (bending the legs) and hip extension (along with the glutes)
Adductors - adducting the legs (bringing them inward) and promoting knee stability
Calves - knee flexion (along with the hamstrings) and ankle extension (incredibly important when jumping and running).
2. Beneficial For Everyday Fitness
Given the varied, nuanced, and synergistic way the leg and glute muscles work, they can’t help but be involved in many everyday activities, ranging from something as simple as getting out of bed in the morning to more complex activities like climbing stairs, picking up a heavy object off the floor, or carrying groceries.
The stronger your legs and glutes are, the easier it is to handle the physical challenges in your daily life.
3. Reduced Risk of Chronic Pain
Strong legs and glutes are crucial to reducing chronic pain in the ankles, knees, hips, and lower back.
First, stronger muscles can more effectively absorb force during physical activity, such as playing sports, lifting weights, or doing manual labor. This protects your joints, bones, and connective tissues.
Second, strong muscles promote stability, reducing the risk of being in a position where you might injure yourself––for example, overextending yourself and pulling a muscle.
Third, strong muscles, particularly the glutes, promote better spinal alignment and posture, which reduces the strain on your lower back.
4. Improved Metabolic Health
Developing these muscles will benefit your metabolic health in two ways:
First, muscle is metabolically costly. This is just a fancy way of saying that your muscle causes you to burn calories throughout the day without doing anything. The metabolic boost isn’t huge, but it can add up if you gain 10-20 pounds of muscle.
Plus, having more muscle means your body needs more calories to recover, and you can do more challenging workouts that burn extra calories.
Second, regular resistance training improves insulin sensitivity––how sensitive the cells in your body are to the hormone.
This is beneficial because it means the body doesn’t have to produce as much insulin to keep blood sugar levels within the healthy range, potentially reducing the risk of conditions like type 2 diabetes.
Where to Go From Here
There you have it: four solid reasons to strengthen your glutes and legs!
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