Shoulders
and Legs Exercise Workout
- a full body workout for
women and men
This is an exercise
workout for your shoulders and legs using your core for balance,
stability and support. It’s a simple exercise workout
comprising of 5 basic yet very effective shoulder exercises combined by
simultaneously doing each shoulder exercise with leg squats. This
series of exercises can be done either at your home or at the gym. All
you need are a few dumbbells and they do not need to be very heavy,
either.
This is a strength training and cardiovascular workout engaging both
the shoulders and the legs as the primary focus of the exercise. It is
also a full-body exercise because it engages many secondary muscles
required for strength, balance and support.
You can also determine the pace you want to do this exercises workout
at. You can slow it down a bit to make it harder and realize more of
the strength training benefits of this exercise or speed it up to get
the fat-burning and toning benefits of this exercise while still
building strength. Therefore, it’s a great workout for women
who want to just strength train, get in shape and lose weight without
building a lot of muscle.
You can also determine how heavy the weights you wish to use depending
on your fitness or bodybuilding, sculpting goals. I am using fairly
light weights in my YouTube exercise video for demonstration purposes.
Even with light weights, after awhile, you will find they will feel
heavier as you go.
Do this exercise circuit 3 times at 12 repetitions each exercise. So
basically you are doing 3 sets of each exercise but alternating. It
should take anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes. Take a short rest between
each of the 3 exercise circuits.
Don’t forget to breathe throughout this workout. Breathe in
as you come down (lower the weights and do your leg squat) and breathe
out as you raise the weights and stand up (come out of squatting
position).
The areas of your body that this workout targets are:
Primary areas of emphasis:
Deltoids and trapezius muscles
Thighs, hamstrings and glutes
Secondary muscle groups:
Arms, upper back, abs
The six exercises that make up this exercise workout and
how to do each one:
Overhead Shoulder Press
Grab 2 dumbbells and hold them with palms facing outwards, elbows at
shoulder height and with arms bent at 90 degrees. This is your starting
position. Standing up press the weights up over your head until they
meet or almost meet at the top(breathe out as you do so). As you bring
the weights back down to the starting position, do your leg squat. Go
as low as you can.
Upright Rows
Holding 2 dumbbells in front of you and palms facing inwards, bring
them upwards with elbows moving upwards and outwards (elbows in a
V-shape). Bring the hands to your shoulder level or almost there. As
you bring the weights back down to the starting position, do your leg
squat.
Alternate Angle Shoulder Press
You do this exercise in the same way as the overhead shoulder press
except that this time you bring the weights up and inwards until they
touch or almost touch over your head. So you are working your shoulders
from a different angle. As you bring the weights back down to the
starting position, do your leg squat.
Side Lateral Raise
Holding two dumbbells in the middle with palms facing inwards, raise
them simultaneously outwards and to the side until you reach shoulder
level. At shoulder height, your palms will face downwards. Keep your
elbows slightly bent at all times. Hold for a couple of seconds at the
top of the movement. As you bring the weights back down to the starting
position, do your leg squat.
Front Shoulder Raises
Hold two dumbbells at your sides, palms facing inwards (towards you)
and raise the weights to shoulder height simultaneously. Keep your
elbows slightly bent at all times. As you bring the weights back down
to the starting position, do your leg squat.
Leg Squats
Go as low as you can go with your legs apart. Maintain a straight back,
glutes and abs tucked in and keep your knees bent over her feet as you
squat.
If you do this exercise as I have instructed you will feel it and you
will have beautifully sculpted shoulders.
To make this workout harder and more challenging, try it on a Bosu
ball. It will require more balance and works out your legs and core
even more since more energy and strength are required to maintain
stability on the Bosu.
Also remember to stretch your shoulder and leg muscles after this
workout.
To conclude, this exercise workout is ideal when you have limited
amount of time to exercise and it can be done at the gym or at home
with very limited equipment. When done properly you should get a good
fat-burning cardio and strength training workout and beautifully
sculpted shoulders.