Instyle December 2006

This is the fourth part of Instyle’s series of workouts which focus on different parts of your body. It’s all about legs this month, on page 254.

I like the way this article puts to rest the idea that working your legs will always bulk them up. Although some women do have a tendency to build chunky thighs, bodyweight exercises will very rarely contribute to this. It mentions spin classes can contribute to big legs, but personally I reckon you’d have to be doing several a week, and maxing out on the resistance. Make sure you periodise your class with bursts of easy riding (a good instructor will set their class up like this anyway), to avoid overworking your quads.

As with the abdominal part of the program a couple of months ago, it’s great to see cardio mentioned here to enhance the results of your workout. You can build muscle, but what’s the point if it’s hiding under fat?

This plan has four different parts to it, the idea being you do a different one every day. Personally, I’d prescribe a day of rest between doing walking lunges and squat holds and zig zag lunges. Both use the same main muscle groups, and to use them two days in a row leads to overwork. My main complaint with this article is the idea of focussing on only one part of your body at time. Any good program aims for balance between abs, back, chest and legs, and obviously splitting these areas into four seperate months will sell more magazines, it can lead to imbalance and overtraining.

That said, I like these exercises. Good illustrations for most of them mean you can work out what you need to do without being too confused. There are some fairly advanced exercises here, like scissors, side-kick plank and side thigh raises, so it’s important to understand you’ll need to have good core control. Even a basic lunge is a challenging exercise to do properly, so make sure you’re not overdoing the reps before your technique is right.

Adding a day of rest between each day of working out will make this a much better option. ***