Home Lower Body Workout – My “Sore Thumb” Workout

I want to share with you the lower body workout that I’ve been doing at home over the past week. I call it my “Sore Thumb” workout.

Last week I had a small accident and nearly broke my thumb. It happened when I tried to close a window in my home.

At first I was sure that I was going to need to go to the hospital to get the bone set, but after a few moments I realized that it wasn’t that serious as the pain diminished a bit and I slowly got some movement back.

However, I’m still not able to do upper body exercises. This is why my recent home workouts were solely made up of lower body exercises. Does this mean that I didn’t do intense workouts? Of course not. As I’ve written before, leg exercises are crucial for fat loss and I’m still able to do a great workout by doing just them.

Lower Body Circuit Training

As soon as I realized that I wasn’t able to place any pressure on my hand, I started to think about how to construct a circuit which is made up entirely of lower body exercises. I took the following exercises and worked with them:

• Bodyweight squats (or Y or T Squats)
• Split squat
• Forward lunges
• Reverse lunges
• Squat jumps
• Lunge Jumps
• Forward squat jumps
• Calf Raises
• Bridges

You can read about these exercises here: Squats, lunges, and calf exercises.

In addition, I used my jump rope, both for warm up and for adding a bit of cardio at the end and the beginning of each circuit.

Warming UP

I began my workout with about 7 minutes of rope jumping. To me, this is the perfect way to do cardio at home. It’s a cheap fitness product that doesn’t take room and you build up a sweat in a few short minutes.

Just so you know, jumping rope can also be a total cardio workout in itself. I did a 20 minute jumping workout a few weeks ago, and it was fantastic.

So, I put on the radio, warmed up by jumping for a few moments, and I was ready for my circuits.

Starting Your Circuit With A Jumping Exercise

I like to start my circuits with one of 3 jumping exercises:

1. Squat jump – You go into a squat, rise and jump up. Land, go into a squat and jump again.

2. Lunge jump – You do a forward lunge, and from the low position rise in a jump. Switch legs in the air and land into another lunge. Jump again and so on.

3. Forward squat jump – Jump forward and land straight into a squat. Rise and hop back (with two hops) to your starting position.

These 3 exercises are some of the toughest that you’ll ever do. When you do them quickly, you get a cardio and strength workout all put into one. It’s that powerful.

So, for a great start to your circuit, do a set of one of these three exercises.

A Few Circuit Options

Since my “injury” is recent, I’ve not been able to fully experiment with a lot of circuits to see which one works best for me. However, the following options are good ones:

Circuit 1:

• 20 Squat jumps.
• 30 seconds of side squats.
• 20 seconds of reverse lunges.
• 20 seconds of calf raises
• Jump rope for 2 minutes.

Circuit 2:

• 20 seconds of forward squat jumps.
• 30 seconds of forward lunges.
• 20 seconds of T-squats.
• 20 seconds of bridges
• Jump rope for 3 minutes.

Circuit 3:

• Jump rope for 2 minutes.
• 20 seconds of lunge jumps.
• 20 second of calf raises.
• 30 seconds of bridges.
• Jump rope.

Circuit 4:

• 20 seconds of squat jumps.
• 30 seconds of forward lunges.
• 20 seconds of side squats
• 20 seconds of Y Squats.
• 20 seconds of calf raises.
• Jump rope for 2-3 minutes.

As you can see, I care less about the number of repetitions I do and more about the time I do each exercise. My goal is to do as many repetitions as I can within each time frame without settling on form or technique. I want to make my circuits as “dense” as possible. This adds to the intensity and creates a bigger cardio stimulation.

The rest between circuits should be short, no more than 60 seconds. I had a water bottle ready beside me to avoid having to go to the tap and fill it. I wanted my workout to flow.

Bringing It All Together

I usually do 6-8 of these circuits during each home workout. I also do a long session of jumping with the rope at the end of the circuit session. I have to warn you: your legs may feel like jello after going through such a lower body workout. Start with a lower number of circuits and see how you feel.

The bottom line is that I was able to do very good workouts even without the use of my hands. I simply took a number of effective fat burning exercises that I could do and made no excuses for myself. I just did the work.

This is an important lesson: there is often a way to overcome any problem or excuse that’s preventing you from exercising. Just find a way to be active. Don’t let anything get in the way of your health.

If you’re looking to add strength to your legs or tone your buttocks or thighs, do a lower body workout made of the circuits I’ve outlined above. It is bound to show results.