I used to think that a good leg workout necessitated heavy duty equipment like a squat sled and a calf press machine. Then I discovered that a great leg workout can be had at home, or anywhere for that matter, without any specialized equipment at all.

Day #3 on Body-for-Life calls for weight training for the lower body (abdominals and legs) and can be easily done at home. I've included the Progress Report with this blog for your convenience. Following are the exercises I suggest you try on day #3 and how you can use common household items to add a little variety to each of them.

The best way to start these exercises is with your own body weight. You can add extra weight to challenge yourself as you progress and gain more muscle.

Dumbell Squats: A great way to make sure you keep proper form on this exercise is to hold a broomstick across your shoulders. Once you get the form down and can do a whole series easily, you should add weight by holding canned goods in each hand or even milk jugs with water added for weight.

Leg Press: Lie on your back and balance a kitchen chair on the soles of your feet for this one. Keep the chair balanced by holding on to the front legs. The act of balancing the chair will call in all your muscles and make this exercise very effective. If you really want a challenge, have a child lie across the soles of your feet and hold their hands. Not only will you have to lift the extra weight but you'll need to balance a squirming kid too! (Remember safety and do this on a mattress if you're pressing a kid in the air!)

Dumbell Lunges: Until you've got the proper form down, feel free to keep one hand on the back of a kitchen chair or a doorknob to keep your balance on this exercise. Once you have the form down and need a challenge, use canned goods in each hand for added weight.

Straight-Leg Deadlifts: Hold a broomstick until you get the proper form down. When you need more of a challenge, use canned goods in each hand.

Angled and Standing Calf Raises: Feel free to hold on to the back of a chair to keep your balance on this one. When you're ready for a challenge, hold canned goods or water filled milk or water bottles in each hand.

Floor Crunches: I once had a dog that liked to lie on my stomach when I did these. That added a whole lot of extra resistance to the exercise. These can generally be done without added resistance though.

Bent-Knee Leg Raises: The best and most fun way to do this exercise is to find a small child that likes to pretend he's flying. My son loves to be the added weight on my lower legs on this one! (Remember safety and do this on a mattress if you use a child for added weight.)

For video demonstrations of each exercise, visit the Body-for-Life website here.

Enjoy your workout!

Related Blogs:

Body-for-Life Day #3 Supplement Review

Body-for-Life Recipe: Taco Salad

Body-for-Life Workout Day #3

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Aerobics, Walking/Running in Place

I'll bet you never thought that a 20 minute aerobic workout could be effective in helping you to lose weight.

News Flash!

You can lose weight, and lots of it, by only doing three twenty-minute aerobic workouts a week and three 46-minute weight training workouts a week. It has already been proven by millions of successful Body-for-Lifers! Why not become one of them?

If you've started the Body-for-Life program along with me then this will be your aerobic workout for tomorrow (Tuesday). All you need is 20 minutes and either a stopwatch or a digital clock. If you want to do this workout while watching television, you can probably do just as well using the clock on your VCR or DVR.

This Body-for-Life aerobic workout is an easy and quick one. You don't need any equipment and, if we get right down to it, you don't even need to wear any shoes! You don't need to take a whole lot of time out of your busy day to do it either. The Body-for-Life Aerobics Solution lasts only 20 minutes. If you choose to walk or run in place, you can easily do this aerobic workout in less time than it takes to watch a 30-minute sitcom and you can even do it while watching that sitcom!

The secret to the Body-for-Life aerobic workout is intensity. We all start at a different fitness level so why would we all exercise at the same intensity level? The simple fact is that we shouldn't all exercise at the same intensity. Someone who runs 5 miles a day will have a much more intense aerobic workout than somebody who is just starting a fitness regimen. The quicker we all accept that, the more productive and satisfying our workouts will be.

For more information on how the intensity scale works in the Body-for-Life aerobic workout, please visit this link at the Body-for-Life website.

Related Blogs:

Day #2 on Body-for-Life

Body-for-Life Food Review: South Beach Diet Pizza

Body-for-Life Workout: Day #2

We're ready to start the Body-for-Life program!

If you haven't started with the initial Day #1 instructions in the Weight Loss Blog, please click here. Every day will begin with the Weight Loss Blog and link to the day's workout (in the Fitness Blog) as well as the day's food tip in the Food Blog.

The great thing about the Body-for-Life program is that you don't need to join a gym to participate. In fact, you can do every workout in the privacy and comfort of your own home without the hassle of having to join a gym, pay monthly membership fees, figure out who will watch the kids or any of the associated hassles.

I've attached a workout sheet for your first day's workout. There is no need to buy expensive exercise equipment or a weight bench. You can do every one of these exercises with weights that you'll find in your kitchen cupboard. Since you can do this at home, you have no excuse not to do the workout!

Yes, that is right!

Go to your kitchen cupboard and grab two cans of beans, or whatever you have handy, and use them for your starting weights. As you get stronger, you can choose heavier cans. Another option is using two half-gallon milk jugs. Just add water to them equally until they are a challenging weight for you. When you get really buff, you can use gallon sized jugs!

For complete instructions on how to execute today's exercises properly, just visit the Body-for-Life website and see the exercise demonstrations here.

Remember that weight training workouts should take no longer than 45 minutes each. If you haven't finished your workout in 45 minutes or less you need to put the weights away anyway. Eventually you get proficient enough to get the whole workout done in the allotted time but, until then, drop the weights at 45 minutes.

Body-for-Life Day #1

Body-for-Life Day #1 Food Tip

Body-for-Life Day #1 Workout

When Sabrina Bryan showed up on Dancing with the Stars, my daughter went nuts. I had no idea who the blonde bombshell was until my 7 year old informed me that she was a "Cheetah Girl" in that tone that suggests I should have been paying attention. While we were crazy for So You Think You Can Dance last summer, we've never fallen for the Dancing with the Stars until this year.

Healthy Kids Fitness Challenge

The Healthy Kids Fitness Challenge is committed to promoting a healthy body image for young girls as well as combating childhood obesity. It turns out that Sabrina Bryan has joined up with Healthy Kids Fitness Challenge in the production of a hip-hop fitness DVD. Her workout is called Byou (Be-You) and it's a team effort to make healthy choices a fun opportunity for girls between 7 and 17.

My daughter is already hip to the idea because she takes a hip hop class every Tuesday. According to a press release regarding the new hip hop workout video, Bryan described herself as a girl who went through the "I hate my body" thing. She credits sports and dance activities as how she created balance for her adult life.

Working Together

Female fitness starts with self-confidence and faith in yourself. You can give your daughter the same confidence through positive reinforcement and helping her to discover what will work for her. If she likes the Cheetah Girls, you might check out Sabrina Bryan's new workout video - if it's half as fun as her Dancing with the Stars dances, chances are you could have as good a time as your daughter.

What have you done to promote fitness and a healthy body image with your daughter lately?

This past Christmas, we got our daughter a Nintendo Wii. I've actually been interested in getting one for more than a year, but besides being among the hardest to find game systems out there, it was also a little more of an expense than I felt like I needed to devote to myself, but after we got one for our nephew as a huge family gift, my daughter went crazy for it. When she wrote her letter to Santa, she asked for just six things and one of those was a Nintendo Wii.

What Wii Love

When I first wrote about the Wii, I had very little experience, just the bit I'd played on it at the store. But using it at home was an entirely different experience. Christmas afternoon, while dinner was cooking, we set it up and loaded the game package that came with it. Our options were tennis, baseball, bowling, golf and boxing. As all three of us are fans of bowling, which was the first game we loaded up.

Two things to remember when using a Wii, it comes with wireless controllers that have wrist straps. You want to use the straps to hang onto the controllers because flinging one across the room is not only unsafe, it could lead to breaking the controller (or a pane of glass) - luckily, we didn't break anything when this happened. But the best part of the Wii is that we do it together, all three of us and that we're on our feet, moving, throwing, tossing, hitting and more.

Bowling

Bowling is something we've always enjoyed. We own our own bowling shoes, we have our own bowling balls and I even took a bowling class (yes, seriously) when I was working on my Associate's Degree. Once upon a time, we were also in bowling league for a couple of years. Bowling is a physical sport, anyone whose bowled 9 frames in 3 different games can tell you that it's a workout. Your heart rate gets elevated, you have to use precision and muscle control to aim your ball and then there's the ball itself (mine weighs 10 pounds).

So how is Wii Bowling different, yet the same? Well, first and foremost, you're not using a bowling ball, but a controller. There is no significant weight to the controller. The game allows you the perspective of seeing the lane and you have to sight, and throw correctly because the controller responds to the twisting of your wrist almost as much as it does to the force with which you 'throw' the ball.

Straining Your Arm

While you aren't lugging a 10 pound bowling ball, bowling game after game after game for 2 hours can really put a strain on your arm. But if you bowl in moderation, it's still a workout and we're going to talk more about the Wii Workout this week!