Take a chair for toned summer legs
Yoga
Lee Kennedy
Shaping up for strong elegant legs and glutes this summer can be an easy project for you to tackle. Classic, compound movements, such as squats and lunges work wonders for your legs and glutes.
Wider squats, with your legs past hip width, will focus more on your glutes, while the more narrow squats, with your feet just a few inches apart, will focus on your quads – the muscles at the front of your thighs.
The key to squats and lunges is the form – knees shouldn’t go over the toes. In lunges, the knee and ankle should be in complete alignment, which helps to avoid injury.
The legs contain very large muscle groups, and it’s necessary for them to rest between stretches to get optimum results.
Women who don’t want to build as much muscle mass can also benefit by taking up running, which generally helps to keep the legs leaner looking.
Chair pose (Utkatasana)
- Begin the pose by standing with your feet hip distance apart, arms by your sides, sternum lifted and toes turned slightly in.
- Bend your knees deeply, shift your weight back into your heels (lift your toes to do this, if you find it helps).
- Squeeze your inner thighs together, internally rotating your femurs.
- Come to sit in an imaginary chair.
- Straighten your arms and raise them overhead, reaching your fingers up and bringing your palms together into this chair pose.
- Inhale and bring your arms down and palms together into the prayer position at the centre of your chest.
- Keep length in the spine.
- Inhale here and as you exhale, twist your torso to the right, bringing your left elbow to the outside of your right knee, use your arms for leverage against your legs to deepen your twist.
- Turn your gaze to look upwards.
- Hold for three to five breaths.
- Unlock your elbows from your knee and unwind your torso to face to the front again as you exhale and raise your arms overhead with palms together, returning to chair pose.
- Straighten your legs and bring your palms to prayer position in the centre of your chest to return to standing.
- Take a few breaths before you take the twist to the left side.
Lee Kennedy qualified with The BKS Iyengar Yoga Association UK, the YTTC and Ana Forrest of Forrest Yoga. She specialises in pregnancy-related yoga and can be contacted at 086 3906343.
