image: attractiveness/ 3/ legs

                                         

looking at legs:

Thighs are the last place where I put on weight, but I have a sister who puts weight on there, first. And I put weight on my calves fairly quickly, whereas my sister doesn't. I'm sure that everyone else has body quirks like this. Either way, our legs actually need only a bit of looking after.

Start with ankles

An ankle exercise, three variations are here, also gives great muscle shape to our calves. They can be used for our calves, knees, thighs, buttocks & abdominals, too. If you can do them on a step (hold onto something for balance if needed), it's actually better. As you go up onto the toes, pull up from your ankles to your waist. Pull up and tighten simultaneously. Relax the muscles as you lower the ankles. To really tighten everything, you could keep the tension on throughout, but you would need to do hamstring, quads, buttocks, calves & abdominal, stretches afterwards. If you are doing these on a step, finish them by dropping the ankles over the edge of the step, and holding to stretch out your calves. Even if you don't do this, do a standing forward "hang" with arms either dangling down, or arms folded, or holding onto legs, ankles or big toes, to stretch out the hamstrings. If you are not keen to do all three variations, just do the up on toes, then heels to floor.

Develop balance

Our ankles are intimately connected with balance, so they are a key area to keep strong as we get older, as balance can decline with age. However, as a yoga teacher, I can truthfully say that almost everyone when they first comes to yoga, has bad balance.  Standing on one leg at a time, for a short period at first, then for maybe twenty to thirty seconds each, is the way to learn to balance. There are tricks to doing it: do not do it when you are hassled in any way; push the standing foot firmly into the floor if you can; and gaze at one point as you go into the balance, and as you hold it. I know that there are people who balance on one leg whilst brushing their teeth, or similar, but that is too frenetic for me. Balance poses are supposed to induce calm.

Yoga makes legs nice

The standing poses of yoga, including leg balances, are excellent for shaping, strengthening, and lengthening leg muscles, as is downward dog/mountain. Hold each pose three breaths each if you are doing them everyday, or five to ten breaths if doing them a couple of times a week.

Squats are #1

To be honest, the best legs that I ever saw in my life, were from two women who each did squats each day. One did twenty squats with feet hip width apart and facing forwards (for thighs and buttocks). She also did twenty squats with feet further apart and toes turned out like little plies (for thigh, inner thighs, buttocks) If you push into the feet to come back up, the buttocks are more firmed. They were done fairly fast, with either no weights, or baked bean cans. Easy peasy.

The other woman was a yoga teacher. She also walked, a lot. In her class we did so many different types of squats, to start the class. We did each one far less times than the previous lady, and of course in yoga, one moves a bit slower. The yoga teacher used other poses also. Of course. But mostly squats. When we do the up and down on the toes, and the squats already described, it greatly magnifies the effects if we also visualise our legs and buttocks being in perfect shape. This amplifies the body-mind connection, and is very effective.

There are excellent reasons to do squats, and I personally prefer them to the big wide legged standing yoga poses such as triangle, warriors. Next we shall look at why.