HOW: Stand up on your tip toes and lift both your heels off the ground. Maintain this tall, tip toe position, and walk forward. The goal is to stay up as tall as you can and not let your heel drop when you put weight on it.

 

FEEL: You should feel all the muscles in your calves working, you may also feel you quadricep thigh muscles working as well.

 

COMPENSATION: Do not let your heels drop! Also, do not let your knees bend. Think of staying up as tall as you can!

HOW:  Get a band set-up around your knees and start in a mini squat position. Shift your weight to one side of your body and pick up the other foot. With the leg you picked up – step directly to the outside and tap your foot, followed by tapping your foot where you started while keeping balance and good positioning. Repeat

 

FEEL:  This is a hip dominant exercise. The leg that is in contact with the ground the entire time should feel like it is working the hardest. Your glutes should be getting tired and working hard with this exercise.

 

COMPENSATION:  Keep your balance and do not let your upper body or pelvis move too much. Everything should be relatively still except for the leg that is working. Just tap the foot, think about not breaking an eggshell

HOW:  Start with your hands against a wall at shoulder height and be leaning into the wall. Push into the wall with your hip, knee, and ankle to assume a triple extension position. This is your starting position. Slowly bend your hip, knee, and ankle to “load” your leg. Then, explosively push away into the wall and assume a triple extension position.

 

FEEL:  You should feel your hips, knee, and ankle working hard.

 

COMPENSATION:  Adjust how far away from the wall you stand to make sure it feels natural. Be sure to attain triple extension

HOW: Begin by placing a band around your knees just above your knee cap. Place one foot in front and the other leg extended back with your back toes pushing into the ground. Keeping your torso straight up, lunge forward and down for 5 seconds, hold that position for 3 seconds, and push back up into the starting position. In this example, we used a 5310 tempo. Tempo exercises consist of 4 different numbers. In the example of a 5310 split stance lunge:  5 is the lowering or eccentric portion 3 is the pause at the bottom or isometric portion 1 is the rising or concentric portion 0 is the rest between reps at the top. Sometimes you will use an “X” to denote as fast as possible.

 

FEEL: You should feel your quadriceps and glute muscles working. You should also feel a stretch in the front of your hip with the back leg. 

 

COMPENSATION: Keep your back upright, don’t slouch forward. Make sure to bend both knees as you lunge forward and keep that bend as you go down.

HOW: Stand up tall on your tip toes. Then bend both of your knees slightly. Maintaining that slight amount of knee bend, slowly take one step forward. As you put weight on your leg, do no let your heel drop. Really push the balls of your feet into the ground. Slowly transition all your weight to that leg, then pick up your other leg and repeat. Pretend you are wearing high heel shoes.

 

FEEL: You should feel your calf muscles and quads working hard to maintain the position.

 

COMPENSATION: Do not let your heel drop as you put weight on it.

HOW: Lie on your side. Squeeze your thigh and knee first, in particular, the inside part of your thigh to make your knee straight. While maintaining the squeeze, slowly lift up your leg as high as you can, then slowly lower and repeat.

 

FEEL: You should feel the muscles on the inside part of your thigh working.

 

COMPENSATION: Avoid allowing the leg to move forward or back as you elevate the leg, keep the knee straight.

HOW: Start this exercise on your back in a 90/90 position of your knees and hips. Keep the small of your back pushed into the floor by activating your core. While maintaining core activation extend your legs out one at a time. The closer your feet are towards the floor the more challenging this exercise will be on your core.

 

FEEL: You should feel the abdominal muscles engaging while you perform this exercise.

 

COMPENSATION: Do not arch the back as you perform this exercise.

HOW:  Start on your back with a resistance band placed slightly above your knees. Bring one leg in towards your chest, with the leg on the floor drive in with your heels to lift your hips up towards the ceiling. At the end position your knee, hip, and shoulder should be in one straight line. Hold the end position and squeeze the glutes, then slowly return to starting position.

 

FEEL:  You should feel your glutes work to control this motion. At no point should you feel your low back muscles doing the lifting motion. If you feel it only in your hamstrings, try bending your knees a bit more and repeat. With the leg that is elevated will feel the muscles in the front of the hip working.

 

COMPENSATION:  Avoid arching at the low back as you perform this. Don’t let the knee bend with the leg that is elevated.