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MILO BRYANT: Build leg strength, balance

Well, we’ve come to the last week of body-weight exercises for the legs. Understand, these are exercises for people who have advanced leg strength and range of motion, and strength throughout that range of motion.Remember to check out the blog at milobryant.blog spot.com to see videos of these exercises.Let’s get right to them.Leg progressionStart this exercise by doing 20 speed squats, making sure you get your hamstrings parallel to the ground. Move right into 20 lunges. That’s 10 lunges each leg. Immediately after, do 20 squat jumps, making sure you bend your knees and your hips.We tend to get through about 10 to 12 squat jumps then start to bend our backs over our knees. Let’s not do that. It might seem easier, but it’s not good for the back.Finish off with 10 deep squats.Rest for 30 seconds and do the progression again. Do at least three sets of the progression. Try to build up to six sets back to back with no more than 30 seconds of rest between sets. If you need a bigger challenge, do the progressions while facing downhill.Inverted leg raisesStand erect with the feet together. Using the hips as a pivot point, bend forward until your body is at a 90-degree angle. Raise your right leg behind you as high as you can. Lower the leg, but not to the ground. Raise and lower it several times before switching legs.The difficulty is maintaining balance while lifting.Exercise ball liftGet in a push-up position with the feet on an exercise ball and hands on the ground. Using your core, raise your body into a pike position. While maintaining balance, raise the right leg off the ball behind you so that it makes a horizontal line with the torso. Bring it down. Switch legs and do the same movement.Lunge jumpsYou can do these two ways. The first is a regular lunge jump. To do it, get into the extended lunge position (one foot out in front and back knee almost touching the ground).Instead of returning to the start position, thrust your body skyward and land in the extended lunge position.The second way to do these is the split jump. Start the split jump in the same extended lunge position. This time you’ll thrust your body skyward and change leg positions before you land.Bryant has two National Strength and Conditioning Association certifications. Contact him at milo.bryant@gazettedev.gazette.com or read his blog at milobryant.blogspot.com. He appears on KOAA’s Comcast Channel 9 most Wednesdays at 4 p.m.

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