Kettlebells are one piece of gym equipment everyone should have on hand.
One kettlebell is easily capable of giving you an effective full-body workout.
Just one exercise, the humble kettlebell swing will get your heart rate up in and build strength in multiple muscle groups
One of its most beneficial features is what is also reasonable for giving it its unique look.
The handle being on top of the kettlebell is what’s really changing the game for this weight lifting tool.
The different position of the handle brings your core into action in a way barbells and dumbbells can’t replicate.
Because of its lower center of gravity, when you start moving the bell around your stabilizing muscles are working harder to keep you upright.
Training specific muscle groups with kettlebells is just as simple as it is with a dumbbell.
In fact, you can do a lot of the same movements with a bit of adjustment on some.
And targeting your legs is no different.
All you need is these 5 exercises:
Goblet Squats, Single Leg Deadlifts, Overhead Lunges, Cossack Squats, and Calf Raises.
So let’s have a look at each movement.
Goblet Squats
Start off by holding on to the kettlebell by the bell rather than the handle and keep the kettlebell tucked in close to your chest.
Lower yourself down into a squat just like normal.
It’s important to keep your core brace while lowering yourself down.
When you do a squat with the weight at the front it’s going to pull you forward.
And if you’re not switched on and focused this will put unnecessary pressure on your lower back.
One of the benefits of doing any kind of front racked squat whether that be with a kettlebell or something else is it loads the quads more as well as bring more of your core into play.
Single Leg Deadlifts
Start off with the kettlebell on the ground in front of you.
Hinge forward at the hips and lift one leg straight up behind you.
It’s important to keep your leg straight and in line with your whole torso.
Lower it back down again in the same manner.
Doing this movement on one leg is going to load up the muscles a lot more and you’re going to feel your hamstrings burning fast!
Overhead Lunges
Hold the kettlebell straight up above your head before stepping either back or forward into a lunge.
I find stepping backward either on my knees so I prefer to do them that way.
You can take this movement to another level by holding the kettlebell in one hand over your head.
And if you alternate legs with the kettlebell in one hand it’s going to force your stabilizes to work overtime.
As well as working your shoulders.
Cosack Squats
Grab the kettlebell and hold it as you do for a goblet squat.
Step out wider though as you are going to shift your weight lateral as you lower doing over one leg.
Extend the other leg out straight.
These guys are going to hit all the muscles that the first 3 movements didn’t quite get to.
You can take it further by holding the kettlebell on one side in the front rack position.
Calf Raises
All you need other than a kettlebell is a step or a ledge.
One big mistake I see people make with calf raises is doing them flat on the ground.
To go through the full range of motion you need to lower your heel down below your toes before extending up.
I recently posted a video on youtube where I did calf raises every alternate day for 30 days.
I used kettlebells a lot for this.
You can check out the video below.
Can You Build Legs With Kettlebells?
Kettlebells are a great way to build your legs and the previous 5 movements are all you need to do that.
Building legs follow the same principles as building any muscle.
Progressive Overload
This is a pretty straightforward concept.
Add a little more each session, add more weight or add more reps or sets. Simple as that.
As your muscles get bigger and stronger they need more load on them to keep improving.
If you do the exact same thing every time you train you’re not going to see results for very long.
Build up as often as you need to.
If you try to build too quickly you will also do more damage.
So build gradually.
Calorie Surplus
The next thing to remember is food.
You need to eat more if you want to build muscle.
And not just more of anything.
You also need to get more protein into your diet.
To increase your calorie intake by 300 calories per day.
Once you plateau at a weight you need to up the calories again.
Here’s a good article I published recently on how to get your food right.
Rest
If you don’t rest you won’t grow, you won’t improve.
Your muscles need to recover after you put them through a workout.
For that very reason whenever I do 30-day challenges on youtube I do alternating days with exercises.
How Do Kettlebells Make Your Legs Bigger?
The same way any weight of resistance band does.
They give you muscle resistance which is what they need to grow.
Resistance training is what you need to give your muscles for them to grow both bigger and stronger.
Kettlebells are doing this the same way anything else does, they just give you different options to do it.
And the position of the handle is the reason kettlebells give you a unique workout.
Kettlebells are heavy so when you squat while holding a kettlebell your muscles are working harder to stand back up.
Kettlebells are just another tool out there to give the muscles in your legs the resistance they require to grow bigger.
Are Kettlebells Good For Legs?
Kettlebells are great for your legs.
Kettlebell swings are also a great movement for your legs as well as your whole posterior chain.
Every muscle that makes up the backside of your body.
You can even do farmer’s carries or suitcase carries with them to give your legs a whole different kind of workout.
Farmers carry is where you take a kettlebell in each hand while you walk for a predetermined distance.
Suitcase carry being the same thing but with just one kettlebell.
Kettlebells are especially great for your legs while doing functional movements like that.
If you build strength in your legs while performing movements you do in your daily routine you are making it easy to perform those tasks.
As you get stronger with a farmer’s carry, doing tasks like bringing bags of groceries in from the car gets a whole lot easier because you’ve trained your body to be more effective at that task.
How Do Kettlebells Tone Your Legs?
For some reason, people seem to think that you need to do something different with the weights to tone up a muscle group.
They’ve also been led to believe that you can spot target where you tone up.
Unfortunately, neither one is correct.
If you want to tone up you’re going to tone up everywhere.
Fat comes off the body equally you can just burn belly fat and leg fat.
And that is what toning up is.
Losing body fat so the muscles become more defined.
And the way you do this is with a calorie deficit.
Just like you can’t gain weight if you don’t eat enough calories.
You can burn fat if you eat too much.
A balanced diet in a calorie surplus, alongside 3-4 days of resistance training a week is what it’ll take to tone up.
Kettlebells tone your legs by building the muscle in them that you want to have popping through the skin once you get your calories right and start burning off fat.
What Are The 5 Best Leg Exercises?
In my opinion the 5 best exercises for your legs and the 5 I mentioned earlier.
And you can do them all with kettlebells, dumbbells, resistance bands, and a heavy book!
You name it.
You can get creative when it comes to giving your muscles the resistance they need.
Check out this video I posted showing how a backpack can be the only piece of gym equipment you need!
If you do 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps on squats, single-leg deadlifts, overhead lunges, cossack squats, and calf raises 2 times a week.
You will see improvements in the strength and size of your legs.
And I prefer these movements because they hit other muscle groups as well.
Turning your leg day into a much more efficient workout.
I’ve been doing variations of these movements with resistance bands lately and it’s been a fun experiment.
Training your legs can down with a lot of different gym equipment.
And in the Grizzly Online Gym I offer you all sorts of options.
At a fraction of the price of normal gyms, and you can do my work outs when and where you want!
Check out the Grizzly Online Gym now!
If you want to learn more about resistance then grab yourself a copy of my EBook Train wherever the f*ck you want.
It’s free and full of goodies to take your training to the next level!