Strengthen My Legs

When I still played soccer, I had the toughest legs around. But one day, while playing in college, I tore both of my quads simultaneously. Apparently, they never healed correctly and left scar tissue. The injury made me quit playing, and I have had too much going on to recover properly since then. My knees, hips and ankles have all suffered dire consequences for my neglect. Now, I must- by doctors orders- strengthen the muscles so that they may heal properly. I want to have full use of my legs for the rest of my life.

However I feel like they are unbalanced. The muscle at the front of thighs sticks out loads but the rest aren’t very visible.

i would like to strengthen my right leg which has caused me to limp .

I like that this is a goal… as a former figure skater, I have ridiculously developed leg muscles- I like to joke that I could crush a man’s skull with them…..aha… yeah, that sounds better out loud, not written down.

Here’s why:

Not looking weak in yoga class

Running

Biking

Can u say F A T??? My legs have a whale like appearance! Anyone know any good ways to get rid of leg fat?

First of all, it’s weird that people care most that I “get rid of everything I don’t neeed” and only two people felt like cheering for me to strengthen different parts of my body. In my case, strengthening my legs means more than sexy stems. It means that I will be putting less strain on my bad right knee and hopefully helping my hip problems as well. I am hoping that if I had really strong quads, my knee will stop clicking every time I walk upstairs or up hill, and that I will be able to enjoy the outdoors with my family more the next time I visit them in Alaska.

The thing is, it’s hard to strengthen my legs without my knee hurting sooo bad and making me wish I hadn’t exercise. But recently, my neighbors got an elipitcal trainer and put it in the common area of our house and said that I could use it. Soooo, I have been and it is SO GREAT! It gives you a cardio workout, works your legs AND is easy on the knees! I would recommend this to anyone else in my boat for sure. Also, of course the Yoga Booty Ballet is still in full effect, but I have to watch it on certain moves or I will feel it in my knee the next day.

I realized this week that I have had this goal for way too long and that I just need to, you know, GET IT DONE! So, I have been doing a workout regime with some DVDs and my DDR Extreme 2. I have jogged a total of 6 miles this week so that’s good for me. I had been doing yoga all the time and I do think that helped my leg strength, but I need to do something that won’t make me anymore flexible. I am too flexible and it actually gets in the way of strengthening all the parts of my body cuz I put all the strain on my joints and over extend and all of that good stuff. Bad stuff. So, here I REALLY go on getting stronger. It’s on.

Wow, so three weeks shouldn’t have gone by already! I have barely worked toward this goal in the last couple weeks, aside from yoga and the occasional squats or dance party. Tonight I set up a resistance strap on a hallway door and worked out a bit. I think this can be dangerous for your back if you don’t watch it. I will see how I feel tomorrow and hopefully will stick to this program.

Although everyone thinks it was the ballet I pursued hardcore in my younger years giving me hip troubles now, I think my hip could never really handle the ballet and that i was just born with a whacky hip. I look at the way my grandma walks and had to get two hip replacements and I just hope I can work hard enough so that I won’t need something like that when I get older or sooner, eek. But tonight, after working for a few hours straight and basically sitting all day, I decided to pick up and do some bar work as an activity to strengthen my legs. It felt good to use my muscles and it was fun to do such graceful moves instead of the typical squatting from Buns of Steel. I think I will do these moves again. They were also nice because you have to keep your back straight and stabilzed and move your arms as well. A bit of everything.