Use this five-minute no-equipment workout to tone and strengthen your legs

You're not alone if you struggle to fit regular exercise into your weekly schedule. Juggling various responsibilities like work, life admin, seeing family and friends, and caring for your overall wellbeing can make it hard to keep up with exercise. But this bodyweight workout routine can build strength in your lower body in just five minutes.

The beauty of a no equipment workout is that you can complete it pretty much anywhere. If you're using this as a quick home workout in-between tasks then you can load the workout video onto your TV screen to make it feel like you're training in a live workout class. Or perhaps you're using this as a quick warmup before your next dumbbells leg workout and just need to plug in your best workout earbuds to follow along at the gym.

Workout instructor Maddie Lymburner, or MadFit as most people online know her as, will lead you through various different exercises designed to build strength and create muscle definition in your legs. You will perform each move back to back, spending 30 seconds on each exercise and taking a 15-second rest in the middle.

It's a short routine so give it your best shot to really build on improving the muscle endurance in your lower body and in toning your glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves. To get the most from this session make sure you follow along with Lymburner's demonstrations to perfect your form and avoid injury.

Watch MadFit's Five Minute Leg Workout

The workout includes a few staple compound exercises that most people will be familiar with such as squats and lunges and several variations of these exercises. The benefit of using compound moves for building strength and getting in a solid workout is that they engage several muscles at once. So not only are you targeting more than one muscle in the legs (the hamstrings, quads, and glutes) but you will also be engaging your core to maintain good posture as you move. 

Meanwhile, Lymburner adds in various pulses and heel or toe lifts into these bodyweight moves to intensify the overall workout and increase your strength gains. The best way to feel and see results is to stay consistent. Depending on your goals, you may be looking to move on from bodyweight routines and tackle resistance training using weights.

Once you've picked up some important strength training tips it's worthwhile investing in some of the best adjustable dumbbells to train with. Using a modifiable weight means you can change the load as you workout; this is helpful for beginners who are still testing out how much weight they can handle with different exercises. 

These weights are also space saving for a home gym space and will allow you to use progressive overload in your training. This is when you gradually increase the challenge of your training to continually grow your muscles.

However, if you prefer training without weights and want to build strength and muscle all over your body, why not take on these shoulder bodyweight exercises next.