Stronger Legs In Just 10 Days (For Seniors)
- chelsie462
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
This article is a transcribed, edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in August 2024. For the original video, go to https://youtu.be/EUmKx5V19vc
Mike: Are you finding that your legs are getting weaker, making everyday activities such as walking or household chores more cumbersome?
Brad: Well, we are actually going to show you some very helpful tricks so you can strengthen your leg muscles in 10 days, and you'll notice a difference in things getting easier. These are some things that I think are very common with people who lift weights a lot, but not for the average person.
Mike: No. So let's get into it. So before we get into the exercises, we want to take a little bit of time to explain something that most patients overlook.
Brad: That's the mind muscle connection, and that's what I was referring to: that you get in tune with your body and get those muscles to work the way you want them to.
Mike: So with the mind muscle connection, you actually wanna focus on contracting a muscle you are utilizing. So, just a basic example, if I'm going to use my bicep muscle here, its main action is to bend my elbow like this.
Mike: So if I start focusing on contracting, feeling that bending of the elbow, I'm specifically focusing on feeling this muscle group shorten and then lengthen. And if you put more energy into a specific area, you can actually help something called neuroactivation, right, Brad?
Brad: That's right. So neuroactivation is the part of the strengthening curve that happens first. Your mind and the nerves that connect to the muscle become more efficient, and you'll feel that strength gain quite rapidly within the first 10 days. And that's why we want to focus on that. Then you continue to actually get some hypertrophy, or the muscle starts to grow after that phase.
Mike: Once you get into this, you'll have better control of the muscle you are trying to develop. So, we're going to focus on legs. If you get better engagement with that muscle group, recruiting the correct muscles, they're going to grow like Brad said. But you're also not going to use as much momentum, which is common for new people. Or if even a weight is too heavy, you oftentimes see just for bicep curls, again, people sway. I'm not getting as much muscle activation. We want to control that muscle force output.
Brad: Okay, let's show them, and then it'll be clear to them.
Mike: Clear as mud.
Brad: Okay, we're going to focus on three different exercises that work on the legs. We're going to do the quad muscles, hip abductors, which help stabilize you when you walk. And then, of course, the glutes, which propel you forward, as well as up and down steps, for example. Now Mike's going to show, and we're going to actually implement some of the things that allow the neural part of the equation to become more evident.
Mike: So the first one, we're just going to focus on quads, get in some sort of long sitting position. You could possibly do this seated, too, but what I'm going to do is take a pillow, fold it up, and I'm going to put it under my knee here. Your back position will be due to comfort. Whatever works for you. If you have to lean back more, that's fine. If you can come more upright, you'll get a little more stretch. All I'm going to do is keep my heel down and push the back of my knee into the pillow. Here, what I'm focusing on is engaging my quad muscles. These are your front, big thigh muscles. There are four of them. As I push down, I'm imagining that muscle engaging. I'm going to hold this for three to five seconds each time, and I'm going to try to do 10 repetitions. Again, just try to focus on those quads, engaging, right, holding, breathing, and relaxing.
Brad: And you should feel those quads when you're pushing down. You'll probably feel those muscles start to fatigue and maybe burn a little bit. So you're starting to develop that connection with your mind. The other thing you can do is what I call getting some bio or tactical feedback. You can take one hand, put it on the muscle, and when you push down, feel that muscle contract. You can squeeze it a little bit, and that will also help that muscle to contract more. Just getting that connection from the mind to the muscle, very much in tune. And that's where that strength can develop more than you'll think if you haven't done this type of thing before. The other thing that I like to do is have people on a couch. So you can lean up against the shoulder or the armrest of the couch. It can be a little more comfortable if you're starting this.
Mike: Also, it's important to work both legs obviously. And this exercise is pretty safe for people who are older. Maybe you have some arthritis or knee pain. This is a good, safe exercise that won't add a lot of force impact.
Brad: Yeah, nice. Good, good. Let's go to number two. The hip abductors and muscles on the side of the hip. We're going to show you two options. The easier way to do it is in a seated chair. Use a firm chair that you can sit up tall in. Armrest can be helpful. And we're going to actually just bring the knees apart. For resistance, you can just use your hands, push on your knees, and then resist that motion so you're actually getting a little arm and shoulder strength along with it. Push and back in and resist.
Brad: Now, the other thing you can do is if you happen to have any bands around the house for other exercises, use them here. I like to just bring them across like this and squeeze them together and work that like that. And again, 10 repetitions. Go out as far as you can. And again, remember, out slow and slow back together. It's not as fast as you can; it's good, meaningful motion. The more advanced method is what Mike is doing in sidelying.
Mike: I'm not just napping over here, so I'm going to work my right hip abductor. I'm going to actually kick it up towards the ceiling. My spine is in a nice straight line here. It's probably hard to tell from that camera angle, but don't be too far forward or too far back. My bottom leg is bent. It just helps you stabilize a little more. You could certainly keep it straight if you want, but this keeps me nice and stabilized. I'm going to kick up as high as I comfortably can. Notice my foot is forward. I'm not rotating out. I'm going to hold it here for a second or two. Come back down. Slow and controlled.
Mike: Try to work up to 10 repetitions. If you're really weak in the hip muscles, this may be challenging for you. It's not something we isolate quite often. You should feel the muscle contraction on your outer hip and your buttocks muscle a little bit as you go up and then come back down. We don't want to rush through it. This is not good for the mind-muscle connection. Obviously, to work the other side, you're going to have to rotate. I can't really show that right now because my mic will go right into the pillow.
Brad: So the other common mistake that I've had with people is they'll allow their leg to go forward and go up and down. That's not what you want. Keep it back. So when you look down, you might be able to just see your toes, and the rest of the leg is actually in line. So you can't see it. Not out in front of you, but in line, up and down. Alright, let's go on to the next one. The next one, the glute maximus. The muscles in your butt that I talked about are really doing some work for you. Mike's going to show an exercise you can do on your back. You can do it on your bed, but it's probably best on a carpeted floor. Sometimes your feet have a tendency to slide on the bed, so wear shoes and, you know, make sure they're clean.
Mike: So you want to start in a bent knee position. Now, what you want to think about before you even do a bridge exercise is activating the glutes. You could start that by doing a butt squeeze. You could see my pelvis is lifting a little bit. I'm squeezing my buttocks. If you're really new to this and you can't lift your butt up off the mat, you could certainly put your hands down on the floor like this, squeeze those glutes. Then come up, try to hold for a few seconds, maybe three to five seconds, come back down. Slow and controlled.
Mike: We're not just thrusting into the air. Nice slow controlled movements. Feel those glutes activating. Drop back down. Try to shoot for 10 repetitions of this if possible. If you need to start with five, that's perfectly acceptable. This becomes easy. You could put your arms up. This will make it a little more challenging. If you're really advanced, and this all seems really easy, you could certainly progress to doing this on one leg. This definitely makes it a lot more challenging.
Brad: Yeah, that is more of the advanced one. Alright, nice job, Mike. I encourage you to go through all of them, and once you get a feel for them, actually make a mental note, or write it down, of how many repetitions you can do comfortably. You'll find within 10 days, if you work them every day, maybe five to six days a week. So you take one or two days off, you're going to notice a difference and a significant difference in 10 days when you get your mind and those muscles working together.
Mike: Now, if you want to check out more videos on how to strengthen your legs, watch "Seniors: Get Stronger Legs In 2 Weeks, Guaranteed!" Again, this one is targeted towards seniors. It has different exercises from what we showed here.
Brad: Well, of course, they want more knowledge; they want more. They will definitely like this. It's a really nice video. It's more advanced.
Mike: More.
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