15-Minute Lower Body Strength Circuit: With AMRAP Conditioning Finisher

Hi everyone, I'm Nicole with fitnessblender. com and today I have a quick lower body strength workout for you. We're going to kick things off with a 3-minute warm-up, then head into about 6 minutes of strength, finish with a 2-minute AMRAP conditioning finisher, and then we'll cool it down for about 2 minutes. For equipment today, I want you to grab some dumbbells, medium to moderately heavy for you. Other than that, we're going to be all on our feet for this workout. I'll provide you modifications along the way. Want to help us continue creating free workouts? Join the Fitness Blender Channel Membership on YouTube and get exclusive access to workout videos along with 5, 10, and 30-day fitness challenges, or become an FB Plus subscriber over on fitnessblender. com for unlimited access to all of our workouts, training programs, and subscriber-only features at the very best price. Either way, we are so glad you're here. Let's get into the workout.

Time to get these hips and legs warmed up. We have five exercises, 30 seconds each, back-to-back. Go ahead and meet me on your feet. Here we go. In 10 seconds, we are starting with front leg swings. So, I want you to grab a stable surface if you have one, like a wall. We're going to take that inside leg back and forth. So, try to resist moving that upper body a lot here. We just want to get some good range of motion through the hip. Bring it up and back. Everything nice and stable. Hips facing forward. We're switching sides here for the next round. Good. Go ahead and turn around if you can. Switch legs. Front to back. Finding some good length in the front of the hip. Flexion and extension. For our next move, we're going to get things moving laterally. So, don't worry, we're going to get those lateral movements next and warm up the hips a little bit more. Should feel a good stretch through the hamstring as well when you kick that leg forward. Good. Save yourself some space side to side. Take one leg across your body, out to the side, land in a lateral lunge. Bring it back together. Other leg, cross it over. Lateral lunge out to the side. So, continue alternating. Nice little hip circle. Sit into that heel. Firing glutes, quads. While mobilizing the hips. My favorite types of warm-ups. Good. Start with those feet together. We have a reverse lunge with internal rotation. So, step back into that reverse lunge, cross over opposite hand to inner ankle area. — [gasps] — It's going to give us that nice internal rotation, really lengthening the glute of that working side, which helps our glutes fire even more. So, slight hinge forward, keep that back flat. We are going to have this weighted in the workout. Good. Squat with a calf raise. Let's bring those feet hip distance apart, sit into the heels. Bring it up one fluid motion, up onto the toes. With the balls of the feet, rather. It's a good time to start syncing up your breath. Inhale down. Exhale up. Really connect with the floor as you sit into it. Big toe, pinky toe, heels. Everything connects. — [sighs] — Beautiful. And that is it for our warm-up. This is a quick workout. Therefore, that calls for a quick warm-up. If you don't feel quite ready yet, go ahead and pause here, take a couple more minutes to get things warmed up, maybe run through those again. Otherwise, we are diving into our

strength circuit. We're just doing one round through these six exercises. 40 seconds of work, 20 seconds of rest. Up first, we have a goblet squat. Normal tempo goblet squat. Grab one single dumbbell and meet me right on your feet. Here in 10 seconds. I am going to be grabbing a 25-lb dumbbell here. Just telling you for reference. Good. Hip distance apart, sit back into the heel. Bring it back up. Again, feet root down. Inhale down. Exhale up. Nice long spine from tailbone through your neck. — [sighs and gasps] — See if you can get a little deeper on these. You know, sometimes we go to our personal comfort zone, but I want to see what it feels like to get just half inch lower. — [sighs] — Keep it up. 10 seconds left here. We're coming back to this at the end of the circuit, but slower pace. So, that'll be a fun little mix-up. Relax. All right. Keep your one dumbbell or swap it out. We have 20 seconds of rest. We are going into a split squat with internal rotation. Just on one side. Right leg forward, left leg back. We're going to rotate down as we come up. So, one single dumbbell. I'm going to keep my 25-lb weight here. Here we go. Split squat down, slight rotation, chest goes towards that front thigh. So, feeling that glute lengthen. — [sighs] — Down and up. Knee should be coming to about 90° angles, back knee hovering just off the floor. Long spine. I know with this hinge, the tendency is going to be to close off the chest, to round forward. Keep everything open. Everything open. — [sighs] [gasps] — Great job. — [sighs] — This is a short circuit. Good. Relax. Next move. Keep your weight or go a little bit lighter. We've got a single leg deadlift to a reverse lunge. Right side. Okay? So, left hand still has the weight here. Just to demonstrate really quick. We've got the reverse lunge. You can tap for balance. Single leg deadlift. All right. Staying just on this side. Don't worry, we switch it up to the left very soon. Single leg deadlift. Reverse lunge. Tap for balance in the middle if you need to. Keep those hips and shoulders square to the floor in that deadlift. Now, if the single leg deadlift feels like too much or you feel really off balance, instead do more of a kickstand. Right in here. Give yourself a kickstand and then go into the reverse lunge. — [sighs] — Ooh, hello glutes. Keep it up. — [sighs] — Rest. All right. Great job. Halfway through. We're going to switch sides here. So, we've got left side going into that split squat with internal rotation. Left leg forward, right leg back. Right hand has the weight. Stand up tall to start. Here we go. Down. Internal rotation. So, chest, belly goes towards that front thigh. Spine stays long. Shoulder packed in. — [sighs and gasps] [sighs] — Left glute lengthening and strengthening. Keep going. — [sighs] — Sync up that breath. Inhale down. Exhale up. — [sighs] — And rest. Good. Feel free to set that down for a few seconds if you need to. Take a few deep breaths. We are going into that single leg deadlift reverse lunge, left side. So, let's fatigue it out. Reverse lunge, single leg deadlift. Left leg is down. Right leg still has the weight here. — [sighs] — Here we go. Step it back, 90°. Tap for balance if you need to. Single leg deadlift. Again, optional modification to come into a kickstand deadlift instead. Either way is totally fine. I want you to make this movement effective for you. So, if your balance is feeling wonky today or perhaps your weight feels too heavy for that full single leg deadlift, then by all means, do the kickstand. You're working the same muscle groups. I love kickstand deadlifts, personally. — [sighs] — Hips and shoulders square to the floor. You can do it. — [sighs and gasps] — Rest. Good. All right. Last but not least, tempo goblet squat. We're going to do 4 seconds down, no hold, 4 seconds up, no rest. Four down, four up. Grab the same weight you started with from earlier. Challenge yourself to do that. Here we go. Four count down, three, two, one, up for four, three, two, one, right back into it. It's amazing what forcing that control, how hard it can be. — [sighs and gasps] — Remember, try not to take any rest at the bottom top, just going right into that controlled movement pattern down and up. — [sighs] — You're going to get less reps, for sure, but there is more time under tension, which makes this a good way to end out this circuit. Beautiful job. All right. Done with that main strength circuit. Grab yourself some water. I'll see you back here in 20 seconds for our AMRAP finisher and our cool down.

Welcome back. We are almost done. We have two more minutes of hard work. In this 2 minutes, we've got an AMRAP circuit, as many rounds as possible. So, I'm going to give you two exercises. You're going to complete them as many times as you can in this 2 minutes. First exercise is a deadlift clean and squat for six reps. Following that, we're going into a lateral lunge for six reps, so three each side. Back-to-back until that 2 minutes is up. Select a weight you can use for both. I'm going to be using 20 lb for my two weights here, so just as a reference. Go ahead and grab your weights. I'm going to start my timer and let's get into it here in 10 seconds. Deadlift, clean, squat. That's a Romanian or a straight-leg deadlift to a clean to a squat. Here we go. Soften in those knees, flat back down, clean it up, squat. Six reps. So, give me some power from that deadlift. This definitely shouldn't be your heaviest deadlift or squat weight. This is more of a moderate to moderate heavy, more of a power dynamic exercise. — [sighs and gasps] — Good. Straight-leg deadlift. Use the hamstrings and glutes. Power it up. Sit back in those heels. After you get your six, going into the lateral lunge. — [sighs] — Just so we can stay efficient, stay wide with those legs, toes forward. Shift your weight down, up and over. Six total, three each side. Sit back into the heel. — [sighs] — Shoulders packed in, chest open. After those six, go right back into that first exercise. Deadlift, clean, squat. Lots of power. Drive it up. Six reps. — Push it, push it. You got it. Strength and conditioning to round this workout out. After your six, back to that lateral lunge. You can do this with one weight as well, if you prefer, or two weights. — [sighs and gasps] — Sink in, drive up. — [sighs and gasps] — Less than 30 seconds left. Keep that form. I know you're tired. We've packed a lot into a short amount of time here. But I know you can do it. You've got less than 15. — [sighs] — Keep going till that timer ends. Woo! Weights go down. Well done.

We're going to forego the timer on this cool down because there are just three exercises. So, first, I want you to step side to side. Breathe [sighs and gasps] in, let it out. Allowing that heart rate to come down, nervous system to stabilize. All right. We've got a standing hip stretch to start things off here in our cool down. Right leg forward, left leg back. We're going to shift, tuck our tailbone under. Shift our weight forward slightly here. — [sighs] [gasps] — Stand up nice and tall. Should feel a nice stretch through the left hip. — [sighs and gasps] — Again, slight tailbone tuck here to feel that a little bit extra. Focusing on the breath. Again, we packed a lot in. If you like this workout, if you enjoyed it, we have a longer version that may or may not be out yet. So, this is the companion shorter workout to a longer variation of the same workout. Switch sides. So, check for that. May or may not be released by the time you are doing this video. — [sighs and gasps] — Good. Tailbone is tucked under. Slight leaning into that front thigh, front foot. Good. When you're ready, set both feet together. Final stretch here. We're going to do a forward fold, so just keep those legs straight. Fold it down. Elbows crossed. Grab opposite hand, opposite elbow. Rock side to side a little bit here. Let that head hang heavy. Nod yes. Shake your head no. Drop those hands to the floor and start to bend and extend, almost like you're pedaling it out. Shifting your weight from side to side, really stretching through the hamstring and glute. — [sighs] — Beautiful. All right. Soften the knees. Roll it up vertebrae by vertebrae. And you are [sighs] done. Again, look out for that longer version of the workout. You did great today. I'm so proud of you for showing up and busting out this quick, but powerful workout. Thank you so much for joining me today. My name is Nicole, and this is your workout complete.