You may find that your legs get a little bit achy if you've been standing all day.
Whether that's because you've got a sit-to-stand desk and you're just trying to stand up more than sit down.
Or whether you've gone for a long walk or a long run.
Knowing some leg endurance exercises with a theraband can help with this.
Endurance exercises target muscles that need to stay switched on for a long time.
If these muscles don't stay switched on for a length of time, other muscles will start to take over
and you may start to get a little bit of a muscle imbalance and can cause these aches and pains.
Focusing on endurance exercises can improve the length of time these muscles are able to get switched on for.
We'll make a suggestion on repetitions. We'll be using a red band which is medium and is about 1.5 meters long.
At the end of the video, we'll give you an idea on how long to do these exercises for
and some things to consider if you don't think the number of repetitions or the strength of the theraband is quite right for you.
My name's Claire. I'm a Physiotherapist from PhysioFit Health.
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At this exercise, you're going to grab your band and I've actually tied it in a loop, a double knot
and you're going to put it around your feet. You're going to get yourself laying down on your back,
your arms are down by the side of the body on the mat and then you're going to raise both your legs up into your tabletop position.
So roughly your knees are over your hips and that shin is about parallel with the floor.
Engage your tummy muscles for this one. You're going to keep that right leg nice
and still in the tabletop and you are going to straighten your left leg so the band's obviously
going to pull on that right leg you need to keep it nice and stable and then the right leg
is anchoring the band so you're pushing away with that left one.
Return to your tabletop position and then you are going to straighten your right leg as you keep your left leg nice and straight.
Fairly easy and straight forward, you are going to be doing your 3 lots of 20 repetitions.
Throughout the whole of this exercise with your legs, you do want to keep the abs engaged the whole thing
and just make sure your back stays against the mat and doesn't arch away.
If you're feeling the back arches away just a little bit from the mat then you're just going to stop the movement of the leg and return to your start position.
So you're just going to work within a quality range of movements.
Don't push it too much because you don't want that back to come away from that.
For this exercise, you're going to have your band looped around, tied in a double knot so it's nice and secure.
Pop the band around both of your feet.
You're going to get yourself into your 4-point kneeling position so your hips are over your knees, your shoulders are over your hands, chin is tucked in.
You're looking in between your hands, don't forget about that head it can just drop down a little bit so just make sure it is raised.
You are tucking your toes underneath, so you're going to start by just hovering your knees a couple of inches or so off the mat.
Keep that right foot nice and still and you're going to drive your left knee forward
and then return that left leg to your start position and then you can drive your right leg forward and then return.
Now, if you do have enough space where you're doing this, you can actually use it as a crawl forward so you can
actually bring your left leg forward and then walk your hands forward
and bring your right leg to just next to the left one and likewise, you can get yourself walking backwards.
But if you don't have any space you can just do it as a static exercise where you're just moving your legs
forward and backward and the band just creating that little bit of resistance for you to work
against with your legs and you are doing 3 lots of 20 repetitions.
For this exercise, you are going to work one leg at a time. You're going to stand on the end of the band with the right foot.
And with the other end of the band, you're going to gather it up a little bit
so that there's got a bit of tension on it and you're gonna hold it with both hands to your chest.
Shoulders are down, squeeze your shoulder blades together, that chin is tucked in
and you're going to start with that left foot behind you so toes can be just touching the floor to give yourself a little bit of balance.
You are checking your hips face forwards rather than facing out to the side.
Now, you want that facing forward throughout the whole of this movement.
You're slowly going to drive that left heel up toward the ceiling and that is going to bring your body forward.
You are then going to slowly straighten yourself all the way back up again.
So the band will assist you as you are leaning forward and then you're working against the band as you are standing upright.
Now, check as you are lifting that left leg, the further you lift it up the more likely you may find that your hips come and face forward,
in which case that's really your cue just to stop the movement there and return to your start position.
If you are able to, you are actually wanting to create a t-shape with your body.
That is your ultimate aim but it's a bit of a work in progress
so just feel free even if it's just a mini bend forward and then straighten up, that's perfectly fine.
You're aiming for your 3 lots of 20 repetitions on the right leg and then you are obviously going to repeat on your left one.
So those are your three leg endurance exercises with a theraband or resistance bands to try out.
Whether you want to work on all three of them or just focus on one of them will really depend on your schedule
and the routine that you want to put it into.
When you're focusing on endurance exercises, you actually want a lighter resistance band and you want to do a lot of repetitions.
You may find when you do these exercises that it feels like you're not really doing very much initially.
If you increase the number of repetitions, you might start to feel like you're working.
I would suggest increasing the repetitions before you change the strength on the resistance bands.
If you increase the strength for the resistance band, you'll start to get some of those larger muscles working
rather than the smaller muscles that you're wanting to target.
You can also change the exercises into more of a time-base
rather than counting the repetitions, so do the exercises for 45 seconds.
It does take about 6 weeks for you to start to see a difference when you're working on the muscles
so you do need to give yourself minimum 6 weeks if not, a little bit longer and then you can check your progress.
In the description below, you'll find links to videos we've created on How to Choose the Right Resistance Band
and also How Many Repetitions for Endurance Exercises if you want to look into this further.
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