Ankle weights are one of the most essential tools in creating toned, lean legs and a lifted butt. The added weight allows the muscles to activate and work just hard enough to become prominent without breaking down and bulking, allowing you to feel muscles that you normally keep dormant.
What are Ankle Weights Good For?
Ankle weights help the legs work hard enough without breaking down or enlarging muscles like most weighted exercises do. You can also move around in ankle weights, letting you walk and move from floor work to standing throughout the workout.
More movement means more range of motion and more versatile ways to move your legs and glutes. Our program offers two different ankle weights, light and heavy, to give the options of more controlled or added resistance when needed for maximum ankle weight benefits. Changing the weight up in different exercises helps target the tiny hard-to-reach muscles and engage differently with the same movements.
As part of the Pvolve Method, we use different weights for different ankle weight workouts to engage a variety of muscles. We offer 1.5-pound and 3-pound ankle weights for different exercises and added resistance, both standing and on the mat.
How To Use Ankle Weights
Ankle weights can be used in a number of different ways to achieve different results. Changing up the weight with various exercises makes you feel things differently by using different muscles and engaging those hard-to-reach areas.
Try using your ankle to activate the hips through propulsion or to activate certain parts of the butt in accelerating and decelerating the motion. Depending on whether you are on the mat doing butt lifts or standing up doing legs lifts, the weight you use makes a difference in where you feel it.
For exercises with big ranges of motion, such as a leg lift that is at the end range, keep the weight light to allow you to reach the right muscles and help with balance. With butt lifts, use a medium weight to really make your butt work without putting strain on the back.
Use the heaviest weight when doing front raises with thighs, this allows the runway muscles at the top of the thigh and in the front of the hip to become more prominent and to eliminate the bulk in the front of the thigh.
Getting Started with Ankle Weight Exercises
Try out some of our favorite lower-body workouts using the ankle weights to get started.
Around the Clock
Tap toe at 12 o’clock and lift leg to a 90 degree angle so it's even with the hip. Open leg to 1 o’clock, squeezing the abs and thigh, then tap back down to starting position. Repeat 8 times on both sides.
The Dip
Start with leg at a 90 degree angle at hip height. Rotate leg inward at a 45 degree angle, then dip leg down slowly past standing foot and bring back up while squeezing through abs and inner thigh. Repeat 8 times on both sides.
Slow and Steady
Start in p.sit position. Squeeze glutes while tapping foot out to the side, then lift leg halfway up before slowly lowering down for 3 counts. Repeat 8 times on both sides.
Rotate Twist
Start in a p.sit position. Pull knee forward and externally rotate the standing leg hip. Repeat 8 times on both sides.
Hinge Lift
Start in shifted p.sit position. Lift leg up and slowly drop down while keeping standing leg slightly bent with knee in-line with the heel. Repeat 8 times on both sides.
More Ankle Weight Exercises
To take your ankle weight workouts to the next level, check out three of our favorite workouts on our streaming platform:
This will be your new favorite Full Body workout! Zach guidance through these dynamic movements will remind you why you love the gliders, hand weights, and light ankle weights.
Summit 60 - Workout 4: Foundation Sculpt
In less than 30 minutes, you'll climb your way through total-body standing and mat movements.
Summit 60 - Workout 7: Work the Angles
In this summit sculpt, you'll challenge your balance and range of motion led by Maeve.
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