The Five Best Exercises for Toned Thighs

I am commonly asked to help clients ‘tone up’, and the legs are a popular area to focus on. It’s important to understand what people mean by ‘tone up’. Essentially, we need to develop muscles to create shape, and reduce fat so that muscles are more visible. Performing leg exercises won’t just reduce the fat around the legs. Where we store fat varies from person to person and it is just a store of excess energy. Reducing bodyfat simply requires burning more calories than you consume. However, muscles react to a specific stimulus, so your leg muscles won’t develop if you are doing arm exercises.

If you’re wanting to tone your thighs, I’d recommend a traditional mix of specific strengthening exercises with more general aerobic training. From my professional experience, this is very achievable way to tone-up. There are other effective methods, like high-intensity interval training, but this style of training can be harder to perform without an instructor pushing you along. In addition, we mustn’t lose sight of the importance of a good diet when trying to lose excess body fat. Here are my five best exercises to tone thighs:

1. Squat. There’s no need to get complicated with exercise. The squat is simple and very effective. Learn how to do it properly and they gradually build your strength by adding weights. The squat is a quad-dominant leg exercise, meaning you will feel the fronts of your thighs working hard. Don’t forget to squeeze your backside to get your glutes (bum muscles) contributing too!
2. Deadlift. Like the squat, the deadlift is one of the key lower body movement patterns. It is a posterior chain exercise, which means it works the backs of the legs (hamstrings and glutes). It is, from my experience, the most difficult exercise to teach, due to the requirement to hinge from the hips and not bend from the back. If you’re struggling to get the form right, consider getting professional coaching. If you are training at home and don’t have equipment, there is a single leg variation.
3. Lunge. This is the third lower body movement pattern and it differs from the squat and deadlift because it’s a unilateral exercise (single leg). This means that there is a need to activate slightly different muscles around the hip to stabilise the position of the knee. If done correctly, it will strengthen most of the muscles of the thighs and hips.
4. Hip thruster. This exercise has become very popular in recent years because it is very effective at targeting the backside. If you train at home without much equipment, the single leg version is a great alternative. This exercise will also strengthen the front of the thigh and core.
5. Walk, run and cycle. For your cardio, walking, running and cycling are really accessible exercises that get you outside in nature. They use the leg muscles but also play an important role in burning some fat and managing general health and wellness.

Do not forget to improve your diet. No matter how much lean muscle mass you have, nobody is going to see your athletic shape if you are carrying too much fat. Nutrition is very often over-complicated in the health and fitness industry. Essentially, to improve your diet you need to manage quantity and improve quality. This means not overeating (or undereating) and reducing the amount of processed food. The food plate is a great guide to a balanced meal, and I recommend learning what works best for you. We are all different, so different foods and eating strategies suit different people.

Tom Berry is an Exeter personal trainer with experience training people in New Zealand the UK. He is also a running and athletics coach.