Home workouts aren’t an excuse for skipping leg day. You may not have access to a squat rack, a leg press or a stack of plates, but you do have gravity, your own bodyweight and – courtesy of this workout – an ungodly number of reps to perform.
This simple but savage lower-body circuit combines explosive jumps with unilateral work and high-rep squats, hammering your quads to build the type of strength-endurance that will carry over into nearly every athletic pursuit.
Simple maths: 10 rounds of 30 reps, giving you 300 in total. That breaks down to 50 jump squats, 100 alternating split squat jumps and 150 bodyweight squats. Your quads will be doing the lion’s share of the work, but your glutes, calves and hamstrings won’t exactly be getting the afternoon off. The relentless pace will also jack up your heart rate, delivering a hefty engine-building hit alongside the lower-body pump.
The Workout
After a thorough warm-up, start a running clock and work your way through 10 rounds of the following circuit as quickly as possible without compromising form. Rest only as necessary, but keep every rep sharp: land softly on the jumps, hit a consistent depth on your squats and maintain that explosiveness throughout.
Record your finishing time and aim to beat it on subsequent attempts while maintaining the same movement standards. Once you can shave a good few minutes from your original effort, it may be time to invest in a weighted vest for this one...
Complete 10 rounds:
A. Jump Squat x 5 reps
B. Alternating Split Squat Jump x 10 reps
C. Air Squat x 15 reps
How to Do the Moves
Jump Squat
- Stand tall with your feet around shoulder-width apart.
- Push your hips back and bend your knees, dropping into a squat until your thighs are at least parallel to the ground. Keep your chest upright and your heels planted.
- From the bottom, explode upwards as powerfully as possible, jumping into the air.
- Cushion your landing with bent knees and sink immediately into your next rep.
Aim for maximum height, but prioritise soft, controlled landings – especially as fatigue begins to set in.
What to read next
Alternating Split Squat Jump
- Step one foot backwards and sink into a deep lunge, keeping your front foot planted and your rear knee close to the ground.
- From here, explode upwards, switching your legs in mid-air and landing with the opposite foot forward.
- Drop immediately into your next rep and continue alternating legs. Each landing counts as one rep, giving you five reps on each leg per round.
Keep your torso upright and focus on driving vertically rather than leaping forwards.
Air Squat
- Place your feet just beyond shoulder-width and stand tall.
- Push your hips back and bend your knees, descending until the crease of your hips passes below your knees. Keep your torso upright and your heels flat.
- Drive through your feet to stand explosively, squeezing your glutes at the top before dropping straight into your next rep.
These may be the least technically demanding reps in the circuit, but with your quads already cooked by the jumps, they’re unlikely to feel 'easy'. Make sure to maintain good form throughout.
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With almost 18 years in the health and fitness space as a personal trainer, nutritionist, breath coach and writer, Andrew has spent nearly half of his life exploring how to help people improve their bodies and minds.
As our fitness editor he prides himself on keeping Men’s Health at the forefront of reliable, relatable and credible fitness information, whether that’s through writing and testing thousands of workouts each year, taking deep dives into the science behind muscle building and fat loss or exploring the psychology of performance and recovery.
Whilst constantly updating his knowledge base with seminars and courses, Andrew is a lover of the practical as much as the theory and regularly puts his training to the test tackling everything from Crossfit and strongman competitions, to ultra marathons, to multiple 24 hour workout stints and (extremely unofficial) world record attempts.
You can find Andrew on Instagram at @theandrew.tracey, or simply hold up a sign for ‘free pizza’ and wait for him to appear.
