Leg Workout at Home for Volleyball Athletes

At Home Leg Workout

home leg workout
GORODENKOFF PRODUCTIONS OU/ISTOCKPHOTO / GETTY IMAGES

What’s up guys, Jump Brothers here again with a new article on how to work out your legs at home! 

In today’s article, we will go over the necessary gym equipment you will need to have an incredible leg day at home. We have made two sets of recommendations, ones that are budget friendly and others that are on the more expensive side. By no means are we expecting you to pay for the expensive items and there’s no reason to have them. But if you can get your hands on them then you will really be able to elevate your lower body workout. 

Note: If you’re a volleyball player and want to increase your vertical jump without having to buy any equipment at all, have a read of our at-home volleyball vertical jump workout. In today’s workout we will be focusing on building strength and powerful legs using weighted resistance, whereas the home vertical jump workout only uses body weight exercises. 

Our recommended Gym Equipment

Budget-Friendly Items

These are items that everybody should have if they are looking to have great leg workouts. We highly recommend having at least these items at home.

Resistance Bands

Resistance Band Chart

Resistance bands like the ones pictured above are a staple in our home gym. They are the most versatile item on this list. They can be used to train your arms, your back, your legs, and literally any body part you can think of. 

When choosing which resistance band to buy, we recommend sticking with anything with less resistance than the green bands. For the most part, the blue and the orange provide way too much resistance when fully stretched. The red and yellow bands are perfect for warming up, whereas the black, purple, and green bands are useful for heavy working sets. If you are on the weaker side start with the black band for working sets. If you’ve been training for a while now and have some foundation of strength, consider the purple or the green bands. 

Mini-bands

Mini Bands

Mini-bands are essentially resistance bands, but smaller and provide less resistance. They are a great tool for priming your muscles for a workout. Thus we typically use mini-bands to facilitate a good warm up for our legs. However, you can also use these bands as a finisher for your legs. They’re perfect for performing reps to failure to end your workout with an intense burn!

Jump Rope

Jump Rope

We’re sure this item doesn’t need an introduction. The jump rope is one of the simplest, and cheapest, yet most effective pieces of gym equipment you can have. 

The jump rope will be used to help prime your legs for an intense workout. However there are a dozen different ways to implement the jump rope into your routine to become a better athlete. Specifically, you can use the jump rope to help build formidable tendons, which will reduce athletic injury. 

Pricey Home Gym Equipment (Optional)

These are items that many of you will not be willing to buy, but if you do, they will take your home leg workout to new level. Consider them as investments towards progressing your athletic career! 

Safety Squat Bar (or regular squat bar)

Safet Squat Bar

The safety squat bar is our favorite squat bar. It reduces shoulder pain and is overall more comfortable to squat with. 

When squatting with the safety squat bar, you will find that your body is more vertical. This position engages your abs more reduces stress on the lower back. In fact, most of the stress is now shifted to your quads and your glutes, thus saving your lower back from squat pain. However, you will feel your lower back is more taxed even if you’re perfectly performing the squat. This strain can be caused by the slightly different movement pattern that your body is forced to performed with this bar. Once you get your hands on this bar you’ll understand what we’re talking about as it’s hard to explain in just text. 

So after using this bar for a few months you’ll find that your legs and abs are much stronger. This will transfer well into sports and also into the traditional squat. For example, just by using the safety squat bar more, we’ve added 30 pounds to our squat and improved our 20m sprint times.  

Squat Rack

Squat Rack

If you’re going to get a squat bar, you’re going to need a squat rack. What we love about this one is it’s durability and versatility. 

Within this one rack, you can do dips, squat, AND bench. The rack is relatively smaller than a power rack and is much more reasonable to have as a home gym item. 

Weighted Plates

Weighted Plate

Plates for barbells can be quite expensive, but these plates from Dick’s Sporting Goods are relatively affordable. At around $1.00 a pound, you won’t find plates much cheaper than this. Sometimes Dick’s runs promotional deals, which makes this deal even sweeter!  

Trap Bar

The deadlift is one of our favorite movements to develop powerful lower body strength. However we ditched the straight bar deadlift and opt for the trap bar deadlift because you’re less prone to injuring your lower back with this bar. 

Furthermore, the joint angles of performing a deadlift with this bar mimics how most sports are played. Thus this bar is more useful to help train athletes, especially for the vertical jump.

However, even if you don’t play sports, using this bar means less stress on the lower back and less spinal flexion. These two benefits should be enough to convince you to make the switch over from the traditional bar, especially if you know the pain of living with an injured back. 

Home Leg Routine (Explained)

We’ve decided to split this workout routine into two different categories based on gender. Then within each of those categories we’ve made subcategories for the type of equipment you may have bought. 

We decided to make different workouts for different genders as the needs of a male athlete are different from the needs of a female athlete (in most cases) in volleyball. However, with that said, the demands aren’t completely different so there are parallels between both leg workouts.

 To help you figure out which workout may be better for you, we’ve provided reasoning behind what makes each workout specific to each gender. Perhaps instead of doing the workout specific to your gender you want to try the opposite workout, then that is fine too! Identifying your specific needs as an athlete and training those needs is what’s most important to us and you. 

Note: Even if you aren’t a volleyball player or athlete, this lower body workout can be effective for you. The exercises we’ve chosen will build strong, powerful and sculpted legs regardless if you’re an athlete or not. However there are some exercises that are sport specific and tailored to athletic performance, it’s your choice if you want to do them. 

Workout for Male Volleyball Athletes

In the men’s home leg workout we will focus heavily on utilizing heavier resistance/weight. By using heavier weights we will be able to build strength and size of the leg muscles as a whole. We will also be utilizing “speed” training in which athletes will move weights as fast as possible. This speed training will enable the athlete to learn how to build power, which is the ability to move a weight at a high velocity. 

Budget-friendly Equipment Workout

All the exercises used in this workout will require only resistance bands and a chair. It is best to have a heavy resistance band for strength day and a light one for speed day.  

Inexpensive Mens Leg Workout at home

For the full inexpensive men’s leg workout with warm up and speed day download the free pdf below! 

Budget-friendly Equipment & Pricey Equipment Workout

What you will need for this workout is a safety squat bar (or barbell), trap bar and plates. This workout can even be done at the gym making this workout very versatile!

At Home Mens Leg Workout with Equipment

For the full men’s leg workout with warm up and speed day download the free pdf below! 

Workout for Female Volleyball Athletes

In the women’s workout we will also be utilizing heavy strength training to become stronger. In most cases, women’s relative strength (which is absolute strength/body weight) could be easily improved. By improving your relative strength you’ll see improvements in vertical jump, speed, and explosiveness as an athlete. 

The second main focus of this workout routine is to build resiliency in the knee joint. In a study called “neuromuscular differences between male and female athletes”, the researchers found that female athletes who participate in jumping and cutting-type sports (e.g volleyball) are four to six times more likely to experience serious knee injuries compared to men in the same sport. Thus, to address this problem we will throw in extra exercises to help build the tendon and muscles around the knee so that you can stay healthy as an athlete. 

Budget-friendly Equipment Workout

All the exercises used in this workout will require only resistance bands and a chair. It is best to have a heavy resistance band for strength day and a light one for speed day.  

Inexpensive at home Womens Leg Workout

For the full inexpensive women’s leg workout with warm up and speed day download the free pdf below! 

Budget-friendly Equipment & Pricey Equipment Workout

What you will need for this workout is a safety squat bar (or barbell), trap bar and plates. This workout can even be done at the gym making this workout very versatile!

Womens Leg Workout with Equipment

For the full women’s leg workout with warm up and speed day download the free pdf below! 

How to do the exercises

Here are links to some of the exercises we use in our program. We do not own these videos so if you find them helpful give them a like and support them! 

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How do I properly perform a squat? 

  • Find a foot stance that feels best for you. For some people, that is having the right foot and left foot hip-width apart or shoulder-width apart. If this is your first time we recommend shoulder-width apart (you should eventually figure out your most comfortable squat position overtime. 
  • Some people like to point their toes outwards slightly, but it is not necessary. As long as you’re consistent with how your left foot and right foot are positioned it doesn’t matter too much if they are pointed slightly outward or parallel. If you’re new to the squat, have both toes pointed at around a 15 degree outwards. 
  • In your standing position (legs straight), put your hips back while simultaneously bending your knees to lower yourself. Your descent should be controlled (unless otherwise stated). When done this way you should feel the weight shifting back towards your heels. Both your left foot and right foot should be firmly planted into the ground (heels should not come off the floor, unless stated to). 
  • Once you reach the bottom of the squat, which is usually when your thighs are parallel to the floor, or when your hamstrings come in contact with your calves, you want to come back up. 
  • When coming back up, a good cue to help is to push through the ground with your left foot and right foot. This will help you explode out of the bottom of the position and you will reach your starting position again with legs straight and shoulder-width apart. 
2. Can I change an exercise within the program you wrote? 
  • We recommend you don’t change the exercises in this program. But if you must due to some injury, then please choose an exercise that works best for you. But if you’re injured you in your hamstrings, glutes, or quads then these workouts should not be performed at all. Wait until the injury heals and perform rehab exercises first. 

Conclusion

That concludes it for this article. We hope that this at home leg day routine will help transform you into a better athlete (while also toning your legs). We’ve performed similar workouts in the past that not only made us stronger but also jump higher too! We’re sure this home leg workout will work for those who give it an honest effort, and if doesn’t work for you, let us know. Perhaps you’re in need of a different workout, just let us know and we’ll help you out! 

If you’re new here, welcome! We are the Jump Brothers and we are obsessed with jumping higher and becoming phenomenal athletes. If you liked this article, have a read of our other blogs! If you’re a volleyball player looking to increase your vertical jump by 10+ inches have a look at what we think is the best vertical jump workout.

We hope you enjoyed this article, until next time! 

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