How to Tone Your Thighs

If you’re unhappy with your thighs and would like to achieve a sleeker, more toned physique, you’ll need to work on strengthening your leg muscles and losing excess body weight. It’s not possible to spot reduce fat in a particular area, like the thighs, but shedding unwanted fat from your whole body will, in turn, help you achieve slimmer legs.

Many factors affect your body shape and composition, including genetics, sex, hormones, and age, and toning up isn’t one-size-fits-all. However, as a general rule, you’ll want to combine cardiovascular exercise with targeted leg exercises and a healthy diet.

Choose moderately intense to challenging cardio exercises to do every day, and perform multi- and single-joint exercises at least two to three days a week on nonconsecutive days. As the name suggests, single-joint exercises are any that involve one joint (such as the knee) while multi-joint exercises involve more than one joint (such as the knees and hips). Single-joint exercises are also known as isolation exercises, while multi-joint exercises are also known as compound exercises.

Do Cardio Every Day

Cardiovascular exercise has many physical and mental health benefits, including reducing the risk of heart disease. It’s also great for weight loss. Do cardio exercises — such as cycling, brisk walking, running, or swimming — at a moderately intense rate for 150 to 300 minutes per week or at a vigorously intense rate for 75 to 150 minutes a week, according to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. Incorporate multiple activities into your routine to vary your workouts and avoid a fitness/weight-loss plateau. For example, you might do swimming on Tuesdays, running Fridays, and a step class on Sunday.

Choose a Challenging Activity

Choose any activity that you enjoy — just make sure it’s challenging so you can burn more calories and fat. For example, a 155-pound person can burn 266 calories if she walks for one hour at 3.5 miles per hour (mph), according to Harvard Health Publishing. The same person can burn 576 calories running at 5 mph, or 432 calories swimming.

When strength training, use enough resistance that it’s hard to finish your last repetition. You should feel like you can’t do another one with proper form.

Interval Train to Burn More Calories

Some research suggests incorporating high-intensity interval training into your workout may lead to greater fat loss.

For example, you can alternate walking and running if you cannot run for an extended period of time. Start with a five minute walking warm-up. Then run fast for 30 to 90 seconds, followed by one to three minutes of brisk walking. Continue alternating walking and running for the duration of your workout.

Incorporate Multi-Joint Exercises

Train your legs two to three times per week on non-consecutive days. The American Council on Exercise suggests doing one to four sets of 8 to 15 repetitions per exercise. Choose two to four multi-joint exercises for your workout. You can do squats, lunges, step-ups, or any of their variations, for example. These exercises work the glutes, quadriceps and hamstrings muscles in your lower body. Hold a set of dumbbells while doing each exercise to make it more challenging.

To perform a squat, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, bend at the hips and knees, lowering your body and standing back up.

You can then go right into lunges by standing with your feet hip-width apart and stepping forward with one foot. Lower your body by bending the hips and knees and press back up to the start position, keeping your back straight and core engaged throughout. Repeat with the other leg.

To perform step-ups, step on top of a bench or chair, then lower yourself with the same leg. Repeat the exercise with the other leg.

Do Single-Joint Exercises, Too

Perform two to four single-joint exercises in addition to your multi-joint exercises if you want to target your thighs more. For example, leg extensions, leg curls, or any variations of these are appropriate.

Perform leg extensions in a seated position to tone the fronts of your thighs by straightening and bending the knees.

Perform a lying leg curl by lying on your stomach. You raise and lower a weight by bending and straightening the knees to tone the backs of your thighs.

Talk to a Doctor Before Starting a Fitness Routine

Consult a healthcare professional before starting any exercise or diet program, especially if you’re new to fitness or have an underlying health condition. Also, be sure to combine a nutritious, balanced diet with your exercise. This will help ensure you have the nutrients you need to fuel your workouts, build muscle, and support overall health. Cutting calories drastically or restricting whole food groups often backfires, and could ultimately derail your progress.

Cleveland Clinic advises if you haven’t worked out in a while, don’t start with the maximum amount of recommended exercise. Instead, slowly acclimate yourself to physical activity if your body isn’t used to it. It’s also important to listen to your body and stop exercising if you feel pain, dizziness, lightheadedness or nausea. Don’t perform thigh exercises every day hoping for faster results, as this could lead to injury.