Forget the weights — build lower-body strength with this 10-minute bodyweight workout

No matter whether you prefer to work out at home or the gym, lower-body routines can strengthen your legs, grow your glutes, and develop core strength without a weight in sight.  

The 10-minute lower body blast is a great example of a high-intensity resistance training (HIRT) workout, where you exercise intensely for 15 seconds, with just 10 seconds to rest between moves. 

If that sounds like your type of training, look no further than this short and effective bodyweight workout by fitness trainers MrandMrsMuscle, real names Mike and Viv Addo.

The bodyweight workout contains many of the best glute exercises, like squats, sumo squats, and lunges to help grow, strengthen, and shape your bottom half, which will improve your posture, work your core, and make walking easier. 

Viv leads the session and demonstrates each exercise, with variations if you want to adapt it to your fitness or energy levels. Even though it's just 10 minutes, it's an effective routine, so grab a yoga mat, and prepare to fill the burn. 

Watch MrandMrsMuscle's lower-body workout

Although you only need to do one round to finish this short routine, if you want to extend the session, you could repeat the 10-minute round two or three times. Or you could mix this session with some of the best leg workouts for more variety. 

The reason it's so effective in such a short time is that many of the moves are compound exercises. These use multiple muscles simultaneously, giving you more bang for your buck. So you'll work your calves, hip flexors, quads, and hamstrings all in a single move. 

While you don't need weight for this routine, if you wanted to increase the intensity, you could introduce some resistance bands into the exercises once you've perfected your form. The best resistance bands come in multi-strength sets, so you can increase the load as you get stronger. 

After this workout, you might find that you really enjoy the efficiency of compound exercises and be on the lookout for new full-body moves to try. In this case, it's worth picking up one of the best kettlebells and learning how to do kettlebell swings. 

This single move works your core to keep you balanced, engages muscles in your upper and lower body, and raises your heart rate for an intense, heart-rate-raising workout that'll build muscle and burn fat.