One weight and 20 minutes to build lower body strength and core stability

There’s nothing more frustrating than finding a good lower body workout only to realise you don’t have the right home gym equipment. If this sounds familiar, then this workout is for you. Not only does it target the entire lower body, but you can use any single weight that you have at home – whether that be one dumbbell, a kettlebell, or even just a one weight plate – whatever you’ve got it will work.  

A nice thing about this strength workout is that you’re doing exercises for time, rather than a set amount of reps. This can be good for beginners as it allows you to take your time and focus on doing each exercise properly with good form. Whereas a set amount of reps can sometimes cause people to rush and just focus on moving weight, rather than creating that mind-muscle connection, which can improve the quality of the exercise. The International Sports Sciences Association also notes that timed sets can also add an element of cardio to your workout, making them good for muscle endurance. 

From the six exercises below, you're going to pick five for your workout. You'll then do each one for 45 seconds, with a 15 second rest in between each one, and you're aiming to complete a total of three rounds. Remember, use your timed set to focus on quality over quantity. Here's your workout:

• Hang squat clean
• Staggered squat
• Glute bridge
• Reverse lunge
• Sumo squat
• Staggered single leg deadlift

We've got plenty of other workouts that just use one weight too: like this one dumbbell full-body workout that only has six exercises, or this one dumbbell chest workout. Remember, you can always substitute a dumbbell for another free weight instead, so don't let it put you off if you don't own the specific piece of equipment.