No equipment needed for this quick and easy slim thighs challenge and you don’t even need to get down on the floor. All you need is a wall for support.
Before you do this workout, please read the general exercise safety guidelines here.
Warm-up
Although this isn’t a high intensity workout and only uses body weight as resistance, the exercises take the muscles and joints further than their normal ranges of movements, so you need to make sure you’re warm enough. Ideally, avoid doing the challenge straight from sitting for a long period or as soon as you get out of bed. Before you start the day’s reps, do a couple of warm up lifts in each direction. For these, just lift your leg halfway through the range. Once you’ve done this, progress onto the full lifts.
For more about warm-up see this post.
Slim thighs challenge chart
These are the reps/hold times for each day of the challenge. The exercise instructions are below the chart.
Note: for the leg lift exercises, the number is for each exercise/each leg – so for example on day 1 you do 5 x side leg left, 5 x side leg right, 5 x leg behind left, 5 x leg behind right.
Related to slim thighs challenge
Challenge FAQs
The first day of the challenge should feel like it needs a bit of effort, but not too much. If you really struggle with day 1, then you probably won’t get through the challenge. The idea with the challenges on this site is that the first few days get you used to the exercises and the daily habit. Usually about halfway through the challenge the effort levels start to increase more quickly.
Avoid challenges that increase effort levels very quickly – they’re simply not realistic. It’s unlikely that, for example, you would be able to increase how many squats you are able to do by 10 a day for 30 days, or increase your plank hold time by 10 seconds a day for 30 days.
In general, allowing muscles 48 hours between workouts is good because it gives our bodies time to recover and adapt. Challenges are generally short workouts and for a limited period of time (usually 30 days), so not having many rest days won’t be a problem. With challenges that alternate exercises each day, it’s not an issue, because you’re using different muscles.
Fitness improvements don’t always happen in a predictable way. Sometimes we’re just not as strong or energetic for no apparent reason, or we hit a plateau. If you get to a point where you’re struggling to complete the day’s challenge, you can try one of the following:
- Take a couple of days off and start again where you left off
- Do the challenge on alternate days rather than every day
- Instead of increasing the effort every day, stay at the same level for 2 or 3 days and then go onto the next day of the challenge
Obviously these solutions mean the challenge will last longer, but you’ll still benefit from doing it.
