Lower Body Exercise Guide (Based on Movement Pattern & Training Emphasis)

This PDF is designed to help CSCS candidates, strength coaches, personal trainers, and athletes improve their exercise selection and program design skills. Rather than organizing exercises by muscle group, this guide uses a movement-based approach commonly used in strength and conditioning.

Lower body exercises are categorized into seven foundational movement patterns:

• Squat
• Hinge
• Lunge (Single-Leg Biased)
• Lateral
• Rotational
• Carry
• Isometric Holds

Within each movement pattern, exercises are further organized according to their primary training emphasis:

• Strength
• Power
• Hypertrophy
• Stability & Control
• Mobility & Movement Quality
• Injury Reduction

This framework allows coaches and athletes to quickly identify exercises based on the specific adaptation they are trying to develop, whether the goal is increasing force production, improving athletic power, building muscle mass, enhancing movement quality, developing stability, or reducing injury risk.