This comes from Tae Bo (fyi). It is a pretty good workout. Take six playing cards and put them on the ground one in front of the other. Squat down and pick up the first card. When you squat your back should stay at the same angle (ie don't bend over and pick up the card). Your but should go back as you squat. Each card should be picked up (1 rep) and put down (another rep) next to where it was originally. Your quads will eventually start burning. Eventually you will be able to do one hundred or even a couple hundred. Basically it will look like the diagram below, where x is an original card and y is where you put it down: x1 y1 x2 y2 x3 y3 x4 y4 x5 y5 x6 y6
Sorry, let me try to explain. It is one of the most basic leg workouts you can do and the cards are not really needed. Basically you are doing squats like with weights at the gym, but with no weights and doing a lot of reps. Stand straight up with your feet about shoulder length apart. Squat down and touch the ground. When you squat, you don't bend with your back but instead squat with your legs bending at the knees. Your back stays staight and your butt goes back. Your hamstrings and calves basically touch. The only point of the cards was to keep it interesting.
That card thing sound good, give it a try! Another excercise (my coach's favorite) is frog-hops. This is a really great excercise and it involves no weights. What you do is hop forward like a frog for exaple ten times. Jump as far as you can with each hop and move as fast as you can. Basically you jump with both legs from a squatting posission as high and far as you can and land into a squatting position agin (with your butt almost touching the ground). You do those hops many times trying to travel the longest distance you can with 10 hops. I guarantee if you do 5 sets of 10 hops your legs quads will ache the next day. That's the amount you should do after every practice and you'll have real strong legs. You can use your hands for balancing and swinging them to give yourself momentum. Later when you're stronger put your hands on your hips - that makes the exercise harder. I think this is probably the best all-round leg excercise, it develops all the main muscle groups in your legs (mostly quads, but also calves, hamstrings, glutes). Sometimes stuff I do with my legs in a gym stops making progress, but frog-hops alway give me a boost in power. Another excercise you could try is walking in a squatted position - feel the burn!
that's sounds good, GreenDay. I'll have to add that to my training. I've finally decided to get off my duff and start training for soccer (even though I'm on a rec league) since I'm overweight. I've been looking for something else to do instead of suicides since I REALLY suck at them right now.
Lunges are the best. Straight ahead or at an angle. Great way to develop power and explosiveness. Any plyometric exercises would be good too. That stuff is all over the web.