Hilary Duff Relies on Ladder Workouts for Full-Body Strength. Here are the 4 Lower-Body Exercises She Swears By.
The platinum singer-songwriter says this is how she
Reported by Women's Health Magazine.
Hilary Duff has spent years undoing the myth that weights make women bulky. The singer — currently prepping for a world tour with four kids in tow — has structured her fitness life around strength training, and credits the shift for changing not just her physique but her sleep, her energy, and her ability to perform at full capacity. "Being able to carry my kids and give my best on stage, all while feeling confident in my body, is everything," she's said. "Strength training gives me that."
To stay consistent through the chaos, Duff partnered with the Ladder app, a coaching platform that assigns members to one of 20-plus goal-based teams and delivers daily progressive workouts — no decision fatigue, no scrolling through a library of random videos. Sessions run 30 to 60 minutes and pull from strength training, Pilates, bodybuilding, and HIIT. She logs about four sessions per week; on rest days, hiking, swimming, and chasing children counts as active recovery. "It's not motivation that keeps you consistent," she's explained. "It's having a plan."
The Lower-Body Workout She Actually Loves
According to Women's Health Magazine, Duff gravitates hard toward lower-body days — specifically the Bulgarian split squat — because she finds them both the most effective and the most satisfying. Her Ladder coach Kelly Matthews built a 43-minute session from the Limitless program that Duff has completed, built around four moves: barbell back squats (working up to 8 reps at 70% effort across multiple sets), barbell Romanian deadlifts (four sets progressing from 50% to 70% effort with a focus on hamstring stretch and glute drive), dumbbell lateral lunges (three sets of 10 per side), and bodyweight sissy squats (three sets of 10, leaning back from the knees in a straight line to the head — brutally effective for quads). The session opens with a five-minute hip and mobility warm-up — posterior hip capsule stretches, pigeon pose, adductor rock backs, and the world's greatest stretch — and closes with two minutes of downward dog walks and 90/90 hip stretches.
The structure is deliberate: progressive overload built into every set, mobility bookending the work, and a clear arc from warm-up to cool-down. It's the opposite of winging it — which, for Duff, is exactly the point. Upper-body work is less her thing (pull-ups and chin-ups included), but bent-over rows made the cut. Lower body is where she's found her power, and the programming reflects that.
Consistency doesn't require motivation — it requires a structure you'll actually follow, and a workout that makes you feel capable rather than depleted.
Read the original at Women's Health Magazine.
