By, Mikayla C. and Samantha C.

For our final celebrity workout of the year, we chose to do Carrie Underwood’s leg workout.

Underwood recently bounced back from an accident in November that led to a broken wrist and over 40 stitches in her face. We love that she’s been keeping busy in the gym, with her husband and toddler son keeping her company, according to her Instagram. She kills it both on and off the stage.

We decided to try to get Underwood’s legs (although we definitely will not be able to get her incredible singing skills). As we did this workout, we listened to her music for motivation. For reference, “Before He Cheats” is a great song to listen to during a workout.

For the first exercise, which was the squat lunge, we did 15 reps on each side. In each rep, we moved from a one-legged squat into a lunge. The directions said that we could not fully straighten our legs, and this simple restriction kept our quads burning and engaged.

We whipped out the stability ball for our next exercise: one-legged deadlifts with the stability ball. We put the kettlebell on the same hand as the leg that was propped on the stability ball. The deadlift is kind of like the bend and snap from Legally Blonde. You bend over your hips while still keeping a straight back and then straighten back up.

For the one legged squats, it took some serious balance not to fall back onto the ground. This exercise was a combination of the burn that accompanies 30 regular squats and the extreme difficulty of trying to balance on one leg while doing any type of movement; in essence, it was hard. However, by the end of the 15 reps per leg, we (almost) had this one down.

Our next exercise was the bunny hop squeeze, which was incredibly weird. We put a stability ball in between our quads and jumped back and forth 20 times. Although we could feel it in our legs, we had mixed feelings about this workout because it was extremely awkward. It works for Carrie, though, so we resorted to the mindset that you just gotta do whatever you have to do to get nice, toned legs.

The next exercise was the elevated curtsy lunge. Starting with our front leg on a block about the height of our hips, we took a step down with our opposite leg and bent our knees to replicate a “curtsy.” We then pushed back up onto the block with one leg and performed 15 reps of the exercise until it was time to switch legs and repeat. We definitely lacked the elegance of traditional curtsies, but, hey, at least our priorities were straight (stronger legs > poise).

Our final exercise was the straddle jump. Because we did not have the right sized box to jump over, we did this exercise on the ground. Starting in a regular, feet-together position, we jumped into a squat and back again for about 45 seconds. This exercise reminded us of the workouts we do with Renvil, the crew team’s exercise coach, so it is no surprise that our quads were burning by the end of it.

Although we mentally chanted “I Can’t Feel the Pain” (The Champion ft. Ludacris) during this workout, the difficulty made it worthwhile.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck with us from our first celebrity workout article, and we would love to hear more suggestions for this coming year!