Level Up Leg Day with Tonal’s New Ankle Straps

Editor's Note: Due to incredible demand, ankle straps have already sold out. We're working on getting them back in stock as quickly as possible. Click here to join the waitlist and you'll be the first to know when ankle straps are available again. Thanks for your patience and enthusiasm.

The wait is over: Tonal ankle straps have arrived!

Now, you can isolate your legs and glutes with new moves—including standing leg extensions, prone bench hamstring curls, and standing hip abductions—while getting personalized weight recommendations, progress tracking, and everything else you love about lifting on Tonal.

Add ankle strap movements to any Custom Workout, Free Lift workout, or try them out in guided workouts with Tonal coaches giving you tips on form and technique as you lift. Tonal ankle straps are comfortable, easy to use, tested for safety, and fully compatible with your trainer so all you need to do is strap in and get started.

4 Benefits of Training with Tonal Ankle Straps

By strengthening the muscles you use to walk, run, jump, and squat, ankle strap exercises can improve how you move in everyday life, boost your athletic performance, and even help you break through plateaus in compound lifts.

“No matter what your goals are or what your limitations may be, ankle straps are going to unlock a whole new way of working out on Tonal, allowing you to make even more progress,” says Tonal coach Kendall “Woody” Wood. Here’s how ankle straps can enhance your training:

1. Build Lower Body Muscle and Strength

Even if you know that leg day is essential to well-rounded strength, it’s tempting to avoid compound lower-body exercises such as squats and deadlifts that leave you feeling gassed. “Ankle straps help us find more paths to lower-body strength development—without full-body fatigue,” says Jenna Moore, Tonal performance manager.

Ankle strap movements are unique in how they isolate certain muscle groups. “When we think about isolating the quads, you can't do that sufficiently through just a squat,” says Moore. Working the quads in a leg extension delivers volume to this specific muscle group for more hypertrophy and targeted sculpting.

2. Improve Balance and Stability

Whether you’re rehabbing an old injury or dealing with asymmetries from side to side, ankle strap moves, especially unilateral ones, can help restore balance. “The nature of ankle strap isolation exercises allows you to strengthen stabilizing muscles without overwhelming joint structures,” says Moore, explaining how training the glutes, abductors, adductors, and hamstrings helps improve knee and hip health.

Working the stabilizing muscles in your hips translates to stronger lifts and better movement in everyday life. Since many ankle strap exercises are unilateral, you’re forced to find stability and balance on your standing leg, while strengthening the muscles of your working leg. Even within ankle strap moves such as standing straight-leg glute kickbacks and donkey kicks, your adductors are working hard to stabilize your movement.

3. Support Athletic Performance

“Ankle strap exercises strengthen the hips and hamstrings in ways that compound lifts can’t,” says Moore, “enhancing speed, agility, stability, and resilience, all critical for athletic performance.” Working these muscles with ankle straps can help you move more explosively and pivot quickly.

Strong and stable joints also promote resiliency against injury in sports with repetitive motion (think running) or movement in multiple planes of motion, such as tennis or pickleball. “These types of moves give me the confidence to move in any way that I want without hesitancy,” says Moore.

4. Power Your Big Lifts

Squat or deadlift plateaus are often the result of one muscle or muscle group lagging behind in strength. Ankle strap exercises directly work your quads, hamstrings, or abductors to correct these imbalances for more power in your compound lifts.

If, for example, weak hamstrings are holding back your deadlift progress, hamstring curls can give the muscle group a targeted dose of strength training that can make a difference next time you pick up the barbell.

In coaching workouts with ankle straps, Coach Woody says there’s a “a big focus on slow and controlled movement which is a fantastic way to hone the mind-muscle connection.” Improving this kinesthetic awareness carries over to the rest of your lifting as you’ll be better able to activate different muscle groups.

How to Incorporate Ankle Straps in Your Routine

Ankle strap training is a “great supporting actor” to complement the compound lifts that are the stars of your regular routine, Moore explains. Add an ankle strap workout once or twice a week, she suggests, to round out any program. These can be done on their own or following another session.

“If you’ve got a little gas left in the tank at the end of a workout, grab your ankle straps,” she says. Either tap into a guided session or turn on Free Lift and do a few more sets of lower-body work.

Additionally, Coach Woody likes using ankle strap moves to warm up before heavy lower-body lifts. “For example,” she says, “if you’re getting ready to do 250-pound hip thrusts, you could start with some hip abductions or glute kickbacks.”

Build Your Own Ankle Strap Workout

Since ankle strap moves can be added to Custom Workouts, you also have the option to create your own session with these new movements—and add dynamic weight modes such as Chains, Eccentric, and SmartFlex for new challenges.

“I personally love to use these isolation exercises as finishers at the end of my workout, but you can also group them first as a means of pre-fatigue for muscle growth,” Moore says. By working smaller muscle groups first, you’ll reach failure faster in your big lifts, thus activating more muscle fibers for hypertrophy gains.

How to Add Ankle Straps to Your Tonal

To unlock new moves and workouts, add ankle straps to your Tonal by selecting Tonal > Accessories > Ankle Straps. Then, read and acknowledge the safety waiver. Tap “Add Accessory” and you’re all set!

Preview Ankle Strap Moves

Here are just a few of the exercises you’ll be able to do with ankle straps on Tonal:

Standing Leg Extension

Strengthens your quadriceps and supports healthy knee function, aiding in walking, climbing, and overall lower-body endurance.

Standing Hip Abduction

Activates the glute medius and outer thigh muscles, improving hip stability and injury resilience—especially for runners and lifters. Plus, it’s Coach Woody’s favorite new move.

Prone Bench Hamstring Curl

Isolates the hamstrings to build leg strength, support knee stability, and improve balance and athletic power.

Quadruped Donkey Kick

Strengthens and builds the muscles of the glutes, especially the gluteus maximus, through targeted leg extensions.

Explore Guided Ankle Strap Workouts

Lock in your form with ankle straps and get form cues from your favorite Tonal workouts in these new guided workouts. Keep an eye out for more workouts and programs featuring ankle straps in the future.

Intro to Ankle Straps
Coach Ash | 27 min
Establish proper technique in foundational ankle strap exercises and get ready to feel the burn in your glutes and legs in a whole new way.

Lower-Body Precision
Coach Kristina | 35 min
Find power in precision by isolating small muscles, such as the piriformis, that assist in stability and prep your muscles for explosive movements.

Glutes Glow Up with Ankle Straps
Coach Kristina | 24 min
Take your posterior training to the next level with this targeted glutes workout that utilizes ankle straps to sculpt, strengthen, and engage your glutes from every angle.

Complete Core Challenge
Coach Ash | 26 min
Work your core beyond your abs in this session that features functional exercises for your obliques, glutes, and back plus your hips and lower body.

Ankle Strap Add On
Coach Woody | 29 min
In this lower-body burner, you’ll add a new move in each round until you’re tackling a giant set of glute and hamstring exercises.

GBC Burn with Ankle Straps
Coach Woody | 29 min
Put a new twist on German Body Composition training by combining compound and isolation lifts for a full-body pump that hits every muscle group.

Note: Ankle strap workouts and movements will be available on all Tonal trainers.