Maggie's Farm

Can you crack a coconut between your thighs? 

It makes sense to divide conditioning efforts into anatomical categories like Lower Body: Legs/Lower back; Upper body: Chest/Upper Back/Arms; and Core, even though most exercises use some of everything.

It is obvious that legs with strength and endurance provide and maintain basic functionality for men and women regardless of age, so let's use Legs/Lower body as an example for applying the Maggie's 3-category fitness model (resistance, calis, and cardio).

What can we do, in each of our exercise categories, to push our lower bodies towards further strength and endurance? Basic lower body-related routines are below. 

Rule #1: IF IT ISN'T HARD, IT ISN'T EXERCISE. Our deplorable inner lazy-ass quitter is our enemy in life.

Heavy resistance for lower body strength:

Deadlifts
Barbell or goblet squats
Kettlebell Farmer's Walks
Sled pushes and pulls

Lower body-oriented Calisthenics for muscle application and agility (many or most of these are included in typical cardio/calis gym classes) 

High Step-ups (with or without kettlebell)
Lunges  (with or without kettlebell)
Kettlebell Swings
Box Jumps and jumping squats
Wall sits or isometric 90 degree squat and holds
Body weight squat variations (squat and press, squat with heavy ball throw, etc)
Mountain Climbers
Viper-toss side shuffles

Mostly lower-body Cardio and HIIT Cardio for endurance:

Longer Jogs and short sprints. Nothing long enough to promote arthritis. 20-30 minutes with jogs + sprints is enough. It's the sprints that build endurance anyway. 
Stair machine 
Rowing sprints
Ski Erg sprints - done right, they are legs, back, and core, not arms
Stationary bike (or bike) longs and sprints
Jumping Jacks
Jump Rope variations

There are many other things and variations to do but we try to keep it simple.