I’ve never trained legs now I look stupid! How do I fix this?!…
You see them everywhere at the store, on the beach in the gym. Some of them at least have some shame, and wear long pants in the gym, in the summertime, in the southeast, on leg day. I’m talking about guys with big arms and skinny legs! So how do you play catch up on your leg development if you have neglected training them in the past?
It looks ridiculous. Sometimes it seems as if no matter how hard they can punch you, it wouldn’t hurt because the force that is generated by their upper body is too much for the lower body to handle!
There’s no way that they can have real world, functional strength. And it just looks so stupid. I feel like this is a particularly bad problem in the United States, where most of the sports are upper body dominant. In most countries where soccer is the dominant sport, people seem to have a better understanding of the importance of leg muscles.
So, let’s say you finally admit it. You are one of these guys. How do you begin to make up for a lifetime’s worth of neglect? You’ve never really trained legs, now you understand how bad it looks and you want to do better.
Volume. We need to talk about volume. It is virtually impossible to overtrain legs in my opinion. Unless you are going really heavy. You need to have at least twice as many sets for the lower body as you have for the upper body. Let that sink in for a moment. Some guys do 20 sets on chest, 15 sets on biceps, that’s fine but be prepared to do 60 sets on legs.
This is a non-negotiable rule: you must do twice as many sets for your lower body as you do for your upper body.
Balance.
One of two things will happen. Either you’ll do an insane number of sets on your lower body, or you will dramatically decrease your upper body training. Either way a more balanced look will be the end result.
I am a fan of total body workouts. I think in order to get the right amount of volume in, once a week per body part is not enough.
The Workout:
Always start your workout with legs. 3 to 4 exercises for upper legs, 2 for your lower legs.
- Leg press 5×15
- Leg extensions 5×10
- Squats 5×8
- Stiff leg deadlifts or hamstring curls 5×10
- Standing or leg press calf raise 5×15
- Seated calf raise 5×10
Then for upper body
- Bench press 4×10 or dips 80-100
- Pull-ups 30-50 or bent over rows 4×10
- Clean and press 20-30 or standing military press 4×10.
- Abdominal machine 4×15
On your off days:
- 100 squats (no weight)
- 50 toe touches
- Stretching
If you absolutely must do a split routine, do the lower body workout 3 times a week, and the upper body workout twice.
For some exercises I just gave a total number of reps to be performed. Just do as many at a time as you can, rest a minute or so, and continue until you reach that number.
On the dips, if you are doing more than 25 at a time, you should add some weight using a weight belt.
On clean and press, you should start with around 50% of your weight or less. Focus on really learning this movement if you don’t already do this classic exercise. Do sets of no more than 5 reps.
What about arms?!
You may say “What about arms?” Don’t freak out – dips or bench press and pull-ups or rows will ensure you don’t lose any of your precious arm mass. But, if you must, throw some barbell curls and pushdowns in there. But don’t get too crazy about the arm training, remember what got you in this situation in the first place. If you find yourself doing five sets on leg press and 10 sets on barbell curls, you’re going to have the same problem – imbalance.
Hormonal Profile.
Another benefit of a large amount of leg training is that the more muscle recruited an exercise, the greater the hormonal response. Yes I’m talking about more testosterone and growth hormone. So by training your legs, your chest, back, and arms will get bigger and stronger too! If you were to take a guy who had never touched a weight, and had him just do squats for five sets, three times a week, he would definitely get more muscular. And even his arms would grow!
Once again, volume, volume, volume. You absolutely must be getting at least twice as much volume for your lower body as for your upper body. Your legs carry you around all day long. They need a lot of sets and reps.
This is especially true about calves. Your calves are incredibly strong. If you can stand on one foot then go up to tiptoe on that one foot, that basically means that you can do a calf raise with twice your bodyweight! Every time you take a step you are doing part of this movement. So your calves really need a fairly substantial weight, and a lot of volume! 10 + sets 3-4 times a week should be a minimum for your calves!
Prioritize Calves.
Calf muscles are even more important than your quadriceps and hamstrings when it comes to appearance. If you have good size calf muscles but skinny thighs, no one’s really going to know unless you like to rock Daisy Dukes. However, even if you have big muscular quads but you have skinny calves, people will think you have skinny legs. So from an aesthetic viewpoint, your calves are very important.
Squats. There’s no way around it.
If you are in Tennessee, and you want to get to Arkansas, there’s no easy way without crossing the Mississippi River. Squats are the Mississippi River of leg training. A lot of people really hate doing squats. But there is not really a worthy substitute out there. 5 sets are an absolute minimum for this exercise. I understand that they are uncomfortable, and hard to do, but you gotta put in the work if you want the wheels!
If you’ve never really done squats, start light. Start with maybe 50% of your body weight until you really get it down. Don’t be embarrassed, just most of the exercise with good form. The weight will come, and so will large muscular thighs! I would aim to be using 100% or more of your bodyweight within a couple of months. But only if your form is 100%!
Won’t I Overtrain?
A lot of times you’ll hear about overtraining. I think that the amount of training you can get away with before you start to overtrain is much higher than most people believe. Especially for legs!
Some folk work very physically demanding jobs. 40 or more hours a week! Do they overtrain? No, the bodies become used to the work overtime and will adjust accordingly. The more you do something, the more your body will realize what you’re having it do, and will adjust itself to be able to do that.
20 sets on quads and hamstrings, 3-4 times a week, is by no means too much. Especially if you’re not going top heavy. If you just really like going heavy, maybe every third workout you could increase the weight 50% and lower the rep range by 30%-40%. However, with increased weights comes an increase in recovery time. This is why I prefer the moderate approach to weight levels. I think that medium weights, at medium-high reps, for a med-high number of sets, with high workout frequency, leads to more muscle growth.
Off Days.
As you may have noticed I have even included a workout for your “off days.” This is simply to gain a pump as often as possible. This will help speed your recovery and reduce any soreness.
On the days that you don’t have workouts, simply do 100 squats using only your body weight, (no barbell) and 50 toe touches. For the squats, I would recommend doing 10 per minute for 10 minutes while you watch TV or whatever. You can do the same with the toe touches over 5 minutes.
A toe touch means simply bending down and touching your toes in a controlled manner and coming back up. Keep your head up the whole time. This is similar to the motion of the stiff-legged deadlift, and will pump some blood into your hamstrings and lower back. It’s also a good stretch.
Stretch as often as possible.
Don’t forget to stretch for about 10 minutes a day. Not only will this protect your joints and defend you against injury, but it will lengthen the muscles. The longer the muscle, the more mass it can gain.
Stimulate the muscle thoroughly. Pump lots of blood into the area. The more often you get a good pump in a muscle, the more it will grow. You want to break down the muscle fibers – but only a little. You don’t want to need 4 days to recover. Heal up quickly, and do it again. This is “teaching” your body that this is the new normal, and it had better get ready for more of the same!
How long will it take?
The legs respond to training quickly for most people, especially to high volume training. Most people will see visible results in a couple of weeks. After a couple of months using this routine I’m sure that you will see a big difference in your legs! If you haven’t every seriously trained legs before, you can expect to see quite fast growth initially.
Training with lots of volume, with high frequency, will yield good results. It is very possible to gain 3-4″ or even more on your thighs in the first year of focused leg training. You will become more balanced, and with time you can increase the amount of upper body training that you can do. You may find that you now love leg training and want to keep on this routine. Whether or not you do, keep it up! Now you can wear shorts with confidence!
