Leg day is one of the (if not the) most hated workout days in the gym. There are individuals who will try and complete everything within one day, or they will just skip it all together. PLEASE DO NOT SKIP LEG DAY. Your legs are pretty much half your body. Your booty or gluteus maximus to be scientifically correct, is the largest muscle in the body in terms of volume. Therefore, you want to make sure your legs are in equal proportion to your upper body. You don’t need to have tree trunk legs, just make sure your lower body and upper body are balanced in terms of size and strength. If you have Arnold Schwarzenegger’s upper body and legs the size of Bambi’s, your priorities are all mixed up. Instead of skipping leg day or training legs only 1x per week, simply increase your training volume to 2x-3x per week. Muscles respond well to volume and time under tension, so you need to make sure you are giving equal attention to your lower body and upper body. Leg day is brutal to be quite honest with you. But you are going to have to learn to love it. There is no way around it, so just do it (again, not sponsored by Nike).
When it comes to your lower body and how you can increase it in its overall size and strength there are 4 main muscles to target:
- Quadriceps
- Gluteus Maximus
- Hamstrings
- Calves (very tricky to stimulate growth)
There are secondary muscles such as your lower back, hip flexor muscles and other smaller muscles within the legs, but they all get indirect training from compound lifts associated with leg day.
Try out these exercises for mass and strength gains:
Squats
Squats release hormones (ex. testosterone) and create an anabolic environment perfect for muscle building in your lower body. To target your entire lower body, the back squat is probably the best variation of the squat (bar behind head). It recruits the hip flexor muscles, hamstrings, lower back, calves, gluteus maximus, core, quads and a variety of smaller muscles.
If you wish to target your quads specifically, I suggest the front squat (bar in front of collarbone). The simple change in the placement of the bar forces your body to lower itself in a different way compared to the back squat. The front squat keeps your body more compact thus placing all the tension on your quads.
I do not suggest using a squat machine or assisted machine. To effectively build muscle and promote overall mass and growth, I highly suggest the free weight bar. Free weights force your core and secondary muscles to help you balance and keep upright as compared to assisted machines which take that stress and tension away from your secondary muscles as they are designed to help you with balance, hence the word “assisted”. If you would like to get a feel of how the exercise feels, then use the machine but do not rely on it forever. The old ways are the best sometimes.
Deadlift
The deadlift in its true form is probably the purest compound exercise out of all compound lifts. The deadlift if done right is pretty much a full body compound lift that everyone should be incorporating in their training. The power lift off the ground recruits your entire lower body and much of your upper body to lift the weight off the floor and lower it. The main muscles involved are: pretty much most muscles in the body if done properly.
I highly suggest looking at YouTube videos on how to do a proper deadlift. Many people have their own ideas and advice on form with regards to various exercises but not with the deadlift. The deadlift is an old school exercise that has been practiced for decades. To get accurate form, try it without weights first. Get the feel for it by using just a bar; once you are comfortable enough then add weights, but make sure your form is correct otherwise you can seriously injure yourself.
Here are a few pointers to ensure proper form:
- Back straight. DO NOT BEND YOUR BACK. You can seriously injure your back and put it out.
- Knees over the bar. I see so many people too far away from the bar. The bar should be as close to your body as possible during the entirety of the lift.
- Squeeze at the top. Bring the weight up till you are vertical and squeeze your booty and back at the top of the lift, then proceed to lower the weight
- DO NOT BOUNCE THE WEIGHT. I see so many people bouncing the weight off the floor.
This is incorrect because:
A) You are using momentum rather than muscles
B) You look completely out of control and are compromising your form to “lift heavy”
C) The noise is obnoxious and rude
Instead, lower the weight in a controlled fashion, pause for a second at the bottom, then lift the weight again. You are cheating yourself if you continuously bounce up and down.
Hamstring Curl
Hamstrings are an extremely underrated muscle group which are not focused enough on. Hamstring development is important as strong hamstrings contribute to heavier lifts on squats and deadlifts. They are essentially support muscles, and are crucial to lower body sustainability and balance. Your hamstrings will get a lot of indirect work from compound lifts however you should be including isolation exercises for further development. My favourite exercise is the hamstring curl due its complete isolation. This really is a no mercy exercise if done correctly on the machine. What works well for me during this exercise is the 1 to 5 method. The 1 to 5 method is time under tension training. 1 second curl up, 5 seconds lower back down. Fighting against gravity whilst lowering a weight is an abnormal movement for the muscle. It’s not the actual curl which promotes development, it’s the stretch and time under tension on the way back down which creates tiny microscopic tears in the type 1 and type 2 fibres. I highly suggest the slow and controlled 1 to 5 method for the hamstring curl.
Seated Calf Raises
Like the hamstrings, the calves get indirect training from your compound lifts. However, if you are someone like me who has the worst calf genetics, compound exercises are not nearly enough. You need to do a mix of compound and isolation exercises to promote growth. The calves are a funny muscle group in the sense that because they are used so much everyday (walking, running etc), their ability to withstand immense stress placed upon them is extremely high which results in hard gains for guys like me with bad genetics. I have preached before that size does not equal strength, however size does equal appeal. I have proportional quadricep and hamstring development, but my calves are underdeveloped. I train them 2-3x per week however the size development is not at the rate I would like it to be. Sadly, genetics play a pretty big role in your calf development and their natural state. You are either blessed with normal/great calves, or you are cursed with under developed calves like me. It is possible to beat your genetics it just takes a lot of time. Now the reason I am focusing on genetics is simply because of the way your calf tendon is positioned. If you have a long tendon like mine, your calf muscle is higher positioned and smaller. This is perfect for sprinting. A longer calf tendon genetically allows for greater and longer strides which is why so many sprinters have longer legs and higher placement of their calf muscles. If you have a shorter calf tendon, your calf muscle is lower which allows for more mass and even development. This is perfect for showing off those beauties at Wasaga beach. Now I am not saying genetics are the entire reason why you see guys at the gym with small calf muscles, but they are a big contributing factor. Some guys (including me) are just harder gainers than others when it comes to building certain muscles. If you are embarrassed or shy about your legs or a certain muscle group which is underdeveloped, DON’T BE. No one is perfect, you just have to work a littler harder than others to get to where you want to be at. Did you know Arnold Schwarzenegger himself had calves so small he refused to wear shorts? For years he was ridiculed for his small calves. Here you have a big strong guy with an incredible upper body physique with great quad and hamstring development, resting upon small calves. With a lot of work, he trained them to be the best in the business.
It is possible to beat your genetics and here is how:
VOLUME, VOLUME AND VOLUME. Calves are one of if not the hardest muscles to grow. The way to grow them is to simply overload them with volume. It doesn’t matter if you use the machine or dumbbells, just make sure you place proper stress on them at least 3x per week with a variety of different exercises. If I had to vote for one exercise, the seated calf raise is the best one in my opinion. It directly targets the soleus muscle (thick muscle which sits under the gastrocnemius) which makes up a large part of the calf area. I highly suggest implementing the seated calf raise exercise in your training to promote overall growth and development.
Secondary Exercises
The exercises I mentioned above are the most popular exercises many fitness websites, youtubers and gym goers preach about. There are many more, however I just listed the ones I felt were most important if you are quite new to the gym and need exercises to practice on.
To compliment those primary exercises there are an immense amount of secondary exercises you can do to stimulate muscle growth in your lower body. Exercises such as lunges, leg press, step ups, hip thrusts, jump squats, calf raises, Bulgarian split squats, stiff legged deadlifts etc are perfect isolation exercises to help build bigger legs. Finding the right secondary exercises can be done by researching or trying them out in the gym and seeing what suits you.
Just remember, focus on compound exercises for your lower body. For lagging body parts (ex. calves), secondary exercises paired with compound exercises AND high volume training, will promote maximum muscle stimulation. Don’t worry, we’ll get there. I’m still trying to get there.
The most important thing is that you try. Be confident in yourself but most importantly just be proud in your own skin. As long as you are putting in work, you will be rewarded in time.
Happy belated Mother’s Day to all the wonderful, hardworking mothers! <3
Have a great week,
Hussain
@huuusss_p
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