Posted by Jace P. Andersen on November 12, 2008

Leg Workouts

Leg workouts are often avoided by the casual muscle builder because they focus exclusively on the “show” muscles of the upper body. This is a big mistake. Not only is the aesthetic of a great body impossible with disproportionately developed legs, but your quest to build mass in the upper body is deterred also when you fail to train legs.

Leg workouts stimulate the release of the hormone testosterone which is responsible for building mass everywhere in the body, not just the legs. They prime your chemistry to build muscle in your back, chest and arms in addition to the legs while also ramping up your metabolism to keep fat gain at bay. Basically, leg training turns the key on to your body’s muscle building engine. Skip them to focus on other body parts, and you’ll actually short-circuiting your entire weight gain routine.

While your legs comprise a large portion of your entire body’s musculature, luckily, you only need to think about three basic exercises to develop all that mass:

Squat: to develop the quadriceps, or the front of your upper legs
Deadlift: to develop the hamstrings, or back of your upper legs
Calf Raises: to develop your lower legs

The Squat

If you only had one exercise you could do for the rest of your life to build muscle, the squat’s your choice. Known as “the king of all exercises”, the squat and its variations are exceptional for developing muscle at any repetition range. Whether it’s heavy sets of 5-8 reps or high sets of 15-20 reps, the squat adds mass to your quadriceps without fail.

Before unracking the bar from the squat rack, be sure to have a grip as close together as possible on the bar. Having a narrower grip flexes your trapezius muscle, creating a “shelf” for your to rest the bar on comfortably and safely. It’s on the traps, and not the neck, that you want to rest the bar.

Your stance should be slightly wider than shoulder width apart, and your toes should be slightly pointed out. Unrack the bar and move away from the racking pins. Keep your chest and head up. Breathe through your abdomen instead of your chest so that your shoulders stay level instead of rising with your breath.

Lower the weight by bending at the hips and, as if you were sitting, descend back and down. While some prefer to perform a full squat by sitting until their butt is below their knees, I prefer to go no lower than quads parallel to the floor while I work on increasing my ankle flexibility to do the full squat. Experiment to identify the optimal range of motion for you given your current flexibility and strength.

The Deadlift

Deadlifts not only build your legs, they also build your back. Check out the Backworkouts article to read up on how to perform this great leg-building exercise.

Calf Raises

Probably because we’re constantly walking on them, calves are one of the muscle groups that respond well to higher reps with higher weights. And because walking constantly puts the calves in a flexed position, this group of muscles are always tight. For this reason, at the end of every set, try pausing in the bottom position of the exercise for about 5 seconds.

Performing a standing calf raise seems simple: load the weight onto your shoulders and stand on tip toe! But here are a few “secret” tips to help you optimize your calf training.

First, you should really start a standing calf raise with your knees slightly flexed, NOT locked out. You can lock them out at the top of the movement, but it’s better to keep them slightly bent to stretch your gastrocnemius muscles.

Second, be sure to allow your heel to come down as low as possible on the negative portion of the exercise. This allows you to truly work the whole range of motion of the calf muscles.

Add these time-honored exercises to your leg workouts to develop the strong, powerful, and muscular legs that not only look great but help to add pounds of muscle everywhere on your body.

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