Developing incredible leg strength and power is very important for those who play sports for the muscles in your legs are the engine room that provide the ability to run, spring and jump. Spending time in the gym to build leg strength is one of the most important goals during the off-season training for many sportsmen and sportswomen. You only have to look at the thigh development of sprinters, rugby and football players to see how important leg strength and power is. However, it is an area of the body that is often neglected by many of the general population who just wants to get fit and lose a bit of weight. This is a real concern, for apart from the obvious benefits for sporting performance, strong legs can prevent many of the injuries we see today with the knee and the back. Strong quadriceps enhance knee health, and strong glutes and hamstring muscles can be real back savers when lifting heavy objects from the floor. And in terms of losing weight and obtaining that toned and athletic appearance, the strength of your legs can play a massive role in this department too. The message is clear, leg strength is critical to your overall health and daily function so it is never a good idea to skip legs day.
Go into any gym and you will find many people with a strong and sculpted upper body, but you will not find too many with ripped legs. I worked in a massive gym for 7 years before opening my own studio, and I remember every day how hard it would be to use the bench press for there was always a que of young guys waiting to use it. Whereas, the squat rack or deadlift barbells I could access immediately and never had to wait. I think I was the only doing deadlifts for a few years.
Many of the girls would love to train their legs, but their fear of using big weights with either technique or “getting bulky” and look like a man, often meant they selected inferior exercises and methods that yield poor results. If technique was their problem you would see them wasting their time with machines or doing hip rep body-weight exercises like clams and hip extensions. If getting bulky was their problem they would prefer to do group classes and Pilates believing they will get the toned look.
Firstly, it is almost impossible for females to bulk up like a male for they lack the single most important ingredient to get big, and that is testosterone!
Secondly, you would need to eat huge amounts of food to gain mass required to get bulky and most females would never be able to do this. If you are female and reading this article now looking for ideas to tone up your legs but fear getting big, you can relax in knowing it will not happen, no matter how many weights you lift.
Read this article to see more – 7 health facts every female should know
Why You Should Never Skip Legs Day
1.No more “chicken legs” and asymmetrical body:
This is a no-brainer, and I could never understand how any guy could think it looks good to have a massively strong upper body with tiny, weak legs. It simply looks ridiculous and to be honest they are missing out on using all of the exciting exercises. All the leg strengthening exercises leave you feeling exhausted, and you know after a hard session with some squats and lunges that you have worked out.
2.Increased metabolism and energy expenditure:
The fact that the leg muscles are the biggest muscles in your body means they require huge amount of energy when they are under duress. Leg strengthening exercises like squats, lunges, and deadlifts require lots of oxygen to get blood carrying oxygen to the working muscles. If your goal is to lose weight and improve fitness leg exercises will provide great results.
See article about how to improve your metabolism for more detail on this.
3.Improves stability and balance:
Once again this comes as no surprise to know that stronger legs will provide improvements in balance and stability. Research has proven that weak leg muscles also have a high correlation with falls in older adults. (A study by Skelton, Kennedy and Rutherford (2002) found that women who fall have 24% less explosive power in their weaker limb than women who did not fall). However, it is not just older adults who benefit from improved balance and stability as this is a skill we all need.
See the article about falls prevention for more on this.
4.Strong Legs Help Prevent Back Pain:
While strength is not the only thing that can save you from a back injury, it certainly can help. The strength in the glutes in particular is very important for the health of the back. When our glutes work correctly they provide optimal hip extension for walking, running and jumping, and also when we lift heavy objects off the ground. At the same time they act as a gross stabilizer by providing external rotation of the hip when we stand on one leg. When you consider that 85% of the population will experience a severe case of back pain at least once in their life it makes sense to do all that you can to prevent it.
Read the article – How to strengthen the glutes to see more on this.
5.Reduces Risk of Knee Injury:
This is even more obvious than the back pain example as strong legs are pivotal to preventing knee pain. Once again the strength in the glutes is pivotal here in providing optimal alignment of the knee during movement, but also the strength of muscles in the quadriceps, in particular the vastus medialis (VMO). Knees are exposed to tremendous pain and problems whenever they are forced into a twisting or bend sideways, (eg ACL tear) known as valgus or varus, and lastly if they hyper-extend. This joint is more or less a hinge, it cannot twist and rotate itself, and it cannot bend the other way either. The strength of the muscles that support this joint is vital for preventing injury.
For more detail read this article – How to strengthen your weak vmo.
The last point is one that is not very well known so I will go into more detail about this point.
How Increasing Leg Strength Helps Build Upper Body Muscles
Those with a great understanding of the human body and physiological adaptation to training will know that leg training is a trigger for whole body growth.
Heavy leg training causes your body to increase its production of testosterone and growth hormone – both essential ingredients for muscle growth.
The reason for this is that the leg muscles are the largest muscles in your body and demand huge amounts of blood and testosterone in order to repair damage from heavy training. This is also why they take so much out of you when you complete them in your workout as we explained earlier.
Unfortunately, this information is not passed down the average guy in the gym who spends all his time with bench press, ab exercises, and bicep curls looking to build the ultimate beach body. If only they knew how much benefit leg exercises would provide their body and get them much closer to their goal.
There are numerous leg strength routines such as the ‘squats and milk method’ that use this information with their approach to gaining whole body mass by focusing predominately on lower body exercises. Superior leg development is not an easy task but it’s this that makes it all the more worthwhile.
Now before you rush off to the leg press and leg extension machine you need to know HOW to train the legs.
Always Use Functional Movements
Building strength at the expense of how you move is never a good idea. And that is exactly what you do when you predominately use machines as your way of building strength into the legs. It is very important that you spend the time to learn how to move correctly with the “big” movements of squat, lunge, deadlifts, and single leg exercises. These movements should be the cornerstone of your leg day.
The good news is that there is not many exercises you have to do. You will not need an exercise for every muscle in your legs which is a good thing for there is over 100 muscles in your legs so you would be working out all day if you went down this path. This is why you only need to stick with the main exercises to get great results.
You will also find the article about functional movement is a valuable resource to help you gain a better understanding of all the key fundamentals.
Never Sacrifice Good Technique
Before you start loading up the barbell with plates and try to crush your body with loads make sure your technique is up to standard. The risk of injury to your body is incredibly high if you attempt to bypass this step.
Exercise technique should never be sacrificed to simply do more. You must earn the right to train with high intensity.
We all know that poor performance, injury, and pain is the end result from using poor training techniques. What does come as a surprise to people is how difficult it can be to change a faulty movement once it is encoded into your nervous system.
A great quote that really stuck with me about exercise technique and its value to preventing injury and pain from the book “Corrective Exercise Solutions for Hip & Shoulder” by Dr Evan Osar is shown below.
“It is much harder to detect the subtleties of compensatory movement in the early stages although easier to correct them, and much easier to detect errors in chronic movement dysfunction however they are much more difficult to change.”
This is so true.
Over the past 20 years in our rehabilitation program we have worked with so many people suffering with really complex cases of injury and pain that took a long time to help the person find relief and a solution. Sometimes the dysfunction was so great we could not find a solution and the best we could do was to find ways to manage the problem.
The most important point is that in ALL of these cases the problem could have been very quickly corrected or prevented if we saw the person BEFORE they began exercising, and were taught efficient strategies of movement. Their ignorance to quality of movement with endless repetitions of poor form eventually broke down their body’s structure.
You can begin to see my frustration knowing how easy exercise can be when you have been taught correctly from the start.
Don’t be that guy or girl who ends up like that.
Below is a great video to watch that features how to build strength into the quadriceps using functional methods. I filmed videos about each muscle group so make sure you check them out on You Tube.
Be Careful Of Over-training
Apart from ignorance of exercise technique the other big mistake often made by the gym junkie is over-training. Their thinking is if three weekly workouts are good, six workouts a week must be twice as good! Sadly this is not the case.
Exercise is a catabolic process that actually breaks your muscles down and over-training does more harm than good.
Your muscles respond to this attack by becoming bigger and stronger which is an anabolic process called hypertrophy. This rebuilding process can only happen when you are resting. This means that for every hard workout, you’ll need a couple of days rest.
Remember, you aren’t being lazy by taking time off training between workouts; you are giving your body the chance to adapt and grow.
In order for the body to adapt, it must have a period of repair. If you cannot adapt to and cope with the physical and mental demands of training, you will quickly become exhausted.
The key lies in one of the simplest yet most neglected training principles, recovery!
Recovery Is As Important As Training
Light cardio sessions can be a great way to enhance your recovery process by flushing your muscles with oxygen and nutrient rich blood, making it easier to get back to your heavy training with less fatigue. If you devote as much effort to recovery as your main workouts you will reap massive rewards later.
I often find that I only need TWO hard legs workouts per week. The other workout or sessions will be focused on mobility or technique development in order to make the hard sessions a better quality.
Make Sure You Warm-up & Stretch At The End
We are almost up to our training program, but before we jump right in it is important to discuss the value of warming up and stretching. It is important to allow at least 10-15 minutes for you to do an effective warm up. This will ensure you have enough time to prepare the body for what you are about to do.
The very first thing to do is get the body warm, and get the blood moving to the muscles. This is important for the blood allows more the muscles, tendons and ligaments to become more flexible as they warm up, providing you with extra mobility in movements you need to use in your upcoming workout.
I would allow 5 minutes minimum and 10 minutes max to do this. It is a time to focus and concentrate on the workout you are about to do, leaving all outside distractions and stress from your life out the door.
At the end of the session and on the following day you must follow up with stretching and mobility work to ensure your muscles do not shorten and lose their flexibility.
You Must Eat Quality Food
You can’t build a house without bricks and you can’t build muscle without optimum nutrition. A big mistake many people make is devoting hours to training but cutting corners with their food. Correct nutrition can make or break your success using this program so you will need to make a commitment to shop, cook and eat good food to refuel and build your muscles.
Eating the same foods all the time can leave your body starved of essential vitamins and minerals so make sure you eat a wide range of healthy foods.
Everything that happens within your body is a chemical reaction and vitamins and minerals are the catalysts that keep those reactions happening. No vitamins or minerals equal much slower or non-existent reactions. Good fats, vegetables, whole grains, and lean protein are the four cornerstones of your nutrition plan and you should aim to eat something you should be able to stick to forever. Avoid fad diets and extreme supplement regimes that claim to add muscle fast.
Eat good food and train well and the rest will take care of itself.
If your goal is to bulk up you are going to need to eat fairly often to create a calorie surplus. Aim for 500 calories a day above your current intake which is about one extra meal’s worth. If you feel that you are putting too much fat on your belly then cut back slightly.
Your body is going to need a steady supply of nutrients to so it can go about the job of refueling, repairing and building your muscles. You are going to have to be organized and possibly carry food with you to work, school or college because if you miss a meal, you miss an opportunity to give your body the essential fuel it needs to develop bigger and stronger muscles.
Do You Want More Workout Ideas?
In part two of this article I am going to give you a 16 week leg strength program but if you want even more circuit workouts, strength programs and even cardio and sporting workouts, make sure you get a copy of the Little Black Book of Training Secrets where I share 101 amazing programs just like the ones shown in this article. Click here to see more about what is inside this special report and download your digital copy instantly.
Summary
I am sure you would agree that there is a lot more to leg strengthening than you think. It is never a good idea to skip “legs day” and I don’t know why you would want to when you consider how many amazing benefits strong legs provide your body. From moving freely without pain or limitation, to improving sporting performance, and even helping you slim down and lose weight, the value of strengthening your leg muscles cannot be overstated. I hope this article and the workout ideas provided give you everything you need to know about leg strength.
About The Author
Nick Jack is owner of No Regrets Personal Training and has over 20 years’ experience as a qualified Personal Trainer, Level 2 Rehabilitation trainer, CHEK practitioner, and Level 2 Sports conditioning Coach. Based in Melbourne Australia he specializes in providing solutions to injury and health problems for people of all ages using the latest methods of assessing movement and corrective exercise.
References
The Vital Glutes – By John Gibbons
Movement – By Gray Cook
Corrective Exercise Solutions – by Evan Osar
Back Pain Mechanic – by Dr Stuart McGill
Diagnosis & Treatment Of Movement Impairment Syndromes – By Shirley Sahrman
Low Back Disorders – by Dr Stuart McGill
Ultimate Back Fitness & Performance – by Dr Stuart McGill
Athletic Body in Balance – by Gray Cook
Anatomy Trains – by Thomas Meyers
Motor Learning and Performance – By Richard A Schmidt and Timothy D Lee
Assessment & Treatment Of Muscle Imbalance – By Vladimir Janda
How To Eat, Move & Be Healthy by Paul Chek
Scientific Core Conditioning Correspondence Course – By Paul Chek
Advanced Program Design – By Paul Chek
Twist Conditioning Sports Strength – By Peter Twist
Twist Conditioning Sports Movement – By Peter Twist
Functional Training For Sports – By Mike Boyle
Athletes Acceleration Speed Training & Game Like Speed – by Lee Taft
Knee Injuries In Athletes – by Sports Injury Bulletin
The ACL Solution – by Robert G Marx
Understanding & Preventing Non-Contact ACL Injuries – American Orthopaedic Society For Sports Medicine