Discover The #1 Reason Why You Should Build Leg Muscle & Develop Your Thighs & Calves
Nov 25th, 2009 | By Todd Bowman | Category: Gain Muscle, Legs, Uncategorized
The # 1 Key To Massive Muscle Growth: Build Leg Muscle!
It’s amazing how so many bodybuilders and lifters out there in gyms all across America, want to gain muscle and lose weight but they forget to build leg and thigh muscle.
They don’t see the connection between the two. It’s not everyday that a woman wants a man to flex his quadriceps, hamstring or even calf muscle for her.
The woman always wants to see the guns, the biceps and arm muscles, not leg muscles. I get it. I understand all that. Just because leg muscles aren’t show off muscles doesn’t mean they aren’t very important.
The legs are made up of Upper Leg Muscles (quadriceps also called quads, hamstrings and glutes or gluteus maximus) and your Lower Leg Muscle consist of (Calves Gastrocnemius and Soleus muscles). It’s very important to keep your thigh muscles and legs strong.
- 4 Reasons Why You Need Strong Legs:
- Sports
- Balance
- Legs get weaker as you age
- It’s more difficult to build other muscles in your body if you have weak legs
It’s very easy to build your leg strength up by doing a weight lifting and muscle building workout routine 2 times per week. That’s all it takes. Actually it’s difficult to let your legs recover and rest since you’re walking around all day every single day.
But doing leg exercies will help you grow muscle mass more effectively and quickly in other areas of your body.
The main muscle anatomy in the leg is called the quadriceps and they are made up of :
- Rectus Femoris
- Vastus Intermedius
- Vastus Lateralis
- Vastus Medialis
My Top 5 Quadriceps Exercises
Quadriceps Exercises – Barbell Deadlifts
Quadriceps Exercises – Barbell Lunges
Quadriceps Exercises – Hack Squats
Quadriceps Exercises – Leg Extensions
Quadriceps Exercises – Leg Presses
Should I Do Calf Exercises?
Calf raises are great for working out your lower leg muscle groups and they work the gastrocnemius which are important as well for balance and speed. I’d recommend about 4 repetitions of 12-15 reps. You don’t need to lift heavy on calf raises for you to build muscular calves. How much weight to push? Anywhere between 50-90 lbs is enough.
Most gym goers completely ignore their lower body muscles like calves, hamstring and quads. Most of the time these so called bodybuilders make excuses like “walking is good enough for my legs” or even “building leg muscle is really hard on my ankles and knees.”
Wow what an incredible mistake it is to neglect your lower body muscles… Not only does it look quite odd to have a huge v-shaped back, a massive chest and pectoral muscles with shredded biceps and shoulders only to be on top of legs that look like toothpicks.
Click Here For A Very Simple Workout To Build Powerful Legs.
C’mon guys. But not building leg muscle also seriously limits your upper body growth as well. Listen, building leg muscle is critical for gaining huge muscle growth, it’s just a gimmick to make you do lunges all day long.
Most people don’t understand the whole body connection. They think if they do curls then their biceps grow. It’s not that simple. This limited idea of how the body works is the main reason newbie bodybuilders see only limited results from their workouts.
They severely retard their potential muscle growth in their upper bodies as well. Here’s a fact… Your ability to get stronger and bigger goes far past a local muscle stimulation one day in a gym. Most muscle stimulation and growth occurs when the entire body works as a single unit and by doing so adapts to stress. When this happens hormones like testosterone and growth hormone are released like crazy.
Can you see how valuable it is to build leg muscle? These hormones are critical for whole body muscle growth and the lack thereof is what limits people from seeing true muscle growth. Bodybuilders then turn to anabolic steroids.
But these only increase the circulation of these chemicals to attain more muscle. Now we know you want to reach your goals of putting on more muscle but you want to workout and weight train the natural way. Injecting dirty needles full of chemicals into your arms doesn’t sound like fun to you so you need to figure out a way to gain muscle and make more of the hormones naturally.
What is the best way to do this? I know you know the answer. Build leg muscles and do it with max effort! Leg presses, weighted lunges, squats, stiff-legged dead lifts I’m sure you’ve already noticed that when performing these leg exercises with maximum intensity can really thrash you like nothing else.
Nothing can be better for gaining massive muscles all over your body! Believe me, when you’ve done a high intensity leg building workout you’ll wish you never even went to the gym to begin with. This is because leg muscles are the largest muscles in the body but they also allow you to lift the most massive amounts of weights.
The reason to build leg muscles and actually train your legs is because when you do it, your body produces anabolic hormone, which is exactly what you need to build huge muscles.
By increasing anabolic hormones in your body you’ll increase muscles all over the body, not just in your legs.
Building leg muscles plays a huge part in building other muscles. So to put it to you straight, if building huge leg muscles isn’t a part of your current workout routine, you’re limiting how big you can get in your upper body as well. It’s time to focus on gaining strength in your legs.
Let’s challenge ourselves here… Add into your weekly workouts one day where you push yourself to your limits with your legs. Make sure to do compound lifts like leg presses, squats, stiff-legged dead lifts etc. After doing this for 1 to 2 months let me know if you’ve gained more muscle in other areas of your body. It’s pretty much fact that you’ll notice an increase in muscle size and strength in all other areas of your body like your chest, shoulders, back etc.
I can’t force you to do this or to even care about building leg muscles. But even if you don’t care about how big your legs are, you do care about your upper body. So why not build leg muscle so that you can reap the benefits in the parts of your body that you do care about?
It might not see all that logical to you at the beginning, but the fact is that regular, high intensity leg training is absolutely critical to get a massive upper body.
How Often To Workout In Order To Gain Leg Muscle?
If you’re looking to gain leg muscle, discover how working out too much can cause your legs to actually become smaller and weaker rather than thicker, bigger and stronger.
Legs are often overlooked when people are working out because they don’t like to feel weak and wobbly after they workout their leg muscles. You know the feeling right? You do squats, leg presses, leg curls for your hamstrings, calf exercises and you feel like you can’t even walk.
After lifting all that weight with your legs, it’s not fun to then have to walk around all day. But if you wan to gain leg muscles you should workout your legs at the most 3 days per week. I like to recommend working your legs our only 2 days per week.
The reason is because we use our legs for so many things in daily living it’s difficult to give them enough rest.
Building strong and powerful legs helps you in all sports you do, it helps with your balance and it helps you to excrete more hormones that allow you to gain muscles in your upper body not just your lower body. You got that right gaining leg muscles not only gives you that bulky strong look but it also helps you to build a strong upper body.
How Do I Build My Quadriceps?
There are three exercises I like to do that help build quadriceps.
- Squats: They are standard squats where you hold a barbell behind your neck on your shoulders and bend down while standing in place and then stand up straight again.
- Leg Extensions (Curls): This is where you sit down on a machine (like sitting on a chair) and you have weights resting on the tops of your feet and bring your feet up off the ground to straighten your leg so your entire leg is parallel to the ground. This is a great exercise to build quadriceps muscles.
- Lunges: This is where you hold a pair of dumbbells in your hands by your side, and take a big step forward with only one foot. Then you go down as low as possible and then come back to your starting standing position.
Do this 10 times for each leg and that will be 1 set. Do 3 sets of this and you won’t be able to walk the next day. This is a great exercise to build quadriceps muscles as well as calf muscles, hamstrings and balance.
Click Here To Learn Why You Can’t Have A Strong Upper Body If You Have Weak Legs.
Women: It’s Time To Strengthen Your Thighs!
For women to strengthen thighs you need to focus on cardiovascular exercises. Most women don’t want that thick bulky look in their lower extremities that most guys want. They want slender long legs that are sleek and sexy. The best way to strengthen thighs is first to use them.
Do yoga and running to strengthen thighs. Also rebounding is great to strengthen thighs as well. Jump rope is another excellent to get stronger and more toned thighs. You can also do lunges, leg curls and squats but make sure you don’t workout with too much weight.
The more weight you add to strengthen thighs the bigger your legs will look and get. Do lots of reps with low weight and you’ll get strong lean legs right out of magazine!
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