If you’re looking to build muscle, whether your reasons are for weight loss (more muscle = faster metabolism), or to build mass, building strong legs through leg training is vitally important. Leg training stimulates some of the largest muscles in your body, which helps create a metabolic state that is conducive to muscle-building. Leg training can also help you to build muscle in your upper body, as working all the major muscles in your body will lead to faster and better results. Here’s how to build strong legs through leg training.
Start With Treating Legs as a Weak Point – Don’t treat training your legs as an afterthought. Instead, put as much focus on training your legs as you do the rest of your body.
Your Most Important Movement – Is Squats – Squats are hard. They’re not much fun. But, you should learn to love them – if for no other reason is they are the single most important movement for building your legs. They work all the muscles in your legs as well as your glutes, all at one time. Because they take more effort than other exercises, start your leg workouts with squats.
If you’re workout out alone, it’s safer to do your squats in a Smith Cage, which allows you to control the movement of the barbell within an area that if you loose your balance, the cage (along with its associated safety stops) can keep the bar from falling on you.
Start Light and Work Up Your Weight – Your should go deep with your squats. But, since heavy weights can be hard on your knees, start with light weights, and build your legs up to handle heaver weight over time. If you start with lower weight / higher reps / more sets, you’ll quickly build your legs up to start adding weight. Focus more on going deep, proper breathing, and good form before adding more weight.
To Vary Your Squat Workouts – Move Your Foot Position – Moving your feet wider or narrower, pointing your toes in or out, all can activate different muscle groups in your legs, helping you to not only fight boredom, but make your workout more effective.
Focus On Your Quads – Leg Extensions, Squats, Single Leg Presses, and Front Squats are great ways to put additional focus on your quadriceps.
Don’t Forget Your Hamstrings – If you split your workouts so that one day you do your quads, and the next time you work legs, you then target your hamstrings, you won’t neglect one muscle group over the other.
Go For Higher Reps – The usual recommendation for most strength exercises is to shoot for 8-12 reps per set. For your legs, try for 12-15. It takes a bit longer for blood to make it down to your legs than it would for upper body exercises, so you’ll more than likely find you’ll have better results with higher reps.
And, at Fitness 4 Home Superstore, we carry a full range of strength equipment designed to help you focus your leg training workouts. Stop into any of our three Phoenix area stores to see our full selection of leg training equipment today!
