Legs

The_Scary_Man

I have been training hard now for a few months and am delighted with the gains I have been making in strength and size but I have one question with regard to my legs.

I have noticed some growth in my legs since I started but it is all concentrated in the upper part of the thigh.

My question is whether this is the normal pattern that the growth of the legs will take or is it a result of the types of excercises I am doing when I train?

On my leg day I do;

Squats 3 sets of 8

Leg Presses 3 sets of 10

Seated Calf Raises 3 Sets of 8

Stiff Legged Deadlifts 3 sets of 8

Single Leg Squats 3 Sets of 8

Thanks

logic1

What kind of weight did you start out using on each lift and what have you moved up to?

If you're seeing good gains in strength then you should also be seeing gains in size.

Are you eating enough and getting enough rest?

Are you slightly overtraining legs?

.logic.

The_Scary_Man

Hi Logic,

Its not that I haven't seen growth in my legs, I have. The thing is the growth is all concentrated in the upper portion of the thigh so that my thigh just over the knee is still the same size it was when I started.

I don't know if I'm explaining this too well but my question is if I am seeing growth in the legs should the growth be uniform throughout the full length of the muscle and if its not is it a physiological thing or is it down to the type of training I am doing?

To answer your other questions

Weights - I have been increasing steadily on all excercises taking squatting as an example I have gone from 40kg on the olympic bar in late December to 65kg now ( I started a little lower to get my technique right)

Eating and Rest - I train four days a week Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and I am eating well and taking protein supplements (two shakes a day)

I only train my legs once a week (Sat) so I don't think I am overtraining.

Thanks

yellum

How deep do you squat ?

Have you heard of sissy squats ? Tried them ?

My upper legs grow more than the bits around the knee but I still get good growth around that knee.

The_Scary_Man

I squat down to at least parallel to the ground.

What are these sissy squats you speak of?

logic1

Full deep squats, hack squats and leg pressing with the toes turned out should isolate the teardrop. Again with bigger weight comes bigger joint stress so be careful.

.logic.

photty

if you want decent legs then try cycling when the summer swings around..

yellum

http://www.cbass.com/Squats.htm

Deep Squats, get that ass touching the ground !

Kell

While we're on this thread, how do I go about getting bigger legs, almost specifically, calves? I used to mountain bike 4 days a week, and never had leg muscle to show, and now I hill walk (or mountain walk) and again no apreciable gain. A friend from years ago pointed out that as my femur (think thats the thigh bone) is quite long, that my legs work more from leverage than muscle. Is there any way I can get around this and start building calves? Running is the obvious one, but I cant stand running.

logic1

Originally posted by Kell
While we're on this thread, how do I go about getting bigger legs, almost specifically, calves?

Standing/seated calve raises. Legpress calve press, toe presses.

.logic.

logic1

Originally posted by yellum
http://www.cbass.com/Squats.htm

Deep Squats, get that ass touching the ground !

They're the worst set of legs I've ever seen Nice form though.

.logic.

yellum

Calves grew for me when I just hurt the bastards like mad. I used to do a mix of heavy weight with high reps - 20-30 for a lot of sets and then extremely heavy weight ( full stack and a 13st guy hanging off the back ) for 15-20 reps.

I did get some nice growth but the rugby players in the gym always had thicker calves from years of playing and training.

logic1

Originally posted by yellum
Calves grew for me when I just hurt the bastards like mad. I used to do a mix of heavy weight with high reps - 20-30 for a lot of sets and then extremely heavy weight ( full stack and a 13st guy hanging off the back ) for 15-20 reps.

Yeah Kell thing about calves is they need to be hit hard and then harder like you can see yellum does.

Calves are naturally made for endurance, lots of reps with medium weight (i.e. walking, running, swimming etc etc..) you use them everyday constantly so to build them you really need to abuse them.

You'll also find some of your heaviest lifts will be your calves they get extremly strong quite fast.

.logic.