What’s the best excersise or excercise program to increase leg size and strength barring squats?
First off, let me say I’ve given up on my calves. They’re just not going to get big because there’s hardly any muscle belly there to build mass on. But as for my upper legs, I’d like to work them up to a slightly bigger size. Not huge; I don’t want to have to buy new clothes or anything like that, but just a bit bigger. The difficulty is that I really can’t do squats. I’ve tried to do squats, and was never able to advance beyond a relatively modest poundage without incurring disturbing pains in my back. Once or twice over my many years of working out, I’ve even injured myself doing squats to the point of having to skip workouts for a couple of weeks.
My leg program now is:
Hamstring curls, two sets of 10
Leg extensions, two sets of 10
Leg presses, warm-up set 20x90 followed by three sets in descending poundages
Adduction machine, two sets of 10
Abduction machine, two sets of 10
The poundages on all these routines are ‘comfortably difficult’–I have to work to complete them, but I’m not straining or grimacing like someone trying to break a world’s record. An exception would be the leg press, as I have to work quite hard to complete my heavy set, at 290#. The problem here is I’m not comfortable upping the poundage; since I start off with my legs fairly well bent. Would it be beneficial if I were to increase the angle of my knees; that is, move the seat farther back from the resistance platform, and go to a higher poundage? The problem with that approach is that then I would lose the range of motion.
What approaches could I try here? Should I go to lower poundages and higher reps? And what about lunges? I haven’t been doing them, because I don’t really have the time to devote to more legwork, but I could consider skipping part of my routine now to do them.
I’d try to figure out a way to increase the amount you’re lifting on the leg press, I’d increase the amount on the leg extensions, and I’d increase the amount on the leg curl. Just like your arms, where the triceps make up a high percentage of the mass of the arm but often get overlooked because everyone thinks “biceps” when talking about arms, I think hamstrings get overlooked when talking about legs.
Getting the right angle on the leg press machine is kind of hard for just the reason you’ve pointed out - getting a full range of motion. My legs are very short, so I have to move the seat up really far just to be use the machine. Unfortunately, it also means that I don’t have a very good range of motion. I try and compensate through leg extensions and hamstring curls.
For some reason (purely preference, I suppose), I can’t do lunges to save my soul.
(One good thing about having short legs is that it makes my calves look HUGE - I guess you could cut your feet off).
Stair climbing–preferably the real thing–is great for your legs and ass, just be sure to keep your abs tight so it’s your legs doing most of the work.
Running up hills backwards will make your calves quiver after just a couple minutes–doing these always gives me that delicious tightness in my legs the following day.
My concern with leg-press starting angle revolves largely around the worry of putting too much stress on the hipjoint at an unfavorable angle for it. I’m decades away from the age of having to worry about a fragile hip, but still, it concerns me. If it means anything to anybody, I’m using a Cybex seated leg press and i have the seat position set to 4. If I move it any closer my knees will be under my chin, almost.
Lucky you. I look like Gandhi below the knee. Using both thumbs and forefingers, I can form a circle below my knee and move it all the way down without separating my hands.
(And don’t tell me to do calf raises…I did those for years and nothing.)
I used to do lots of full squats, but had to quit when I threw out my lower back deadlifting. As such, I am pretty well-versed in substitutes that do not involve the lower back.
In addition to what’s been suggested, I would recommend Roman-chair squats. These are done on a special apparatus that not many gyms have (this is not the same apparatus as the one used for Roman chair situps)*:
The tops of your feet are held in place under a low, parallel-to-floor platform while the back of your calves press against a vertical padded surface. Keeping your upper body straight, bend at the knees until your thighs are parallel to the floor. Then straighten up. You will find that this exercise is very effective for bringing out the muscles on the front of the leg, especially high, near the groin.
Sissy squats (named for Sisyphus of mythology) are another good substitute for full squats – they are essentially squats with little or no weight, with the shoulders remaining in the same vertical plane as the hips – I wrap a towel around a vertical pole for balance. The effect is similar to Roman chair squats, with a little more effect on the muscles right above the knee.
I have found lunges good at working the hamstrings and glutes.
Hack squats are another popular leg exercise. (They’re done on that sliding, 45-degree-angled machine). I have had trouble doing them – they aggravate my back.
IME, running (as opposed to jogging) is very effective at hardening up the muscles of the lower body and mid-section. I run 2-3 miles, aiming for a 7-minute-mile pace. I used to do stairs, but found them tough on my knees.
*I once rigged up a reasonable home structure for Roman chair squats using assorted benches and weights.
Agreed. When I was younger and didn’t have a car, I used to bike several miles a day just getting places I wanted to go, not even counting time spent on mountain trails. Even though I’ve grown slothful of late, I still have pretty strong legs. If you want to increase your muscle development even further, get some panniers and put weights in them, then go up a steep hill.
Don’t just give up and assume you’ll never be able to do squats, either. Figure out what’s giving you difficulty, and see if it’s something you can correct. A lack of flexibility can be fixed by stretching. A weak posterior chain can be fixed by deadlifts and olympic lifts.
I agree with both stairclimbing and bike riding being the best. it really depends on what type of muscle your looking for. long lean or bulky squat muscle, depending on the answer there would be a different exercise for either option.
which would you rather have sprinter or marathon runner legs.
Unfortunately I gotta problem with deadlifts too. It’s like my arms are too short or something, because the only way I can reach the bar is by bowing my back in exactly the way it shouldn’t be done to pick up a heavy weight. If I have my back farther back, then the bar hits my shins on the way up. But the Olympic lift sounds like a good idea–assuming that the whole-body-and-legs aspect of this movement would compensate for the fact that I wouldn’t be using envelope-pushing poundages. And, come to think of it, I could manage a deadlift-like movement with a dumbbell in either hand. The dumbbells in our gym go up to 100, so if I ever work up to needing both of those I’ll be proud of myself.
While we’re on the subject of legs, what’s the best exercise for increasing muscle in the glute area? I do squats, and they work well. But is there anything better? I’m happy with my glutes, but since I turned 35, I’m trying to protect myself from developing the flat ass that old guys seem to get.
I am far from an expert in this area but I was once trained by a successful amateur bodybuilder who told me to do three sets in increasing weight, decreasing reps, should be able to hit 8 reps (no fewer than 6) on the third set. I am sure this is open to dispute, however.
I’d try “walking lunges” if I were you. They’re a good substitute for squats, in that they work the same leg muscles as squats, but they allow you to keep your back straight all the time.
Here’s the drill:
Hold a dumbell in each hand, allowing your arms to hang freely at your sides. I do these with 20-pounders, but you could up the weight to your comfort level.
Keep your back upright, and don’t allow your shoulders to round forward.
Take alternating strides, extending your front foot a decent way out, then allowing your back knee to sink towards the floor.
If you do it right, your front knee never extends past your toes (think right angle on the front leg when you’re in the down position), and your back knee seems to go almost straight up and down.
Then step forward to the standing position repeat with the other foot forward.
With 20 pounds in each hand, I can manage 10 reps on each leg (20 steps total) before I just about collapse. It’s a great excercise.
While bike riding will build the leg muscles quite nicely, one shouldn’t go at it like a weightlifting session. I’ve seen many people put the bike in a big gear that’s hard to pedal, thinking that the harder the better and they ‘feel the burn’ in a big gear. That’s hard on the knees and just not a fun way to ride. Rather, a smaller gear and a higher cadence will work as well and is much easier to do. Think ‘lighter resistance, higher reps’. The amount of work done is the same. My legs are well developed, but it’s literally taken millions of reps (thousands of miles) to get here.
Also, I’ve seen many people on ill fitting bikes. A seat that is too low will overwork the quads, and people mistakenly think that is a good thing. It’s not. At the end of a bike ride, your legs shouldn’t feel like you just finished a weightlifting session.
Here is a rough guide to sizing a bike: When you straddle the bike with both your feet flat on the ground, the top tube should be just below your crotch. When you are riding the bike, the seat shoud be adjusted so that each leg is just slightly short of full extention as it reaches the bottom of the pedal stroke.
You should consider hiring a personal trainer to work with you, even if it’s just for a few workouts. Also, you don’t need to do massive amounts of weight on squats for them to be effective. Try doing sets of 20 with relatively light weight and see how that makes your legs feel.
And keep doing the calf raises. Calves are one of the hardest muscles in the body to force to grow, since their so dense and tough. I found I had to do a LOT of weight (like close to 900 pounds on my last set of donkey calf raises) in order to make them grow.
Leg presses and squats both involve the glutes. According to the label on my gym’s leg press machine, raising the seat will intensify the involvement of the hip muscles, which I assume includes glutes.
Again according to the labeling at my gym, to really isolate the glutes you should do any abduction movement with your legs…that is, spreading the legs apart, or back one at a time.
