I’m trying to build muscle mass and strength in my legs. I’ll be doing high weight and low reps. But I don’t want to do any exercises that involve putting a heavy bar across the shoulders: don’t get me wrong, I used to do squats and they feel like one of the most effective exercises out there, but I just don’t like the idea of loading 250-300lbs onto my neck and letting my spine support it.
So I’m looking for, preferably, 8-10 good leg exercises for building muscle and strength that I can cycle through. Suggestions? If you can post a youtube video to demonstrate each exercise that would be helpful.
Leg press machines/leg extensions.
You should be aware that squats work more than just your quads, the spinal erectors, hamstrings and the glutes play a role, too.
How it goodness’ name will running will strength and muscle? Dear me. And please explain how weightless squats, or even calf raises (:eek:) are a substitute for the 250-300lb squats mentioned in the OP?
I take it you are looking for leg workouts that target the quadriceps, as opposed to the hamstrings. Take a look through ExRx’s list here. Some suggestions are the hack squat, which is held like a deadlift but behind your legs, but I find this movement particularly awkward. I know some people who substitute the classic deadlift for squats but it is not quite the same movement.
Someone will come along and suggest leg presses, which should be avoided as they place the lower back at risk. You will find unfortunately that there is no genuine replacement for them (squats)
Well, none of those is going to really build mass. For that, you need to be working heavy weights in a low rep range (~5 reps for strength, 8-12 for hypertrophy).
Off the top of my head, maybe front squats, where the bar rests across the delts. It’s a harder movement than back squats, so you won’t be pushing as much weight either. There’s also goblet squats, done with a large dumbbell held in front of you.
You may also try back squats in the low bar position, where the bar sits on top of the anterior deltoids rather on top of the traps and the base of the neck. It’s a bit awkward at first, but this is my preferred method.
I do a lot of running and I will probably do some plyometrics, but as people have pointed out, these exercises aren’t really what I’m looking for. I’m looking for gym-based exercises that use heavy weights to build muscle mass and strength.
I’m mainly looking for exercises that target the quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes, but yes taking squats out of the mix means I’m especially running low on quadricep exercises. Why do you say leg presses are bad for the back? I use a leg press machine like the one this guy is on.
How do the “back squats in the low bar position” work? Do you have a video? Goblet squats sound good but I imagine it’d be too tough on your shoulders to hold up any genuinely heavy weight.
Thanks for the links runner pat and dogeman, I’ll have a look through that list.
The best description of a low-bar squat is in the book “Starting Strength” by Mark Rippetoe. He dedicates an entire chapter to that one movement, it’s the variation he usually coaches. Here’s a YouTube clip where he’s coaching a kid on the squat and although they’re working on hip drive in that video, he’s using a low-bar position (Grip isn’t right, though. Wrists shouldn’t be cocked back like that, back of the hand should be in line with the forearm). Here’s a clip of Rippetoe himself squatting 315x10, again using the low bar position. And here’s a page with a photo illustrating low-bar position.
As long as you’re standing, your legs are supporting your spine. Do you have any specific concerns, or are you just not comfortable with the idea of having a bar on your shoulders?
I saw the hack squat on the site that was posted further up the thread and it didn’t look like the demonstrator got very low with it. But the girl in that video (who scares me a bit) is getting her thighs down to parallel. Ever done the hack squats yourself? Are they effective? How much weight can you load up before it topples you over?
Yes, I have done them - I have lower back issues that preclude back squats. But I go to parallel.
You can’t handle as much weight as in a back squat, since you are focusing more effort on the front thigh and less on the glutes and lower back. I find them safer than back squats, since if you get stuck with a weight you can just drop it. I use the big 45 lb. plates so it won’t hit my heels.
Balancing it is easier than with front or back squats since the center of mass is lower.
Could someone explain to me the rationale behind the statements on several of these sites that heavy leg work is a prerequisite for overall muscle hypertrophy (“getting bigger”)? Or more precisely the central role that these sites seem to put on heavy weight leg work. Jet Jaguar I am particularly interested in your answer as you seem to be most focused on endurance athletics such as The Ironman.
Is heavy leg work so critical if you are not a competitive power lifter, a bodybuilder, or a football lineman? I’m a 50 year interested in overall health first and foremost, then maintenance of muscle mass, and keeping my fat percentage down. When I recreationally compete it is in triathlons but currently I am spending more energy on weights and intervals (including some Tabata intervals) than on distance training. Maybe next year I’ll get back into triathlons. I do some Deadlifts, step-ups, and lunges, but really tend to give it less focus on my weight training days than I do the upper body work and compound moves as I (?mistakenly?) believe that my interval training (of various sorts but obviously leg focused) covers me there. My fantasy physique goal is not huge mass but lean and sinewy.
Should I be giving heavy leg work more careful focussed attention and if so why?
The way I understand it is that: your legs are your largest muscle group and therefore when you work out legs you get a systemic response not just a local response.
I’m not sure that there is any scientific basis for this but it makes sense to me.
A major benefit of leg work is that, proportionally, the legs are the largest and strongest muscle groups in the body. Squats in particular are popular because they recruit the most muscle groups of any movement, especially if you are squatting free weights rather than using a Smith machine because you have to stabilize and control the path of the weight yourself. Because of the large amount of muscle recruitment, leg exercises stimulate the release of the greatest amount of growth hormones of any exercise.
The importance of heavy weights is because muscles are made up of different fiber types, which respond to different weight ranges. At loads light enough to perform more than about 15-20 reps, you’re strictly building muscular endurance. You’re not getting much stronger, but you’ll be able to perform work for a longer period of time before failure. High weights at low reps (5 or less), you’re focusing primarily on maximizing strength. The 8-12 rep zone is the sweet spot for hypertrophy, but even at that range you’re moving a good amount of weight, hence the emphasis on heavy work.
Personally, I mainly lift heavy, in the 5-rep range, because my goal is to maximize strength and I don’t really care about aesthetics. Few endurance athletes lift that heavy, but I do it to make everyday tasks like hauling boxes into the attic easier as much as any thing else. Strength training has been shown to benefit endurance sports because central nervous system adaptations that take place ensure that neuromuscular activation remains high in fatigued muscles. Also, studies show that it reduces the rate of injury, and fewer missed training days can only be a positive.
Thanks. That was enough for me to focus on lower body higher weights tonight, including squats. (Although I fear my form is crap, despite having watched the clips. I have a home gym set-up - free weights, rack, barbell and dumbbells, dip bar - and make do the best I can)
Also, how do you balance and periodize your weight training and your various endurance work-outs, or do you emphasize interval work even for half-Ironman distances and above?
Hmmm. With that explanation as a start I did a little bit of literature searching. The explanation makes sense but often that which makes sense turns out to not be true. In this case it seems like it may not be. Or at least not completely true.
Here’s the first study. They didn’t use high weight/low volume but high volume of leg resistance exercises were enough to cause marked elevations of growth hormone and IGF-1 compared to doing curls alone. So far so good. But that elevation did not translate into a bigger response to the curls: there was “no differences between conditions” Which led the authors to “conclude that the transient increases in endogenous purportedly anabolic hormones do not enhance fed-state anabolic signalling”
The second study (same authors) used individuals as their own controls and found that acute rises in endogenous anabolic hormones did not result in greater strength increases.
Now these studies were in young athletic men. It may be true that such is the case for that population, which likely has a fairly healthy baseline of GH and testosterone, but that the anabolic effects of working the large leg muscles will still be helpful to those who are running lower GH levels, either due to obesity or age.
I think I’ll still do more squats.
Another question: is there any recommendation of what kind of ratio is preferred for bench RM-1 to squat RM-1?
