More than half of all lifters and gym-goers never train or work their legs in the gym. If your primary goal is to build massive amounts of muscle, then you have got to train your legs, specifically your entire lower body. This includes abs, lower back, quads/thighs, hamstrings, and calves. The single squat movement works over 200 muscles in the body. You'll be neglecting half your body if you don't train your legs. Build muscle in your legs and you'll bump up in body weight.
Leg training also stimulates more natural growth hormones, HGH release, and that allows you to build more muscle all over your body. This is where the idea of squats building biceps comes from.
Don't be one of those guys in the gym who only does bench press and curls. Train your legs. Train your entire body as a single unit. So here are 3 rules to pay attention to if you want to build bigger legs and gain lower body strength,
1) Use Compound Exercises
These exercises include squats, deadlift, and their variations. Here's a list of what I believe to be the most effective lower body exercises for building muscle and strength,
squats, hack squats, db squats, box squats, front squat, single leg squat
deadlift, stiff leg deadlift, rack deadlift, sumo deadlift, trap-bar deadlift, suitcase deadlfit, dumbbell deadlift
glute ham raises
leg press
Your leg routine, if you're relatively new to lifting, should focus on either the squat or deadlift.
2) Progressive Overload
Like any exercise or workouts you do, you have to progressively overload your body and make your body work harder and harder over a period of time (see progressive overload article). The best way to do this is to use repetition and weight progression. Let's take the squat as an example,
Starting weight at 150 lbs or squat for 2 sets of 5-8 reps. Your goal is to get both sets of 8 reps using rep progression first with 5 reps being the minimum, then increase the weight by 5 lbs through weight progression and work your way back up to 8 reps for both sets.
workout 1- 150 lbs 8, 6
workout 2- 150 lbs 8, 7
workout 3- 150 lbs 8, 8, you did 2 sets of 8, now add 5 lbs or the next workout
workout 4- 155 lbs 8, 6
workout 5- 155 lbs 8, 7
workout 6- 155 lbs 8, 8
So in 6 workouts you went from 150 lbs with 8, reps to 155 lbs with 2 sets of 8. This is just a hypothetical example and your workouts might not go as smoth since you might hit a stumbling block and it might take you a little longer than 5 workouts to add 5 lbs to the bar. But the idea is the same. Use both weight and repetition progression for your lower body workouts.
Repetition Schemes
And you can take the progressive overload methods and use it with multiple rep ranges. If you've just starting out, go with 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps or 10-12 rep schemes. Then when you've adapted to the exercises, us ea heavier 5-8 or even 3-5 rep range.
A common but basic program used to build up the legs and lower body is the 5x5 program (link to 5x5 article) since each day focuses on squats and deadlift.
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