Building up your leg muscles requires some serious heavy weights involving squats and supplementary exercises. Squats are king when it comes to building leg muscles. I’m going to show you a basic but very effective routine for beefing up your legs.
photo credit: kitAy
But first, understand that building muscle requires one to use progressively heavier and heavier weights. You will build more muscle by lifting 300 pounds than if you were lifting only 100 pounds.
Heavier weights induces more microtrauma to the muscle fibers, allowing for more growth and hypertrophy. Building bigger leg muscles or bodybuilding as a whole is not rocket science.
Lift heavy weights. Do squats. And watch your legs grow. Don't make this any more complicated then it really is.
We’re going to take these basic fact and apply it to the routine I’m showing you here. This is the same routine that got me squatting from 225 lbs to 350 lbs in a little over 14 months. This routine will have you using one main compound lift each for the quads and hamstrings and two other accessory movements to further thrash those muscles into new growth.
Routine Structure
- For the quads, you’ll do squats as the main lift along with leg extensions and leg presses and supplementaries.
- For the hamstrings, you’ll do stiff legged deadlift along with lying hamstring curls and glute ham raises.
- For calves, you’ll be alternating standing calf raises and sitting calf raises each week. The entire lower body will be worked once a week.
A note of caution, only attempt this routine if you've been lifting for at least a year with a basic strength foundation in the lower body. I recommend you be able to squat at least 185 lbs before doing this routine. This is not a program for beginners.
Here’s the routine:
Squats 3×5 (sets x reps), rest 2 minutes in between sets
Leg press 2×15 rest pause twice, rest 2 minutes in between sets
Leg extension 2×20 rest pause twice, rest 2 minutes in between sets
Stiff leg deadlift 3×5, rest 3 minutes in between sets
Glute ham raise 3×8, rest 3 minutes in between sets
Lying leg curl 3×15 rest pause twice, rest 3 minutes in between sets
standing calf raises 10 minute timed zone; do as many reps as you can in 10 minutes
sitting calf raises 10 minute timed zone; do as many reps as you can in 10 minutes
Notes
- For rest pause, you will do the required amount of reps, then take either 15 deep slow breaths or 20 seconds rest and crank out a few more reps, rest again briefly and crank out more reps to positive failure. Rest pause saves time and adds total volume efficiently by increasing work rate and allowing your body to adapt to higher training stresses. You’ll become stronger and more efficient at recruiting motor units for bigger leg muscles.
- Increase the rest periods for straight sets if you can’t complete the required number of reps with the given exercise, this applies especially true to squats and stiff legged deadlifts since they’re very neural intensive and requires ample time to fully recover in between sets.
- For calves, alternate between standing and sitting raises each week; for example, on week 1 you will start with standing version, on week 2 change to sitting variation, record the number of reps you do each week and try to beat that number every workout.
-Use progressive overload by lifting heavier and heavier weights, you may use any method of progression here though that involves the manipulation of load: microloading, cycling load.
* microloading: increase a small amount of weight, about 1-2.5 lbs. per week
- Alternatively, if you are short on time and can't spend 45 minutes to an hour on this routine, you can speed up the workout time by doing each exercise in a circuit. Drop the calf raises and do 3 straight sets of 20 reps instead. Do one exercise back-to-back after another without resting, then take a 2-3 minute rest and repeat the circuit. This circuit style is based on a high intensity interval approach where you keep up a high work rate to increase work capacity.
Progressive Overload through increased loading
You'll use what I call cycling loading: increase weight by 5 lbs. for several weeks at at a time until you reach a limit of not being able to do the required amount of repetitions in a set, then scale back to starting weight plus 5 lbs. and work your way back up to a new PR.
For example,
starting weight for squat: 100 lbs. 5x5 (sets x reps)
- workout 1: 100 lbs. 5x5
- workout 2: 105 lbs. 5x5
- workout 3: 110 lbs. 4x5, 1x4, weights feel heavier
- workout 4: 115 lbs. 4x5, 1x4, weights feel more heavier
- workout 5: 120 lbs. 3x5, 2x4
- workout 6: 125 lbs. 2x5, 3x3, you've reached the lower limit of 3 reps on a set, now time to scale back to 100 lbs. and add 5 lbs. to set starting weight, workout 7 will start with 105lbs.
- workout 7: 105 lbs. 5x5 and so on working your way back up to beat the 125 lbs. personal record.
- workout 8: 110 lbs. 5x5, feels really light so you'll jump 10 pounds for next workout
- workout 9: 120 lbs. 4x5, 1x4, new PR, continue adding weight for next workout
- workout 10: 125 lbs. 4x5, 1x4, another new PR
And this loading cyclying method continues until you choose otherwise.
-you should be able to complete the entire workout in under 50 minutes to under an hour. If not, then you’re either resting too much in between sets, exercises, or just plain fooling around/losing focus. If you're taking more than an hour because you need the rest, then it's probably because you're not ready for this routine yet and need to go back to developing a basic strength foundation on the lower body.
-every 6-8 weeks, I recommend dropping this routine and doing just one full set of 20 reps for squats. This offers a nice, low volume change to the high volume routine outlined here. Check out Dr. Randall Stroussen's "Super Squats: How to Gain 30 pounds of Muscle in Six Weeks" for a step-by-step program on beefing up your legs and entire body with a 20 rep squat routine.
-don’t go to failure on all sets for all exercises, only attempt positive concentric failure on at most one set per exercise, going to failure too often “fries” the nerves and leaves you plateauing early and easily.
Try this workout for your next training cycle and let me hear your experiences and thoughts on it. Email me at ZQH245@gmail.com and let me know how well you do. Take care and get training!
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