Training for bigger legs

If you’re an athlete and you want to build leg size, you need to ensure you check off a few essentials.

- Firstly, you must find your 1 repetition max (the maximum load you can perform a single rep with).

- Then you should be performing the given exercise at atleast 65% of your 1 rep max. 

- Then you need to think about rep ranges and the number of sets. For muscle hypertrophy (building muscle), 6-12 reps has been shown to give best muscle building results, completing 4-6 sets. 

- Finally, the quality of reps is also important; during the eccentric (lowering) phase of the movement, you should look to perform this slowly and under control whereas the concentric (lifting) phase of the movement should be performed with more speed and explosion.   

Now you’ve got your checklist, you need to cover each movement that the legs create and choose the right exercises to build leg size:

I prefer my athletes to separate leg days into two categories – Hip dominant and knee dominant

Hip dominant day:

Deadlifts 6 sets x 8 reps

Romanian deadlift 4 sets x 12 reps

Sumo deadlift 6 sets x 8 reps

Barbell clean 6 sets x 6 reps

Glute ham raise 6 sets x 8 reps

Barbell bench step ups 6 sets x 8 reps

Knee dominant day:

Squats - 6 sets x 8 reps

Bulgarian split squat 4 sets x 12 reps

Leg extension 4 sets x 12 reps

Prone ham curls 4 sets x 12 reps

Leg press 6 sets x 8 reps

Nordic ham curls 6 sets x 8 reps

There are many more exercises you can do, but the above are my favourite as I feel they tackle all the muscles of the legs.

Further thoughts

During hypertrophy training, you will be causing extensive damage to your muscles and so will need to increase protein levels to aid your body in building muscle. I recommend using MyProtein because of the high quality protein shakes they offer. CLICK HERE to have a look at some of their products. 

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Have a good day

Matt