Don't Neglect Your Leg Training

Gainin · #1 (**permalink**) 12-29-2008

Neglect Your Leg Training And Every Muscle Group Will Suffer
Written by Sean Nalewanyj

Let’s face it; the honest truth is that a good portion of lifters in the gym just don’t seem to care too much about training their lower body.

I mean, a thick pair of quadriceps aren’t exactly what most people would consider a “showy” muscle... and I don’t think there’s anyone out there who can remember the last time a woman asked him to “flex his hamstring” for her. Everyone is so hell-bent on having a wide, thick upper body that they either neglect or flat-out ignore the other half of their muscles down below.

They’ll come up with just about any excuse to avoid hard and heavy leg training, citing such responses as “I just run to develop my legs”, “squats are hard on my knees”, or some other bogus reason along those lines.
I cannot even begin to stress how costly a mistake this really is...
Not only does it look ridiculous having a ripped and muscular upper body sitting atop a pair of toothpicks-for-legs... but what if I told you that your refusal to place equal muscle building focus on your lower body was actually limiting the amount of muscle you could gain in your chest, back, arms and shoulders?

You might think it was nothing more than a cheap tactic to get you into the squat rack, but it really is true.

See, most people think of weight training as a simple black and white issue of “train muscle X using exercise Y, and muscle X will become bigger and stronger”.

This limited view of muscle growth is one of the primary reasons why most trainees fail to maximize their results in the gym. They end up settling for mediocrity and never achieving the kind of explosive, monster muscle gains that they are truly capable of.

Here’s the truth…
The muscle building mechanism within the body goes far beyond a simple localized event that happens at the level of the muscle tissue itself!
A great deal of muscle growth also results as the entire body as a whole is placed under stress and adapts on a holistic level. This is achieved through the increased secretion of important hormones such as testosterone and growth hormone.

These hormones are considered the “holy grail” of muscle growth, as they are one of the primary limiting factors that determines how much muscle any given individual can ultimately gain. When bodybuilders inject anabolic steroids into their bodies, all they are really doing is increasing the circulation of these important substances.

Now, because you’re a natural trainee and jamming a roid-filled needle into your butt just isn’t your style, you’ve got to find other methods of speeding up the production of these muscle-increasing compounds.

And what is one of the most effective ways to do this?

You guessed it…
Hard and heavy leg training!

Squats, leg presses, lunges, stiff-legged deadlifts…
Did you ever notice how incredibly challenging and downright gut wrenching these exercises can be when performed to a high level of intensity?

After finishing an all out set of these lifts you may find yourself wishing that you hadn’t come to the gym in the first place. This is because they involve the largest muscle groups on your body and allow you to move massive amounts of weight.

The reality, however, is that while these leg exercises require a lot of mental toughness and willpower to stick to, their intense difficulty is one of the key ways to really force your body to rev up its anabolic hormone production.
Greater anabolic hormone levels means greater muscle size and strength, not only for your lower body, but for your entire upper body as well.

What this means is that if leg training is not a regular part of your workout schedule (or if it is part of your schedule but is simply treated as an after-thought), you are missing out on significant total body gains that you could otherwise be achieving.

Really, take me up on this offer…
Incorporate a hard and intense day of leg training into your weekly workout schedule. Include the most basic compound lifts such as squats, leg presses and stiff-legged deadlifts, and focus on pushing yourself to the limit and adding more weight to the bar each week.

Try this out for 4-8 weeks, and then come back and tell me what you notice.
If you’re like 99% of the population, you’ll report that your strength on every single upper body exercise shot through the roof... and that your chest, back, arms and shoulders became noticeably thicker and more muscular as a result.

If you truly don’t care about the size of your legs, then fine, I can’t force you to do so. However, if not for the sake of your lower body, then at least include hard and intense leg training for the sake of those upper body muscles that you care so much about.

It may not seem logical at first glance... but the plain reality is that intense and consistent leg training really is one of the true “secrets” to a massive, ripped and strong upper body!