Building aesthic legs

Any smart architectural structure that is built begins with a strong lower foundation. Whether it’s a building or house, you build from the bottom up. This is the same in nature. A tree’s trunk is the strongest part of the tree. So why not with our bodies’ a well? Simple answer. Most people are lazy and don’t want to train legs. Period. The funny fact is that when I mean most “people” I mean most men, because it can be the opposite for females. They spend more time trying to build a booty and hamstrings than most men in the gym. So what does building an aesthetic strong foundation mean? Three things. One that your legs are build strong, two that they are functional and third that they have equal symmetry, proportion and strength from back to front side to side. Sounds like a look of work right? Well not more than spending an entire workout training back from all angles and set points. So let’s get to the essentials of building a strong, functional and aesthetic lower body. This applies for both females and males. But let’s get something clear right away, this doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time, hard work and consistency. So I’ve probably lost 80% of the readers with that last sentence. For the remaining 20% of you willing to put in the work let’s get to it.

• Strength -

Building strength is actually faster than building big legs. Or “toned’ if you like to call it that way for the ladies. This is because your body needs to get stronger before it can immediately become bigger. To do this your lower body workouts need two things. High intensity and the right exercises. Choose compound exercises like the leg press, squat, hack squat, walking lunges and deadlifts to build a strong core leg foundation. Secondly, stay within a rep range of 4-6 and 6-8. This mean you will be able to load up more weight on these movements and truly trigger your strength to raise. Slowly over time increase the work load and keep the rep range the same. Size will come with this as well but you will notice your strength levels grow faster.

• Functionality

What does a pair of functional legs mean? This means you can run, sprint, job and jump with them and they won’t be acting stiff on you all the time. The problem with adding size to your lower limbs sometimes is that you lose flexibility and motion in them. So it’s crucial to stretch them at some point during your training (preferably after) so you can maintain healthy mobility in your hips and knees. This also means that adding a little of spinning or stairmaster cardio wouldn’t hurt you. Throwing in some exercises like jumping boxes or even upright bodyweight squat jumps might not be a bad thing to implement in your training. Pushing a weighted sled is a great way to keep your legs functional as well. After all, you don’t want legs that are big and strong and yet can’t transfer functionality in other activities.

• Aesthetics

Here’s where a lot of people make their mistakes. As I mentioned above, aesthetics mean that your quads and hamstrings are similar in strength, size and conditioning. It also means that you if you have any unbalances that you should fix that. How? Unilateral exercises like the leg press and lunges. But how do we achieve a round, full look to our lower bodies? I’ll tell you a few tricks and tips below.

• Ladies – add some isolation glute exercises like the buttmaster or kickbacks on the floor. Make sure you don’t just do machine movements, implement heavier movements like the squat and stiff leg deadlifts in your regimen

• Feet Placement can make a HUGE difference. For example, if you are trying to build the outer quads then start placing your feet closer than shoulder width apart on your leg press, smith machine squats or any other movement. If you are trying to build those inner quads than start placing your feet more outwards wider than shoulder width. If you are on the leg press the lower you place your feet the more quad interaction you will have. The higher the feet on the platform the more hamstrings and glutes will be involved. Know what you need and want to build with feet placement.

• Train with both unilateral (one leg at a time) exercises and bilateral movements. This will guarantee over time that one leg isn’t’ bigger or stronger than the other.

#leg