So I need some help. Ive been doing all my upper and lower body workouts usually around the 4-6 rep range. Now my upper body continues to get stronger and bigger at the same time, but my lower body gets stronger but seems like I gain no additional size. I mean my legs are pretty strong (I squat 340 5x5 and go up 5 lbs per week), but they don’t really look like it and it’s starting to bother me.
It may just be b/c my upper body is pretty wide and thick and it’s just an illusion, but regardless I need to fix it. Any advice on what a good rep range is just for size? I’ve searched the forums and haven’t really seen anything about it and I was wondering if you guys could help me out. Thx.
Try pushing up the weight for the squats, instead of actually 5X5 try and do enough weight that its 5-5-4-3-3 or something like that then keep the weight the same till you can do it 5X5. Also you could try going deeper on the squats.
Try giving higher reps a shot on your leg day. 10 or more. I do high reps on one week and low reps the next and so on. My reps on the squat never go lower than 12 though. I dont go as heavy as you but enough to feel the load and perform deep “true” squats and I have the opposite of your issue going on. So it works for me. my two centavos.
Ok thanks guys, and I already go below parallel. Strength coaches always made me do that. I think I’m gonna give the higher reps a shot, never really done that before. Growning_boy do you stay 10+ for all your leg lifts, like front squat and such?
And yah I ran the 100 meter for my track team in HS last year, didn’t make my legs bigger lol. The coaches always said the guys with the lean legs and the slim calves were the fastest and I ran a sub 4.6 at 235 lbs so idk where that fits in.
Along with heavy/low-rep squats, include something like leg press or hack squat machine with high ROM and 10-20 reps afterwards. This way you can still get in your compound movement, but the leg press or hack squat can add that extra stimulation. CT had some good ideas for the hack squat machine in one of his leg articles.
so ab_power you are saying do both low reps and high reps in the same workout, but to keep the low reps basically with the free weights and high reps with the machines?
Do you feel like you have to limp after a leg workout, where if you bend your leg past a certain point, it collapses?
If not, try doing ass to grass back squats to hit the hams, front squats for quads, hack squats give me a good pump in the quads after that and then finish off with some leg extension - they do it too.
Vary it up. I have long legs so I don’t squat too much also due to a bad knee, but I start with 5x5, and then I add 2 8-12 rep sets, and move to the next leg exercise.
Yeah pretty much. I started doing sets of 10 and slowly graduated to 12 being my golden number on the squat. Sometimes I lower the weight and work up to sets of 18 or 20 reps. Depending on my mood. What I did this past leg day was 4 sets of front squats, followed by 4 sets of rear squats, and then I did 50 bodyweight squats. I can’t walk right now, and I shamelessly used an electric wheelchair at Costco. Like all the fellers said legs like variety. They are such a big muscle that is always under load that I believe you can’t overtrain them. I also recommend you do 100s. 3 exercises 100 reps each.
[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
so ab_power you are saying do both low reps and high reps in the same workout, but to keep the low reps basically with the free weights and high reps with the machines?[/quote]
Yeah, you can mix it up too. For example:
squats - 5 sets, 5 reps (ramping weights to a 5rm)
hack squat machines (one leg) - 3-4 sets, 8-10 reps
leg press (full ROM) - 3-4 sets, max reps each set.
im doing in the 20-30 range right now. it seems all evidence says that more reps for legs = better hypertrophy. i remember the article about the speed skaters legs and how SHE squatted for 100 reps and had fucking cannon legs. then theres that Hungarian guy who did squats for time instead of reps, guy has the biggest legs ive ever seen. so i think its safe to say if you want big legs go for really high reps.
Powerlifters who do 1 rep per set have huge legs. So does the Hungarian Oak who squats for 8 minutes straight, probably around 300-500 reps. Your call.
thanks guys, lots of great advice! I’m gonna try the higher rep range for todays workout and see how it goes. Il do something like this:
Back Squat: 4x12-15
Front Squat:4x12-15
SLDL: 4x12-15
Leg Press: 3-4x15+
Leg Extensions: 3-4x15+
Does this higher rep range for size usually go across the board? B/c I sometimes do these high rep sets for chest and it completely wipes me out and I can only lift like 20% of my max for reps for the last 2 exercises. The next day I’m ridiculously sore but I’m concerned that I will lose a lot of my strength if I’m doing 135x10 for Incline, b/c thats all I can manage at high reps,instead of 300x3-4 when I take longer rests and do lower reps. If the higher reps is what is optimal for hypertrophy though I’d be more than willing to sacrifice some strength. What do you guys think?
from my own experience, i got really good DOMS in my legs (especially the part of the quad right near the knee…sorry dont know the name) from doing squats x30 - x20 - x20
then doing leg extensions drop sets to failure and giving them a squeeze at the top.
[quote]undeadlift wrote:
Powerlifters who do 1 rep per set have huge legs. So does the Hungarian Oak who squats for 8 minutes straight, probably around 300-500 reps. Your call.[/quote]
Powerlifters at the elite or master levels usually have huge legs, just because of the weights they are dealing with (over 500+lbs). At that weight, your legs grow no matter what since you would be crushed.
If you look to the lower levels, most of their quads are decent size, but still nowhere near the level of development when compared with a bodybuilder of same height/weight. Again, thats why you gotta mix it up. Do some strength work for squats, high reps, low reps, one-legged exercises, partials, whatever.
EDIT: I should backtrack for a second and mention that people in certain weightclasses for olympic lifting or powerlifting often have calorie restricted diets, so that could affect leg size, or overall size for that matter.
So I just finished my leg workout and I did the same thing that I listed above except I did 3x20 for legpress and 4 dropsets of 15,12,10,10 for extensions and holy shit i thought I was going to die lol. My body is def not used to higher reps and it about killed me. I got a full body pump just from doing squats b/c it was so intense haha (Did them ATG this time too which made it even harder).
I’m gonna try sticking with this rep scheme for a few months and see what kind of progress I make. It was def one of the most intense sessions I’ve ever had.
[quote]ab_power wrote:
undeadlift wrote:
Powerlifters who do 1 rep per set have huge legs. So does the Hungarian Oak who squats for 8 minutes straight, probably around 300-500 reps. Your call.
Powerlifters at the elite or master levels usually have huge legs, just because of the weights they are dealing with (over 500+lbs). At that weight, your legs grow no matter what since you would be crushed.
If you look to the lower levels, most of their quads are decent size, but still nowhere near the level of development when compared with a bodybuilder of same height/weight. Again, thats why you gotta mix it up. Do some strength work for squats, high reps, low reps, one-legged exercises, partials, whatever.
EDIT: I should backtrack for a second and mention that people in certain weightclasses for olympic lifting or powerlifting often have calorie restricted diets, so that could affect leg size, or overall size for that matter.
[/quote]