seriously though back squats are amazing but ive been noticing a lot of bbers swearign more by front squats. Also a lot of BBers do not extend fully in order to have constant tension on the quads.
Ive also been seeing a lot of people doing front squats on smith machines lately. While I always think back squats should be done on oly bars front squats on smith machines alow a perfect route for the bar and leave more room to focus more on the muscle versus keeping the bar steady.
Lastly I think high rep hack squats and leg press are great tools as well
305 x 3 is simply a low squat. Squat more and the legs will get bigger, simple enough.
Of course if you want full development you’ll want to add in some extra work (mainly calves and hamstrings)
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
Also while there are people that can make solid size gains from just squats (I’d consider myself one of them), most will find they need more work from other exercises to get the desirable development.[/quote]
Would examples be leg extensions, leg curls, hack squats, and lunges? Only ones I can think of. Come to think of it, legs do not have that many exercises.
[/quote]
Legs have as many exercises as you can be creative/imaginitive enough to create.
Examples? Start lunging off of plates, hold the dumbell in the center like a frontsquat loaded version, or hold them at your sides, or use a barbell. LegPresses can be performed in 1000 fucking ways, find a few! Increase your leg volume, you say you switched to stiff legged dl’s and leg curls every other week? WTF is this?
Unless youre doing 10 sets of squats and SLDL’s then i suggest you starting hammering a few more sets of reverse lunges, glute ham raises, hack squats, leg presses and so on. LEG CURLS AND LEG EXTENSIONS ARE OF THE LEAST IMPORTANCE FOR STRICTLY SIZE, right now it sounds liek you will see the most progress doing heavy movements that allow for alot of progression.
MAN UP AND KILL THOSE FUCKING LEGS and results will come. If they dont, youre fucked.
Like Platz said, heavy weights + high reps = massive legs.
You have to get stronger to really get the most out of leg work that is most effective IMO.
Start adding weight to the bar with your back and front squat and add in high rep leg press/hack squat work. Do crazy stuff too. Dropsets, stripsets, continuous tension sets etc.
These are all great techniques and will certainly help you add size, but IMO, at your point strength-wise, you need to get stronger and that will bring your leg size up.
When you’re squatting 405 for reps, then look to focus more on this type of work.
Perhaps after your regualr work sets drop the weight(135-185) and do 1-2 more sets for xxx-reps to add overall volume to your training for the day. (THen eat a shit ton)
Sissy Squats? Assisted Pistols? Sumo Squats? (sorry if these are mentioned, I skimmed in an effort to not be redundant)
Really focus on the glutes and hams.
How long have you been doing your current leg workout/workouts? If its been a few months and it hasnt worked (for you) then scrap the whole thing and try something different.
Hopefully something useful here for you. Good Luck
I have believe muscles like the quads and calfs that react well to heavy sets also respond well to extremley high reps(35-50+) with as much wieght as you can handle for the chosen rep range.
So, you could try adding some of those high rep work sets to your workouts.
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
How much do you weigh? It sounds like you simply need to eat more.[/quote]
170, my maintenance is at 2500 and I’ve been eating at 2800 to continue a lean gain. I know I can get fat easily so that’s why I do so.
[/quote]
Five ten
One Seventy
You are too small.
You need to eat more more more.
Pay special attention to peri workout nutrition.
How many carbs and grams of protein are you intaking post workout?
What is your total peri workout nutrition?
You need to get bigger all over… err, all muscles.
[quote]ebomb5522 wrote:
Like Platz said, heavy weights + high reps = massive legs.
[/quote]
Basically my experience. My legs got a lot stronger in the 4-5 rep range, but most of the growth in size was in 10-15 rep range. Though I’m no expert… it just seems legs react better to volume and have the recovery ability for the volume.
As a lot of people have said I’ve had a lot of success with ramping volume and doing a lot of extra work on Legs.
A typical leg day for me will involve working up to multiple heavy sets on back squat (3-6 reps) and then going on to RDL’s and a one-legged quad movement (been doing db split squats lately), like normal. But then a shit ton of things like double drop sets on hack squats, leg press/hack squat super sets. Banded leg presses with slow negs and, of course, drop setted.
Also, messing around with foot placement seems to help me a lot, I can experiment a lot more on things like hack squats and go narrow so my feet are basically touching or as wide as the base lets you.
TL:DR - Try a lot of volume and a lot of creativity. The fact is you’re only just breaking 300lbs on squats, you’re simply not doing enough damage to worry about over training your legs. Go nuts and try some thing.
I will reply back to everyone tomorrow. Dead-tired after gym and I worked 11 hours today, the job, not the gym. I will say I am pretty honored that Hallowed is posting here but also embarrassed since she called me small. The truth hurts but she’s right.