My Lower Body Is Weak...

I was in the gym today and a kid asked me for a spot. I said sure and took the opportunity to get some reciprocation and had him spot me while I went for a max bench. I got 265, which I was pretty psyched about for not doing any benches for awhile (My last max was at 235). However, I haven’t even tried squatting with that much on the bar.

I started going to the gym again a couple weeks ago to lift weights. Before that I was doing crossfit style interval training to lose weight, which was going good. I just felt like starting to lift again.

So, I’ve been squatting now for a couple weeks and I’m getting the form down and my loads are going up. However, I still have a ways to go until I am as strong lower body as upper body. My question is should I focus on lower body and purposefully try to cut down on my upper body training? Should I just continue as I have been and let my legs catch up in due time?

I am somewhat embarassed to even admit this, but I think it is a common problem so I would wonder what the best approach is to correct this imbalance.

Your squat will progress faster than your bench unless you’re really doing something wrong. So it will eventually pass your bench.

Just keep doing what you’re doing, no point in crippling your progress on any other lift. It’s not like you’re going to get hurt benching because your legs are weak. :slight_smile:

Yup, I’d assault your lower body into growing. You must train your lower body with the same intesity as the upper. I don’t know about y’all but I get more psyche’d out when I’m maxing out on my squat than my bench. The gains will come, but you must stay consistent. my two centavos.

[quote]goochadamg wrote:
Your squat will progress faster than your bench unless you’re really doing something wrong. So it will eventually pass your bench.

Just keep doing what you’re doing, no point in crippling your progress on any other lift. It’s not like you’re going to get hurt benching because your legs are weak. :)[/quote]

I agree…don’t drop the upper body training to focus on legs. Just keep getting in some intense leg work every week and your leg strength will quickly catch up and surpass your upper body. The side benefit is growing your leg strength will cause larger test and growth hormone production and your bench could conceivably go up even more as your legs get stronger.

What does your current training regime look like? If you’re benching 4 times a week then maybe you need to drop some upper body stuff.

Thanks for the replies. I’m just going to keep up what I’ve been doing, its only been a couple weeks with the legs so I’ll give it a couple more months to even out.

If you upper body is that much stronger than your lower body than you have obviously really neglected your lower body.

The solution is simple, it is
TRAIN YOUR LOWER BODY GOD DAMMIT + TIME.

Bust your ass and make you skip nothing related to your lower body. You need to attack it with same emphasis that has led you to worry about your bench.

SQUATS AND MILK!!!

Someone had to do it.

[quote]evansmi wrote:
SQUATS AND MILK!!![/quote]

Yesssssssss.

FightingScott,

I started WS4SB then was getting away from the template so now my training goes something like this. I haven’t been working my bench, only doing db benches as supplementals and I have only been lifting consistently again for like 2 weeks now. I did a lot of rock climbing in college, lifted weights intermittently and before recently, the only time I squatted was high school.

Day 1: Lift

Front Squats - Working up to sets of 2-3 reps usually about 6 sets

Back Squats - 2 sets of 4

OH Press - Working up to 2-3 reps usually 6 sets

Hang Cleans - 4 sets of 6-10

Weighted Pull Ups - +35-45 lbs mixed grip 4 sets

45 Degree Back Extensions - 2 sets of 25 bw
4 sets of 12 w/ 25 lb plate

DB Flat Bench - 4 Sets of 8-10

Split Squats - 4 Sets of 6-10

Day 2:
Jump Rope 2min jump+1min rest x 12 rounds

Day 3:
Crossfit Style Interval Training…

Some examples are:
5/10/15 pull up push up bw squat 20 rounds for time
15 min clean db clean and pp + 15 min db swings/push ups for reps
the crossfit wod

Day 4:
Rest

… I think I am going to change my training to upper/lower split. I will devote all of one day’s workout to legs, then for my upper body I am going to scale back the number of exercises I do, focus on my OH press, weighted pull ups, and dips, with enough supplementals to stay healthy, and throw in 20 minutes of cardio intervals afterwards. This way I can really devote a full training session to my weak points. I might go back on WS4SB but it doesn’t have a lot of the exercises that I want to start training.

Day 1:
Lower Body

Day 2:
Upper Body
Rower Intervals/Jump Rope Intervals

Day 3:
Crossfit

…I’ll probably make another post in a week or so after I get my lower body workout figured out and ask for a critique.