Larger than Life Legs
Wednesday, October 17th, 2007| Hello Jean, I found you through looking for a suit on ebay.I am 5′1′’ and a bit! I just finished a competition last week and came in 4th in my category.I was told I need to put more mass on my legs which I have been trying to do for months but with not much success.I have a very high metabolism which doesn’t help.Any suggestions? -Ellen
Ellen is lucky in a few ways; she has a fast metabolism (unlike me!), which makes dieting much less of a challenge, and it seems that she has enough mass on her upper body! The good news is that women typically respond extremely well to appropriate leg training. In fact, research shows that, in terms of relative increase of leg mass, women and men increase at the same rate when the same training protocol is applied. It is thought that the response to training is the similar between sexes because the leg muscle legs have many fewer androgen receptors. As a result, the higher ciculating testosterone levels of men do not give them a great advantage in leg training. This also means that men may have to put a little more time into leg training in order to balance out the symmetry of their physiques. But back to Ellen– your leg growth depends on increasing the intensity of your training and supplementing around your workouts, simultaneously. A good, hard leg workout without appropriate nutrition will only break down the muscle without giving you the raw materials to build it back up, so make sure you eat! before and after your training! Also, focus on compound movements in your training and lift fairly heavy (around 8-10 reps to COMPLETE failure) at least once per week. Good example of compound movements are squats, hack squats, lunges, step ups, step up and overs, and lateral step ups. Leg extensions, presses and curls are also useful for building mass in specific areas, but should not be the bulk of your program. Also, some people find that cycling and high resistance elliptical also helps to build good leg mass. Intensity in training is enhanced by 1) Adding more weight; 2) Reducing time between sets; and 3) Adding more reps. Essentially, adding intensity gives you new ways to force your muscles to do more work and different ways to experience failure. You should take advantage of all methods of increasing intensity in your workouts and keep your body guessing! As you near closer to competition, do more high-rep lunge, step-up. leg curl and leg extension sets to bring in all the fine details Be creative and have fun; train your legs as hard as the upper body; supplement well! In time (2-3 months), you should see results!
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