If you have skinny legs and can’t seem to get them to grow, I have good news for you. In this video, I am going to give you a simple tip that you can implement into your leg training immediately that will help to finally grow those chicken legs. I’m bringing Jesse in to show how incorporating this change to his squat has helped him to get bigger legs.
First off, if you want to build big legs, you need to be squatting. It’s called the king of leg exercises for a reason! One major problem that many people have during the squat, however, is that they fail to actually load the quads. It’s been repeated ad nauseam that you need to break parallel when you hit the hit the bottom of the squat. Why? Because the femur are perpendicular to the force of gravity, the quads are receiving maximum tension. By stopping the rep short of parallel, you are sacrificing the potential to overload the muscles, which is necessary if you want you’re quads to grow. Remember, if you want to build big legs, you need to be squatting to the proper depth!
Continuing with the idea of loading the quads…for a number of reasons, people often believe that you should be squatting with an extra wide stance. The problem with this method is that with the knees so far out, the adductors are doing the most work instead of the quads. As I mentioned previously, to get bigger legs, you need to load the quads with maximum tension. Jesse shows the difference between an extra wide stance versus a stance that is just outside shoulder width. With that wide stance, Jesse, like many others, felt a great amount of strain on his adductors when coming out of the hole on the squat. When he narrowed his stance, he noticed an immediate difference in the amount of tension placed in his quads as compared to the adductors. Narrow up your stance and load those quads if you plan on building bigger legs.
Next, introducing a box can make all the difference in the world when it comes to squatting. You will want to make sure that you find a box that is the right height for you to be reaching parallel when you hit the bottom of the squat. Don’t worry if the box is too short, you can add a plate on top of it to make sure you are hitting a comfortable depth at or below parallel. This will not only give you a good target of how deep you need to squat, but it also provides a sort of safety net. If there is fear of not being able to get up out of the hole, the box allows for a reassurance that you will not come crashing down to the ground.
Lastly, when you squat down, don’t sit on the box. You want to just barely reach the surface, almost “kissing” the box with your butt. The rep doesn’t stop there, though. I have talked about the importance of pause squats before when it comes to building strength and size of the legs and it doesn’t change here. Once you reach that target, hold the rep (with maximum tension on the quads) for 2-3 seconds before ascending. By pausing the rep, you are trying to “convince your quads” to do the work necessary to get you up and complete the repetition.
By utilizing these simple steps the next time you squat, you will be on your way to growing bigger legs. If Jesse could grow his quads in a relatively short amount of time by doing making these changes, then you can build big legs by doing the same. Remember, it’s not just what exercises we do, but it’s how we do them that matters. If you want to build bigger legs along with the rest of your body, be sure to click the link below and use the program selector to help you find the program that matches your current training goals. By putting the science back in strength, I’m going to help you achieve your best results ever over the next 90 days.
For more videos that breakdown popular exercises in order to give you the most information to make the most growth, check out our channel here on YouTube by clicking the link below. Don’t forget to click subscribe and turn on your notifications so that you never miss a new video when it’s published.
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Jeff Cavaliere M.S.P.T, CSCS
Jeff Cavaliere is a Physical Therapist, Strength Coach and creator of the ATHLEAN-X Training Programs and ATHLEAN-Rx Supplements. He has a Masters in Physical Therapy (MSPT) and has worked as Head Physical Therapist for the New York Mets, as well as training many elite professional athletes in Major League Baseball, NFL, MMA and professional wrestling. His programs produce “next level” achievements in muscle size, strength and performance for professional athletes and anyone looking to build a muscular athletic physique.
