Train Like an Athlete by ATHLEAN-X (Video Podcast)

Anyone that has ever struggled to build muscle has likely dealt with skinny legs and become frustrated trying to add mass. In this video, I’m going to give you 4 leg workout tips for mass that will help even the hardest of hardgainers to pack on size and start bulking up your legs in no time.

The first thing that most guys with skinny legs get wrong is that they allow their ego and self consciousness get in the way of what they should be doing in their leg workouts. No doubt, it can be a bit intimidating to watch others around you squat multiple plates while you are struggling to lift even one big plate for clean reps. That’s ok. Everyone starts somewhere and if you choose to start further ahead of where you should be it is a mistake that is going to hold you back for years to come.

Most guys with skinny legs will put more weight on the bar than they can handle in the squat and then proceed to crank out quarter reps. Not only is this robbing your legs of the stress that they can handle but you are doing this at the exclusion of doing the reps you should be doing to build bigger legs the right way. What you need to do is lower the weight to those that you can handle and get your intensity not from the heavier weights but from the high rep sets that you do in good form through full range of motion.

The next thing the hardgainer has to do for his legs is learn how to properly push from the ground. There is no way that you are going to lift as much weight as you can in your leg workouts unless you learn how to push through your feet. An equal and opposite force is needed to lift the weight that is on your shoulders during a squat. There is no better place to learn this than with the deadlift exercise.

The deadlift demands that you push through your legs during the first half of the left, beyond which point it becomes a pulling exercise. If you practice just the first half of the deadlift or combine it in one and a half rep fashion, you will build more strength through the legs off the floor. The will dramatically help you to increase your squat and lift heavier weights over time.

Multi-dimensional leg training is also important to fully developed legs. Almost all of the leg exercises that hardgainers use only stress the legs in the sagittal plane. Squats, leg extensions and leg curl are all one plane exercises that don’t mimic the functionality of the legs and limit the amount of growth that can be had by training the adductors and abductors of the legs as well.

Finally, I like to include exercises for the legs that are technically easier to perform than the squat and allow for someone just starting out to add weight faster. The Bulgarian Split Squat is a great exercise for doing this since it literally puts you in the right position to perform the exercise. The quads get loaded and the safety of the exercise is intact since you can simply dump the weights if you need to at the bottom of the squat without risk.

For a complete program that hardgainers have used to build muscle and keep low levels of body fat, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Build athletic legs and get ripped without compromising your long term health or gains by using the same program relied on by today’s top professional athletes.

For more leg workout videos on how to add mass to your quads and hamstrings, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24