How to Build Stronger Legs

Want to build stronger legs, faster? Use these tips to build a strong, lean lower body.

Think about how much work your legs put in every single day. You walk around, you go up and down stairs, you go from sitting to standing to crouching all day long. And yet we’re more likely to covet the “thigh gap” than we are strong legs!

Every movement that you make throughout the day will benefit from from increased leg strength. When it comes to functioning capably and without pain, one of the best things that you can do for yourself at any age is to build up your leg

**DISCLAIMER: ladies, if you see big, bulky legs when I say the phrase “strong legs”, fear not. You got it all wrong! Training your legs, and I mean putting some weight on those exercises and really going for it, will NOT create bulk. Instead, it’ll create definition, aka tone, a perkier derriere AND it’ll change your body composition for the better.

Here’s how to build stronger legs:

Squat, Often

Squats mimic the most basic of human movement patters: stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down. They hit every major muscle group in your lower body. Beyond the obvious pushers of the movement – your quads and glutes – squats engage your hamstrings, calves, core and lower back in a big way. Talk about pulling double duty.

Plus, you can do squats at any fitness level.

Begin with body weight squats to master the movement. Stand with feet hip-width apart, arms at your sides and shoulders down and back. Bend at the knees, keep your weight steadily over your heels and push your hips back to push your butt behind you. Get your upper leg as close to parallel to the ground as you can without losing form before pushing through the heels to return to a standing position.

Make it easier: if you’re not quite ready for a free form squat, stand in front of a sturdy bench or chair and squat down to the platform. Knowing that you have a “catch me if I fall” behind your butt is comforting.

Time to progress: you can progress squats for days without getting bored. From your basic squat, hold a weight at chest level to perform a Goblet Squat (shown below). Once you’ve mastered those movements, you can add more weight with dumbbells held at your sides or on your shoulders, barbell squats and jump squats.

Exercise Through a Full Range of Motion

If you are already squatting, excellent! Now, a little something extra to focus on: depth. Knowing how to get the most out of each movement is important, especially if you have specific goals (like building stronger legs).

Whether it’s a squat, or a lunge, or a leg press, be sure to get deep into the movement before returning to the starting position. That means getting your thighs to parallel, or below, even if that means lightening up the weight a bit. If you’ve ever heard the phrase “ass to the grass” at the gym, this is what they’re talking about.

Hitting your muscles from all angles is key to strength and functionality.

Combine Strength and Cardio

If you want to build stronger leg muscles fast, steer clear of excessive steady state cardio. Keep your cardio bouts short and intense – like HIIT or Tabata specifically. These short bursts of high-intensity cardio training will increase power and fat burn without sacrificing hard-earned muscle.

If you’re looking for more gradual, general health focused growth, longer bouts of steady-state cardio are just fine. There’s no doubt that marathon runners have strong legs…they just aren’t necessarily as musuclar.

It all depends on your goals!

Vary Your Rep Range

Variation is the key to progression. You have to challenge your body and muscles in order to see them adapt in any way. Vary your rep range, and the weight that you lift, to see effective, efficient progress.

For example, let’s say that right now you are pretty comfortable squatting in the 8-10 range with a 25 pound kettle bell, 3 times a week. Now you want to build stronger legs, so you know you need to up your game. Here’s how:

• Workout 1: stick with your 8-10 rep range, at 25 pounds – you should reach the end of your sets feeling like you really have to push out those last reps.
• Workout 2: go heavy. Try squatting 30-35 pounds instead and aiming for a 6-8 rep range to account for the heavier weight.
• Workout 3: use higher reps for big muscle gain. If you drop the weight you lift to say, 15 pounds, you should be able to rock out sets of 12-15.

*No matter what, you always want to challenge yourself to lift as heavy as you can for the rep range you are shooting for. If you feel like it doesn’t take much effort to complete 3 sets of 8-10 reps, it’s time to increase the weight you are moving.

Fuel Your Goals!

Of course by now you know that fitness growth and progress is not limited to what you do in the gym. If you want to build stronger muscles, fast, you need to fuel that growth.

Your body can’t make something out of nothing. If you want to build strong, lean muscles, give your body the building blocks! While a well-balanced diet is incredibly important for your health and progress, it’s a broad topic…far too broad for this paragraph so I’m going to focus on just one macro-nutrient for now: protein.

Protein is a key macro-nutrient to build muscle and strength. Try to consume at least one portion at every meal…shooting for roughly 30% of your total calories coming from protein sources.