I don’t know many guys who take pride in owning a pair of chicken legs.

Do you?

But I do know Building your legs is a pain in the backside for 2 reasons . . .

1. For 3 days after a session you walk around town like John Wayne. Workouts are brutal, often making you want to throw up and use a motorised scooter to get from A to B.
2. You throw everything at your legs, including the kitchen sink! but still they fail to grow! Like a child at the dentists, reluctant to do what you want. No matter what you do they stay the same size.

12 months ago Kate Moss had bigger legs than me and it drove me crazy.  I wasted many hours training legs, with 0 or little progress.

I tried near enough everything, copying magazine workouts word for word, and spending time on Youtube when really I should have been studying.  I felt like I was banging my head against a cast iron frying pan whilst listening to the Spice Girls greatest hits (not a good combo!)

Over the past 12 months I have slapped on 3 inches around my thighs. I have found that the progress was down to 6 key ingredients, all of which I am going to share with you in this post. I 100% guarantee that if you follow the advice in this post your legs will grow like crazzehhh!

In fact it is impossible not to see BIG improvements. I know because my leg genetics suck and if I can slap on 3 inches you can slap on 5!

I have also designed you 3 free leg workouts to help you get kick started.

If you are Tired Of Walking Around With Chicken Legs? Here are 6 KEY Tips . . .

1) Increase Training Frequency 

If you want to get better at something what do you do?

Practice!

One of the best ways to cultivate legs the size of tree trunks is to increase how many times you train them per week. Most people will train their legs 1x per week, thats 52 sessions a year, what happens if you train them 2x per week? . . . . 104 sessions. Double up on your leg workouts to stunt added growth.

2) Feed Those Legs With Extra Calories

There are only 3 ways you are going to grow bigger leg muscles:

1. Create stress for growth (created through resitance training)
2. Surplus of adequate nutrients (protein, carbs and fats)
3. Adequate rest (sleep, nutrition, supplementation, foam rolling, etc)

One of the best ways to increase growth is to up your calories, you will be able to train harder and recover quicker, leading to more sessions and more growth . . . BOOM BABY!

Hypothetically speaking say you need 3,000 calories per day to grow muscle (21,000 calories per week) you could consume a greater portion of your calories on leg day(s) i.e. 3,500 calories x 2 days per week. Then pull back to 2,500 calories on two of your other days (i.e. rest days). Your average will stay the same, your just spending your money (calories) more wisely by investing more in the leg muscles.

Example of calorie manipulation:

1. Monday : Legs (3,500 calories)
2. Tuesday : Chest, Shoulders (3,000 calories)
3. Wednesday : REST Day (2,500 calories)
4. Thursday : Legs (3,500 calories)
5. Friday : Back (3,000 calories)
6. Saturday : Biceps, Triceps (3,000 calories)
7. Sunday : REST Day (2,500 calories)

Average calories per week = 21,000 calories

If your unsure of the above, knowing how much to eat and when, then I would love to design you a customised meal plan based on your food preferences (click here)

3) Increase Intensity

99.9% of us can train harder, there’s always one more rep. I thought I trained hard, until I went to the Milos Sarcev Muscle Camp at M10 Fitness last year when I realised I trained like a **insert offensive word of your choice** . . .

Nothing beats intensity, you could have the best plan in the world, its no use to you unless you smash your workouts into the Oblivion. You should be nervous before each leg workout, because you know you are about to go out onto the Gladiator battlefield where sh*t gets crazy. Get the sick bucket ready, with a chair close by, and if your gym has stairs leading to the gym floor, then make-sure they have a lift to get back down! I live a 10 minute walk from my gym, I judge the success of my leg workout based on how long it takes me to walk back. If I get back within 20 minutes I could have worked harder.

If you want your legs to grow you need to go to a place of the highest pain and stay there as long as possible as the saying goes . . .

Get comfortable being uncomfortable! Find pain and stay there!

4) Improving Mobility 

If your mobility sucks your are doing yourself a disservice when you slap on a ton of weight either side of the bar when back squatting. There’s no question that the back squat is the king of all leg exercises, but only if performed correctly, and in reality not many people have an acceptable level of mobility to benefit from this exercise properly.

It would be impossible for me to asses your mobility on this post ( I am no magician ) but some common themes I notice with clients :

• Tight hips
• Tight Quadriceps
• Rounded back
• Tight thoracic spine
• Weak glutes
• Weak hamstrings
• Flat feet
• Bowed legs
• Forward head tilt

All of the above require a different strategy to correct. I would always recommend hiring a coach in person as opposed to self diagnosis. If however your looking to self diagnose check out Eric Cressey site for some awesome mobility tips and videos.

5) Tension 

If you want bigger leg muscles tension is now one of your new best friends! Tension to body builders is like Money Penny to James Bond . . . absolutely priceless! When you next train legs take 3 seconds whilst you lower the weight, pause at the bottom of each rep for 1 second and then explode back to the top and squeeze.

Leave your ego at door and focus on squeezing your leg muscles as hard as physically possible THROUGHOUT the entire rep. If done properly your muscles will feel like somebody is sticking your head under water for an uncomfortable period of time. It should feel very unpleasant but that’s where the real treasure lies . . . in the pain zone.

Tension is harder to create than one might think, hire a coach to teach you about muscle contractions, because when done properly you will stimulate maximal hypertrophy (muscle growth).

6) Train Using Higher Reps

Ever been to the gym when . . . there is a pretty lady running on the treadmill looking straight over at the squat rack, which you so happen to be using, you slap on as much weight as possible, nearly crushing your entire vertebrae, you squat down . . . 4 inches and . . . wait for it . . . . . 2 reps? I see it all the time.

The problem is your legs don’t care about your ego, nobody is impressed by how much your lifting, and most importantly . . . . they certainly don’t grow! On all accounts you lose when lifting like a douche bag.

Your legs will respond better to higher reps, I like to use a rep range ranging from anything to 12-30 reps for most exercises. When you next train legs, pick a rep range of 15-20 reps for each exercise and notice the swelling and the burn.

If your worried about losing leg strength then perform 5 reps x 5 sets at the beginning of your workout, using a compound movement such as the back squat, front squat or Romanian Deadlift. Move into higher reps as you proceed to the following exercises.

Leg Annihilation Workout

As promised I have designed you a leg workout . . . In fact 3 legs workouts, 1 which focuses on high volume, 1 on building size and strength and 1 which is aimed at those looking to improve mobility.

[sociallocker id=”2861″] Leg Annihilation Workouts [/sociallocker]

Enjoy and if you need any extra help, give me a shout!

Nick