Building Bigger Massive Muscular Legs

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A complete physique includes a set of big muscular legs. Neglecting to train legs not only makes you look weird and unbalanced, it robs you of massive strength and muscular gains. Your legs are an extremely large muscle group that make up half of your entire body. If your a competitor or a regular gym goer, make sure you NEVER skip leg day!

Building huge legs takes work. Lots of it. Therefore you have to be willing to put in the time, effort, and energy. You have to go past the point your most comfortable. Keep pushing even if its tough. You will be surprised at how strong your legs really are. And how much work it may take to get them to grow.

So You Wanna Build Bigger Leg Muscles Fast?

Who wouldn’t want to build bigger muscles faster? I bet everyone does. However, building bigger leg muscles isn’t going to happen overnight. Unless your some sort of genetic freak or you run a pro-hormone or steroid cycle. Even then growing bigger legs is going to take time.

There are ways to help speed up the process but we have to know how. If we look at powerlifters usually they have a set of massive legs. Why? Because they are moving massive amounts of weight. Same with weightlifters. Even bodybuilders of old. They squatted with heavy loads on their backs. If your legs are lacking you can get them to grow by learning to adopt some of the principles from powerlifting or weightlifting.

Take A Break From Benching And Learn Some Exercises That Will Build Muscular Legs

Everyone in the gym sees that you figured out how to pack on some muscle on your chest. And everyone knows that those twigs you hide under your pants needs some major work. The basic lift that everyone knows about but is scared to perform is the squat. It is the best overall exercise for building massive legs but also building a massive physique. Learning to squat should be a high priority on your list if you don’t know how to already.

Another really good exercise to help boost the potential of your wheels, as they say, is the leg press. The leg press allows for a lot of weight to be pushed without having to worry about balance and all of the other nuances related to squatting. That doesn’t make it superior and it should not be chosen over squats, in my honest opinion.

Outside of squats and leg presses here are some of the greatest exercises you should already have in your routine for building huge legs:

Front Squats
Lunges
Leg Extensions
Leg Curls
Stiff Leg Deadlifts
Sumo Deadlifts

Believe it or not stiff leg deadlifts and sumo deadlifts help grow those toothpicks. To start they are major compound movements. Any compound movement that involves multiple muscle groups is going to stimulate the best growth. But secondly they involve the legs . . . a lot.

Putting It All Together For Bigger Legs

Knowing what exercises to build massive muscular legs is very important. But knowing what rep ranges and sets to perform is even more important. Even knowing what weight to use plays a major factor.

If we go with what we know, heavier weight and lower reps helps to build mass. However, sometimes thats not always the case. We have to mix things up a little bit. If you think about this logically, your legs take on a lot of work as it is. They are responsible for walking and carrying the load of your body. Your legs are getting stimulated from all angles all day. So we gotta hit them hard.

There are several different methods that can assist in leg growth. By learning to incorporate different weights and rep schemes into your routines you can stimulate your muscles for ultimate growth.

Several great routines to look into for bigger legs are the 5×5 method, the 5/3/1 method, 20 rep squat method, and Smolov. Each of these routines are really good for beginners in the leg game. There is a ton of literature regarding any of them and they are the most popular talked about methods. If you wanted to mix your training up even further you could always do 7×2’s, 3×10’s, 5×7’s and so on.

Along with heavy squatting and various set and rep schemes, incorporating higher rep isolation exercises should really jump start the process.

An example of a killer leg routine looks like this:

Leg extensions 4 sets of 12-16 reps
Leg Press 3 sets of 6-8 reps
Squats 5 sets of 5 reps
Leg Curls 4 sets of 12-16 reps
Stiff Leg Dead Lift 3 sets 10,6, and 4 reps

Squats 7 sets 3 reps
Front Squats 5 sets 3 reps
Leg Press 3 sets of 10,6, and 4 reps
Stiff Leg Dead Lift 3 sets of 10, 6, and 4 reps

Try to use the most amount of weight you can for each exercise while keeping form. Make sure your leg presses are heavy and your squats are low. For the stiff leg deadlifts use straps so you can focus on the lift and not your grip.

Later on in the week finish off your legs with 4 sets of lunges at about 10-12 reps. Again using a moderately heavy weight. There isn’t a problem with training your legs 2 to 3 times a week. Just make sure you get the proper amount of rest and food intake for your activity level.

When I first started training seriously I used a 5×5 method which was a favorite of the late Reg Park as well as a part of Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength. I found squatting 3 times per week really helped the overall development of my legs. It was hell but so worth it.

I would recommend for leg laggers to start out with a 5×5 training routine. Focus on increasing strength in your squats and add in some light accessory lifts like a bench press, overhead press, or barbell row.

As for now, whatever you choose is better than not training legs at all. Questions are always welcomed and I would love to hear what your routines are like in the comment box below. If you have any tips for your fellow lifter be sure to share.

Tom Platz: 23 Reps @ ~ 525lb / 238kg Squat