Breckwilleatyou said:
here's kind of a wacky question...ok so ive been liftin for about 5 years, ive known what i was doin for about 3 years, and ive really really known what ive been doin for about a year. problem is, those two years where i only sorta knew what i was doin, i did only upper body and completely neglected my lower body. thats right, two years of eatin right and balls to the wall training but without a squat or deadlift in sight (you should have seen me: my upper body was humongous cause i had bulked but not yet cut and i had literally nothin goin on downstairs). for the past year ive slowly learned how to train my lower body, and for the past few months ive had a focused lower body program and ive trained hard and heavy. here's the question: ive been cutting for a while now, and ive gotten my bodyfat pretty low, but i havent really seen gains in my squat for a while (i have been doin great with deads, but theyre startin to slow down a bit). the last three weeks in a row for squats, ive done a warmup set of 18 with 135, 10 with 185, 8 with 205, and 3 with 235, then one more set of 6 with 205, and then the rest of my leg day, which consisted of straight sets of one legged leg presses, lunges, extensions and leg curls. am i not gonna put any more size in my legs because im eating so clean, or can i modify how im lifting to make my legs stronger while hanging on to my condition? help would be very much appreciated, thanks for reading that long ass post
You have to do to your legs, what you did for your upper body, but do it smarter. Train your legs 2-3 times per week, and train your upper body just once a week to maintain, since its already so huge. So train 4 days a week, one day devoted to upper body, and 3 days devoted for legs. And if you want to start complaining about doing legs 3 days a week, look at olympic lifters, who do legs 6-7 days a week. Some of their legs are phenomenal, look at the sprinters, who sprint hard and weight train and work their legs about the same amount. They have phenomenal legs, and most of them try to keep their weight down. Imagine if they started bulk dieting. Their legs would be even more huge!!!
I think you need to eat to gain muscle if you want to gain size on your legs. You cannot gain a appreciable amount of size, if you are trying to maintain your six pack. Your body either wants to be in a anabolic state, or a catabolic one. It cannot be catabolic for your abs, and anabolic for your legs. Your better off, if you concentrated trying to gain size on your legs, and then losing the fat again. Plus it will be so much easier to lose the fat, because the gains in muscle on your legs, would make it easier to burn the fat on your entire body, because it will raise your BMR. Also dont forget to work your hamstrings. All your doing is pitiful leg curls for them. These are the exercises, I would do to gain mass on my legs.
Quads- squats, front squats, barbell hacksquats, trap bar deads, dumbell squats, any squating variation with alot of weight!!
Hams- Glute ham raise, stiff legg deadlifts, romanian deadlifts, good mornings, seated good mornings, reverse hyper, and maybe some leg curls if I have time or energy.
Dont forget to train your calves too!!! Donkeys, standing, one legged, seated, do them all!!!!!
ofcourse, dont do all these exercises all at once, rotate them out. Do squats, and try to increase weights, on them as much as you can, when you plateau in strength, switch to another variation. Or do 2 of these, mix and match. Just lift heavy on your legs dammit, and make yourself work for them.
