Hammerblow
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- Mar 9, 2016
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Do You Suffer From CLS – Chicken Leg Syndrome
Many of you probably do and I was guilty of it at one point also. Quads were a weak point for me because I was one of those people awhile back who never really trained legs. No one ever sees them right, you either have pants or shorts on covering them up most of the time so most workouts seemed to focus on the show muscles; chest, biceps, basically the upper body. How many people ever asked you to flex your leg for them, probably not as many that asked to feel or see your flexed bicep. So those were the muscles we focused on. You are always running around with your shirt off so you better have a good upper body but my CLS was masked by my shorts so no big deal.
The other reason people tend to shy away from training legs, me included back then, is that they are just a bitch to train. The leg muscles are huge and therefore require a great amount of energy expenditure to train. The workouts are brutal and you will be way outside of your comfort zone if you have worked them properly. They just weren’t fun to do. I love doing them now though by the way and once you get into a routine of consistently doing your legs you should grow to love training them too.
I have always wanted to compete on the big stage and fortunately I realized a few years ago that my leg development was lacking and I better do something about it. My solution was to research and learn everything I could about maximizing my leg growth. This is basically my top ten list of tips that really jumped out at me for what I could do to improve my legs.
Top Ten List for Killer Quads
1. Training with light weight is much better than training with too heavy of a weight
Obviously heavy and light are relative here but if you have read the other parts my training series you know what I am talking about here. More often than not, when working legs in those low rep ranges with too heavy of a weight the range of motion is often sacrificed and proper execution of the exercise is thrown out of the window. This might get a little technical here but I think it stresses the point on why more weight can actually result in less tension and alas less growth. If that heavy weight you are using limits your range of motion this will end up changing the line of force relative to the pivot point on your body (your knee in this case) which will therefore be lowering the resistance even though you have increased the weight. Strange but true, weight is only a portion of the total resistance. Change the line of axis relative to the pivot point and you change the resistance too.
Obviously strength is important in your overall leg development, but it is just unnecessary to continually use heavy weight and low reps. My quads actually seem to respond best (we are talking growth here) with higher reps (15-30+) and keeping continual tension with only small rest periods between sets. Something is going on here and I am just not actually sure what it is but I am not the only one that has noticed this. My broscience leads me to believe that training this way is actually inducing more fatique in the muscle forcing it to adapt and grow moreso than what could be accomplished by using heavy weights and low reps.
2. Squats may not be the Bee’s Knees for leg development
Before you blast me here let me explain. Squats are a great exercise for leg development, but they may not be for everyone. Those with long femurs may have a much more difficult time properly executing them then someone else. We have all seen these people in the gym and you know right away that their bodies are just not mechanically set up to properly execute a squat. So if you are one of those people that are just not set up to squat, ignore everyone bitching at you because you don’t do squats. There are other exercises that will work for you.
But before you rule off squats you better try tweaking some aspects of the squat to see if you can make them work for you. If at all possible you should do what you can to incorporate squats into you routine because of the range and amounts of muscles they work. Here are some things to try before xing squats out of your program:
Tips to help you Squat
3. Isolation exercises aren’t just for girls
You are probably thinking, “Why are you talking about doing isolation exercises when we all know that the compound movements like the squat are the real mass builders.” Well, if you are not including leg extensions into your routine you are making a monumental mistake. A properly executed leg extension can be just as effective as the squat. Notice the word properly here. Way to often I see people doing piss poor leg extension, their hips are flying all over the place, they are rocking back and forth, they are using momentum to initiate the exercise and they are completely skipping the top range of the motion. So do your leg extensions right and reap their benefits. Keep these tips in mind when trying to perfect your extensions:
Tips to improve your leg extensions
4. You can’t “shape” your quads
Being able to emphasize one quad muscle over the other is an urban legend and here is why. It all boils down to the structure of the knee. Here is your anatomy lesson for the day. Because the knee essentially acts like hinge, the quad muscles (which do cross over the knee cap as one common tendon) have no possible way of influencing knee motion any other way than movement in one plane. So what this means is that pointing your feet in or out to shift the knee relative to the line of resistance to whatever exercise you are doing will cause more harm to your knees than any possible benefits you could gain. So don’t think you are going to enhance the sweep of your quads by squatting with your toes pointed in. All you are going to do is wreck your knees.
5. Using a “Full” range of motion could be impeding your quad growth
“Huh? I thought we were supposed to use a full range of motion to maximize gains” is what you were probably thinking. Well we have to understand what we are talking about when we use the term “full range of motion” here. What a lot of people think full range of motion means when they are squatting or doing leg presses is that it means going down to the limits of where the weight can take you. I am sure you have heard the term ass to ground squats. Squatting like this is not optimal for growth. Here is why (pardon me if I get to technical but biomechanics of the muscles fascinates me).
Ass to ground squats – stop it
When the weight influences more motion than the quads can control, too much passive motion can be introduced into the movement. So look at it this way, when your joint such as your knee or hip goes BEYOND its active length ability (the range it can develop actively with only muscles) into a passive range of motion, the optimal muscle tension cannot be developed since the muscles are lengthened to much. This is not conducive to bodybuilding and is going to be hell on your joints. So you want to make sure you are using your full ACTIVE range of motion NOT the full PASSIVE range. So how do you put this into practice. You need to identify your ACTIVE range which is going to be determined by your hip flexion, knee flexion and ankle dorsiflexion. To keep it simple here, if you are squatting to parallel or close to it you are probably OK. You are not doing yourself a favor squatting all the way to the ground.
6. Don’t over rely on lunges
Don’t get me wrong, lunges can be an awesome exercise but they are just so damn hard to do correctly and if something is not done correctly it is not going to benefit you. To maximize tension in a lunge you have to maintain balance and control of several joints. This complicated balance and control act usually results in the lunge being performed with sloppy execution which isn’t stimulating the muscle. If you are hell bent on performing lunges you better study the exercise and know how to execute it starting with light weights until you develop the mind to muscle connection with it. Training your hip adductors/abductors along with the stability of your ankle muscles should be prerequisites for lunges. Lunges are typically associated with shaping and toning but the reality of the fact is they are no better at doing it than other leg exercises. I am still working to perfect my lunges so even though I think they are overrated that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do them altogether. Practice will make them perfect and then they will be another effective arsenal in your toolbox for killer quads.
7. Supersets and drop sets
This is my favorite. Maybe I should have put this first. Anything you can do to induce longer-term anaerobic fatigue in your quads is going to develop them more than any other muscle group in your body. You quads feed on it. So hit the leg press and do a monster drop set until you can’t even move just the platform any more. If you can walk, you should have kept going. Get creative here and make the quads burn.
8. Don’t forget to train your adductors
I need to point out here that your hip adductor can encompass nearly 1/3 of your upper leg's mass! That is huge, so spend some time training them for hypertrophy. Training them will also help to create deeper separations between your inner thigh and quad which helps to give the illusion of bigger quads.
9. Dump the AEROBIC cardio.
Day in and day out of sitting on the bike, running on the treadmill or flopping around on the elliptical doing steady state low intensity aerobic cardio in an effort to burn fat is probably one of the most detrimental things to your quads. Doing this for weeks or months on end will start to decondition the anaerobic potential of your quads and over time they will lose their strength and muscle loss will follow as your quads are trying to adapt to this new aerobic stimulus they are constantly encountering. So how do we get around this is the million dollar question. Well, do anaerobic cardio instead. Who is in favor of HIIT cardio now?
10. Train your quads more frequently
Seems pretty obvious I guess. If you are not seeing results in your quads it might be time to increase the frequency you train them. This will likely entail reducing the overall number of sets each and/or exercises (volume) in exchange for training them in less time with more effort (higher density). The quads are some really big muscles that can handle a huge workload and in many cases they just need to be stimulated more often.
That's it. Some of you may not agree with some of the things in my top ten list here but they have made a difference for me. Hopefully we can have some intelligent discussion if you don’t agree with something I said. Even better would be if we could keep adding to this list.
Many of you probably do and I was guilty of it at one point also. Quads were a weak point for me because I was one of those people awhile back who never really trained legs. No one ever sees them right, you either have pants or shorts on covering them up most of the time so most workouts seemed to focus on the show muscles; chest, biceps, basically the upper body. How many people ever asked you to flex your leg for them, probably not as many that asked to feel or see your flexed bicep. So those were the muscles we focused on. You are always running around with your shirt off so you better have a good upper body but my CLS was masked by my shorts so no big deal.
The other reason people tend to shy away from training legs, me included back then, is that they are just a bitch to train. The leg muscles are huge and therefore require a great amount of energy expenditure to train. The workouts are brutal and you will be way outside of your comfort zone if you have worked them properly. They just weren’t fun to do. I love doing them now though by the way and once you get into a routine of consistently doing your legs you should grow to love training them too.
I have always wanted to compete on the big stage and fortunately I realized a few years ago that my leg development was lacking and I better do something about it. My solution was to research and learn everything I could about maximizing my leg growth. This is basically my top ten list of tips that really jumped out at me for what I could do to improve my legs.
Top Ten List for Killer Quads
1. Training with light weight is much better than training with too heavy of a weight
Obviously heavy and light are relative here but if you have read the other parts my training series you know what I am talking about here. More often than not, when working legs in those low rep ranges with too heavy of a weight the range of motion is often sacrificed and proper execution of the exercise is thrown out of the window. This might get a little technical here but I think it stresses the point on why more weight can actually result in less tension and alas less growth. If that heavy weight you are using limits your range of motion this will end up changing the line of force relative to the pivot point on your body (your knee in this case) which will therefore be lowering the resistance even though you have increased the weight. Strange but true, weight is only a portion of the total resistance. Change the line of axis relative to the pivot point and you change the resistance too.
Obviously strength is important in your overall leg development, but it is just unnecessary to continually use heavy weight and low reps. My quads actually seem to respond best (we are talking growth here) with higher reps (15-30+) and keeping continual tension with only small rest periods between sets. Something is going on here and I am just not actually sure what it is but I am not the only one that has noticed this. My broscience leads me to believe that training this way is actually inducing more fatique in the muscle forcing it to adapt and grow moreso than what could be accomplished by using heavy weights and low reps.
2. Squats may not be the Bee’s Knees for leg development
Before you blast me here let me explain. Squats are a great exercise for leg development, but they may not be for everyone. Those with long femurs may have a much more difficult time properly executing them then someone else. We have all seen these people in the gym and you know right away that their bodies are just not mechanically set up to properly execute a squat. So if you are one of those people that are just not set up to squat, ignore everyone bitching at you because you don’t do squats. There are other exercises that will work for you.
But before you rule off squats you better try tweaking some aspects of the squat to see if you can make them work for you. If at all possible you should do what you can to incorporate squats into you routine because of the range and amounts of muscles they work. Here are some things to try before xing squats out of your program:
Tips to help you Squat
- Try varying your stance. Try widening your stance and slightly point your toes outward.
- Try elevating your heels. Put a 2.5kg plate or 5kg plate under your heels and see if that helps. This helps many people with ankle mobility issues.
- Change the location of the bar. Try putting the bar further down your back or try front squats or even try the smith machine.
3. Isolation exercises aren’t just for girls
You are probably thinking, “Why are you talking about doing isolation exercises when we all know that the compound movements like the squat are the real mass builders.” Well, if you are not including leg extensions into your routine you are making a monumental mistake. A properly executed leg extension can be just as effective as the squat. Notice the word properly here. Way to often I see people doing piss poor leg extension, their hips are flying all over the place, they are rocking back and forth, they are using momentum to initiate the exercise and they are completely skipping the top range of the motion. So do your leg extensions right and reap their benefits. Keep these tips in mind when trying to perfect your extensions:
Tips to improve your leg extensions
- Isolate your knee motion by keeping your hips/butt down on the seat (lean back a little and grab the handles if you need to)
- Don’t allow your bodyweight to move forward towards your knees and keep your trunk (chest) stable
- Flex and squeeze your quad at the top of the motion. I’ll repeat this again because it is so important. Flex and squeeze your quad at the top of the motion.
4. You can’t “shape” your quads
Being able to emphasize one quad muscle over the other is an urban legend and here is why. It all boils down to the structure of the knee. Here is your anatomy lesson for the day. Because the knee essentially acts like hinge, the quad muscles (which do cross over the knee cap as one common tendon) have no possible way of influencing knee motion any other way than movement in one plane. So what this means is that pointing your feet in or out to shift the knee relative to the line of resistance to whatever exercise you are doing will cause more harm to your knees than any possible benefits you could gain. So don’t think you are going to enhance the sweep of your quads by squatting with your toes pointed in. All you are going to do is wreck your knees.
5. Using a “Full” range of motion could be impeding your quad growth
“Huh? I thought we were supposed to use a full range of motion to maximize gains” is what you were probably thinking. Well we have to understand what we are talking about when we use the term “full range of motion” here. What a lot of people think full range of motion means when they are squatting or doing leg presses is that it means going down to the limits of where the weight can take you. I am sure you have heard the term ass to ground squats. Squatting like this is not optimal for growth. Here is why (pardon me if I get to technical but biomechanics of the muscles fascinates me).
Ass to ground squats – stop it
When the weight influences more motion than the quads can control, too much passive motion can be introduced into the movement. So look at it this way, when your joint such as your knee or hip goes BEYOND its active length ability (the range it can develop actively with only muscles) into a passive range of motion, the optimal muscle tension cannot be developed since the muscles are lengthened to much. This is not conducive to bodybuilding and is going to be hell on your joints. So you want to make sure you are using your full ACTIVE range of motion NOT the full PASSIVE range. So how do you put this into practice. You need to identify your ACTIVE range which is going to be determined by your hip flexion, knee flexion and ankle dorsiflexion. To keep it simple here, if you are squatting to parallel or close to it you are probably OK. You are not doing yourself a favor squatting all the way to the ground.
6. Don’t over rely on lunges
Don’t get me wrong, lunges can be an awesome exercise but they are just so damn hard to do correctly and if something is not done correctly it is not going to benefit you. To maximize tension in a lunge you have to maintain balance and control of several joints. This complicated balance and control act usually results in the lunge being performed with sloppy execution which isn’t stimulating the muscle. If you are hell bent on performing lunges you better study the exercise and know how to execute it starting with light weights until you develop the mind to muscle connection with it. Training your hip adductors/abductors along with the stability of your ankle muscles should be prerequisites for lunges. Lunges are typically associated with shaping and toning but the reality of the fact is they are no better at doing it than other leg exercises. I am still working to perfect my lunges so even though I think they are overrated that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do them altogether. Practice will make them perfect and then they will be another effective arsenal in your toolbox for killer quads.
7. Supersets and drop sets
This is my favorite. Maybe I should have put this first. Anything you can do to induce longer-term anaerobic fatigue in your quads is going to develop them more than any other muscle group in your body. You quads feed on it. So hit the leg press and do a monster drop set until you can’t even move just the platform any more. If you can walk, you should have kept going. Get creative here and make the quads burn.
8. Don’t forget to train your adductors
I need to point out here that your hip adductor can encompass nearly 1/3 of your upper leg's mass! That is huge, so spend some time training them for hypertrophy. Training them will also help to create deeper separations between your inner thigh and quad which helps to give the illusion of bigger quads.
9. Dump the AEROBIC cardio.
Day in and day out of sitting on the bike, running on the treadmill or flopping around on the elliptical doing steady state low intensity aerobic cardio in an effort to burn fat is probably one of the most detrimental things to your quads. Doing this for weeks or months on end will start to decondition the anaerobic potential of your quads and over time they will lose their strength and muscle loss will follow as your quads are trying to adapt to this new aerobic stimulus they are constantly encountering. So how do we get around this is the million dollar question. Well, do anaerobic cardio instead. Who is in favor of HIIT cardio now?
10. Train your quads more frequently
Seems pretty obvious I guess. If you are not seeing results in your quads it might be time to increase the frequency you train them. This will likely entail reducing the overall number of sets each and/or exercises (volume) in exchange for training them in less time with more effort (higher density). The quads are some really big muscles that can handle a huge workload and in many cases they just need to be stimulated more often.
That's it. Some of you may not agree with some of the things in my top ten list here but they have made a difference for me. Hopefully we can have some intelligent discussion if you don’t agree with something I said. Even better would be if we could keep adding to this list.
