Bringing up your legs

[Sticky]

LOL.

OP, just keep squatting. You need no fancy programming.

 

[0ni]

I just squat and my quads, hams and calves all grow fine. I'm 5'7", 90kg, legs are 27.5", calves 16". The only high reps squats I've ever done were the widowmaker 20 rep breathing squat. I mostly do between 3~6 reps for strength, and total between 25 and 50 reps over a large number of sets every session.

0ni, you sound like you have a ton of knowledge on growing legs, how come yours are like a pair of toothpicks?

I'm a cyclist brah

 

[leachy]

I just squat and my quads, hams and calves all grow fine. I'm 5'7", 90kg, legs are 27.5", calves 16". The only high reps squats I've ever done were the widowmaker 20 rep breathing squat. I mostly do between 3~6 reps for strength, and total between 25 and 50 reps over a large number of sets every session.

0ni, you sound like you have a ton of knowledge on growing legs, how come yours are like a pair of toothpicks?

But he has killer quads brah...

 

[IRON TANKS]

Yep thick set quads here.. I only need to squat once a week. Legs are just solid. That's my frame.

 

[Bench Polkov]

Yeah if you can't squat 150 I wouldn't advise Smolov. I just suggested it because its programming that forces a massive volume of squats on you.

As everybody else has said, fucking squat more.

 

[Aiden3121]

that smolov shit sounds hardcore from the program i read you gotta do.
I would honeslty love to do it, but i just think id b so fucked from it iwouldnt do any upper body training

 

[adamklam]

that smolov shit sounds hardcore from the program i read you gotta do.
I would honeslty love to do it, but i just think id b so fucked from it iwouldnt do any upper body training

I don't think you are meant to do much upper body when doing Smolov anyway.

 

[adamklam]

that smolov shit sounds hardcore from the program i read you gotta do.
I would honeslty love to do it, but i just think id b so fucked from it iwouldnt do any upper body training

I don't think you are meant to do much upper body when doing Smolov anyway.

 

[Skalatharx]

Drop sets of squats, legpress and walking lunges will grow them as well. Bring a bucket lol.

 

[Sticky]

I don't think you are meant to do much upper body when doing Smolov anyway.

I smolov squat, and smolov bench at the same time, plus all my rows, chins, curls, GHR, sldl........

It all comes down to how dedicated your willing to be. You need to have your diet and recovery in check or you will fail miserably. The workouts get very LOOOONG.

The only thing that will get neglected during smolov is deadlifts.
That said, 4 weeks of smolov put 20kg on my squat 1rm, and 10kg on my deadlift 1rm, without deadlifting once.

 

[adamklam]

I smolov squat, and smolov bench at the same time, plus all my rows, chins, curls, GHR, sldl........

It all comes down to how dedicated your willing to be. You need to have your diet and recovery in check or you will fail miserably. The workouts get very LOOOONG.

The only thing that will get neglected during smolov is deadlifts.
That said, 4 weeks of smolov put 20kg on my squat 1rm, and 10kg on my deadlift 1rm, without deadlifting once.

Did you run full Smolov on both or Smolov squat / Smolov junior bench?

Would you recommend doing it?

 

[Sticky]

Did you run full Smolov on both or Smolov squat / Smolov junior bench?

Would you recommend doing it?

I'm in my 3rd run of intense for squats and jnr for bench.

Before I started it I was at 160/117.5/220 I'm now at 200/135/242.5.

It's very hard on your joints, and not something I would recommend for most.
That said, if you can handle the volume, know your body, and do all the assistance work, it will yield great results.

I think running it once or twice a year is a good way to go.

 

[TheGiftToLift]

Ok, lots of good advice. Thanks for all the input guys.

Oni - I'll give test for muscle fibers tonight when I get home.

Lessons learnt:

Squat heavier; in my defence I had absolutely no concept of what a good squat weight was. If I could do 150kg for 10x3 at my gym, I would be the king. To me that is a massive effort.



I'm studying for the LSAT in October so I won't be going out much, plus I am breaking up with the missus so I will get very serious about bringing up the old man pegs for the next two months at least.

 

[TheGiftToLift]

I have no idea what you're squatting but the chances are that if you're not making progress then you are either A) Being a pussy and not pushing the weight or B) Training wrong for your body type. Here is what I want you to do:

Record your vertical jump. Objective is to jump as high as possible
If you dip down past a 1/4 squat and take a long time switching from the eccentric to the concentric, you have mostly slow twitch muscle fibers
If you dip down very little with a very fast switch, you have fast twitch muscle fibers.

What this means:
If you have fast twitch muscle fibers (like me), great! Your legs will respond better to a higher weight and lower reps. I built my legs with 10x3 and have killer quads. Try 5x5 for squats and see how you get on. Do this for 3 weeks, then deload on week 4. On week 5, do 6x4 and see if you can push the weight faster, if not then go back to 5x5. If you can then try 7x3.

If you're mostly slow twitch, I still recommend 5x5. But after you do that, I want you to hop on the leg press (yes, the leg press) and press a weight you can do for ~10reps for 20 reps. Now you're probably thinking I'm crazy but listen in. You should lower the weight in 5 seconds and explode the weight up as fast as you can on every rep. At the top, take 15 deep breaths then go for another rep. By rep 12 this should hurt, by rep 15 you will hate me, by rep 20 your spleen will be coming out of your mouth! Next squatting session, increase the leg press weight by 5kg. Increase it by 5kg every workout

Don't forget to drop me a PM the day after doing the 20 reps on the leg press to tell me how much you hate me! And just to clarify, adding the 20 rep leg press onto the fast twitch workout will give you amazing results as well. Many people when squatting just don't have the right amount of time under tension to get growth due to them doing the eccentric fairly fast in order to use max weights

I'm currently doing Fadi's beginner program.
i.e 8x3 for all major lifts except 10x3 for squat.

So what you're saying is keep doing everything else the same, but do 5x5 for squats and then the 20 rep leg press (45 degree or normal seated ?) afterwards? Also, after week 3 how much should I deload? 10%-20%?

 

[0ni]

I'm currently doing Fadi's beginner program.
i.e 8x3 for all major lifts except 10x3 for squat.

So what you're saying is keep doing everything else the same, but do 5x5 for squats and then the 20 rep leg press (45 degree or normal seated ?) afterwards? Also, after week 3 how much should I deload? 10%-20%?

Film yourself for all 10 sets of squats. Calculate your total time under tension. For hypertrophy you need to average 60 seconds per set. Do not count the time your knees are locked out. If you're doing 10x3 then you are probably not achieving a high level of TUT. Lets say you average a tempo of 3035 (3 second negative, 0 second switching, 3 second concentric and 5 seconds rest with your knees 95% locked out) you're getting an average of 33 seconds of time under tension and will get good strength gains, but you need extra work for better hypertrophy gains. So you can either slow your eccentric down and use that tempo (but always remember to lift the weight as fast as you can) or you can add in extra time under tension with 20 rep squats.

One thing I am thinking though, is that a routine will only really work for 3 weeks before you need to change it, so adding in some post-fatigue (extra) work will cause a lot more hypertrophy. Leg press works well for quads and you can vary the foot position every 3 weeks to get a different stimulus, change the tempo etc. You will be getting plenty of work from the 10x3 so you don't need a lot of work (20 rep squats will probably be borderline overtraining, but you could do this once a month). Poliquin has stated that unilateral work done after multi-joint exercises has an amazing hormonal response, so I would recommend that.

Too long; didn't read:
Squats: 10x3 with a 30X1 tempo
One legged leg press: 2x8 each leg with a 40X1 tempo

Charles Poliquin's Blog - Tip 130: Strategic Programming - Use Unilateral Lifts After Large Muscle Group Lifts for Optimal Anabolic Response

 

[TheGiftToLift]

Film yourself for all 10 sets of squats. Calculate your total time under tension. For hypertrophy you need to average 60 seconds per set. Do not count the time your knees are locked out. If you're doing 10x3 then you are probably not achieving a high level of TUT. Lets say you average a tempo of 3035 (3 second negative, 0 second switching, 3 second concentric and 5 seconds rest with your knees 95% locked out) you're getting an average of 33 seconds of time under tension and will get good strength gains, but you need extra work for better hypertrophy gains. So you can either slow your eccentric down and use that tempo (but always remember to lift the weight as fast as you can) or you can add in extra time under tension with 20 rep squats.

One thing I am thinking though, is that a routine will only really work for 3 weeks before you need to change it, so adding in some post-fatigue (extra) work will cause a lot more hypertrophy. Leg press works well for quads and you can vary the foot position every 3 weeks to get a different stimulus, change the tempo etc. You will be getting plenty of work from the 10x3 so you don't need a lot of work (20 rep squats will probably be borderline overtraining, but you could do this once a month). Poliquin has stated that unilateral work done after multi-joint exercises has an amazing hormonal response, so I would recommend that.

Too long; didn't read:
Squats: 10x3 with a 30X1 tempo
One legged leg press: 2x8 each leg with a 40X1 tempo

Charles Poliquin's Blog - Tip 130: Strategic Programming - Use Unilateral Lifts After Large Muscle Group Lifts for Optimal Anabolic Response

sorry man, I meant 10 reps for 3 sets.

 

[0ni]

sorry man, I meant 10 reps for 3 sets.

Ah ok, well that would bring your TUT to about 60-80 seconds so that is good for hypertrophy. But it's pretty hard to increase your 10RM relative to say your 5RM, so try upping the sets and lowering the reps. Try something like:

Squats: 6x6 tempo: 30X1 (Start at 65% of your 1RM and ramp up to 2 top sets)
One legged leg press: 2x8 tempo: 30X1

The key is really to keep pushing the weight so once you stop making decent strength progress (usually after 3 weeks or 6 sessions) you should change something to keep making progress. You can either up the weight, lower the sets and raise the reps, lower the reps and raise the sets, change the tempo, add in different assistance to bring up your weak points etc

3x5 works very, very well and you will make decent gains for a very long time on it (2 warm up sets then 3 working sets) and you can change that to 5x5 ramping up to the top set when you stop making gains on that. You can then add variety by swapping your assistance exercises around. I'd highly recommend Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 as it allows you to do this with ease and make amazing strength and mass gains. For some reason people don't like to do it because it's a "powerlifting routine" but when have you ever seen a small powerlifter? They actually did a study of 20 of the BEST bodybuilders, powerlifters and sumo wrestlers and the sumos had the most LEAN body mass, followed by the powerlifters then the bodybuilders. This is mostly because of how much they fucking eat, but it goes to show that as long as you put in the brotein and calories and lift heavy, you will gain

Oh, and the sumos didn't even lift

 

[dave]

I've got an idea. Stick to the beginners program, eat some more, cut out any running etc. Once you leave being a beginner then look to squatting twice a week (lower reps) with some additional accessory work in the higher rep range and see how you go then.

 

[Fadi]

I'm currently doing Fadi's beginner program.
i.e 8x3 for all major lifts except 10x3 for squat.

So what you're saying is keep doing everything else the same, but do 5x5 for squats and then the 20 rep leg press (45 degree or normal seated ?) afterwards? Also, after week 3 how much should I deload? 10%-20%?

Man, you got my heart going here! It's 3x8 and 3x10 and not the other way around. Weights first, followed by sets, and last are the reps. Of course you may have it as you wish, but I just like to make sure that we're on the same page with the sets and reps, or else you'd be following an Olympic weightlifter's program (with a slight variation) than you would be a bodybuilder's program!

Thank you.
Fadi.

 

[The Hamburgler]

a routine will only really work for 3 weeks before you need to change it

This bought the lolz. maybe for a pro that has been training 10 years, but then, you dont see pros on forums asking beginner questions like 'how do i make my legs grow'

And it is harder to increase your 10rm but when youre squatting less than 3 wheels progress should be made for any rep range.

if you want extreme time under tension do GVT 10x10