Growin' Dem' Legs

[musclecarmayham]

Lagging legs are starting to bug me. I'm going for a overall big physique and I just can't seem to get them to grow.

My squat form is just bad, I'm new to it and I've never had someone show me how best to go about it.

Most of my quad work comes from machines or deadlifts; I know squats are optimal for overall growth and strength.

Quads aren't bad, but my hamstrings are fairly pathetic.

Weirdest thing is my calves are huge; they're 17 inches like my arms and I'm 5'10" and 203lbs, so I don't have trouble with them.

Current leg day:

Seated leg raise: 15/12/10/8/6; start at 130lbs; end on 250 for the last 6.

Squats: 15/12/10/6/6; weight isn't really that high, I have a lot of trouble with bar placement, it takes the wind out of me and I suffer from asthma to begin with, traps give me trouble so I can't figure how wide to grip the bar.

Leg press: 15/12/10/6/6/6; weight is pretty high, start at 700; work up to 1000, on a good day I can do 1200

Standing calf raise (or seated): 15/12/10/6/6; standing I work from 270 and get up to 540...then hop around because that jazz hurts man.

Hack squat (sometimes)

Deadlift (sometimes): I warm up with reps and then just stick to lifting towards max.

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I excluded lunges, I can't get the hand of doing them within the rack, and my gym is popular and thus full of folks so I tend not to do lunges with the DBs.

Please critique, I don't want to be any more topheavy than I already am.

[fullboost]

I used to have really bad form with squats too, do you have a smith machine available? You could start off by doing squats in that, to get your form right and take away the issue of trying to balance until you've mastered it. That's what I did and now i have no issues.

[600@50]

You said you start your leg press at 700 lbs and go up to 1200 sometimes. How far are you moving the weight? Some people get caught up on the weight and not moving the weight. Try letting the leg press carriage come all the way down. And I mean ALL the way until you are really tight. I've seen skinny guys put a bunch of weight on the leg press and move it 6 or 8 inches. That's a partial movement. Not even close to what you need to be doing for growth.

[MotoLifter]

^^^^^+1

17 inch calves for a guy that says he LPs 700-1200 lbs is not good man. i have 16 3/4 (just measured) calves and I routinely work with 400-500 lbs on LPs. 3-4 sets 8-12 reps after 4-5 sets of heavy squats. if your legs arent trying to squeeze the air out of you at the bottom of a LP re think the lift technique. unless your ronnie, then do all the partials you want!

Moto

[dren]

you need a spotter on the squats man thats all, also lunges, try Jump lunges and hopefully you got a seated job so the legs can rest