Strong legs are pretty important, aren’t they? Certainly, when we consider that humans are upright bipeds. The legs support and locomote. They propel us forwards, backwards, push us sideways and allow us to stand in a queue. They handily bend in the middle, allowing us to sit down to rest and perform critical bodily functions, such as evacuation.
As we age, like every part of us, our legs are subject to entropic processes and undergo losses of muscle mass and bone mineral density. In my own family, my father has gotten to the age that he starts to lose his footing and can’t recover the situation or slips and can’t get up again. Which is crazy considering he was a powerlifting champion! But he is of the generation that is of the mindset that lifting weights is bad for the elderly and also of the generation where, of course, he won’t listen to a “child” telling him what is best!
Now, whether you want to be able to have more sure footing on uneven terrain, play games with your children or grandchildren, hit the golf course with your friends, or just have legs that would make a rhino jealous, let’s have a look at the best way to strength train your legs and make that happen!
Previously on the Get-Fit Guy podcast (which I host), I have spoken about a strength hierarchy, which, in case you haven’t heard, is:
- Motor control
- Muscular endurance
- Strength endurance
- Maximal contractions
What this means is you have to be able to:
- Make the patterns
- Show you can make the patterns as you become tired
- Show you can make the patterns as you become tired and control an external load
Finally, you are ready in terms of muscular and nervous system conditioning to do a maximal contraction (lift as heavy as you can).
So, if you want to get strong legs, the first thing is to create an approach that would help you make the shape required. That means actions like your bending pattern or your upper push and pull. So we want to focus on the ability to perform knee bends in both the squat pattern and the lunge pattern, as both are crucial to everyday movements walking and running are lunge patterns and sitting down is a squat pattern.
So, what exactly is the shape required?
You are able to bend at the hips and knees simultaneously. It’s very common due to our sedentary lives and office-based work where we sit most of the day that many of us lack the ability to make this pattern. Most common, I see knees bending first. This leads to the heels lifting off the floor as we approach the bottom of the squat, which, of course, is unstable.
Whilst you perform the squat (or lunge), the knee stays tracking over the middle of the foot, with a vertical shin. If the knee drifts inwards, that is called knee valgus and has been positively-correlated with knee injury. It’s more common in women because of the shape of the pelvis causing more of an angle of the thigh bone (the femur) from hip to knee. It’s called the “angle of Q.”
Similarly, it’s important that we have a strong core and be able to hold our torso in a fixed position as we move, because once we add load, we will find that a deformable lever (the torso being the lever here) is a poor transmitter of force.
We always want to squat as deep as we can while maintaining the above. Deep squats are NOT bad for the knees if they track centrally. Strength is gained in the range it’s trained. If you do shallow squats, you won’t ever be strong in a deep position.
We should always aim to squat in free space with a load we have to control independently. This is because it mimics reality much better than a machine, which keeps us in a fixed range of motion. When we squat in free space, we have to use so many other muscles to control things like balance, which we get away with on a machine.
I would recommend bearing in mind that machines were never invented to keep you safe. They were created to make gyms more profitable. The first machines had the purpose of allowing gyms to operate with little to no staff because now, for the first time, no one needed to be taught how to use a barbell. This happened in the 1970s with a huge marketing push by Nautilus, although several small independent companies had made machines earlier than this.
The free weight is KING for all outcomes if one is injury-free and able.
Now that we have covered some brief technical points, we need to talk about how to build capacity. It’s a fact that the biggest predictor we have of potential for force output is the cross-sectional diameter of a muscle. In most cases, a bigger muscle can create more force than a smaller one. So, at some point, we want to increase muscular size because this will lead to better strength outcomes. It is generally accepted that more “time under tension” will grow your muscles better than a small number of fast reps. So, we should focus on slow reps (we call this tempo training), and this has four phases:
- Eccentric (lowering)
- Isometric (an active pause at the bottom)
- Concentric (lifting)
- Isometric (an active pause at the top)
As a coach, I might write a squat for a client as 3X2. This would mean three seconds to squat down, two seconds pause at the bottom, with X meaning explosive, so stand it up as quickly as possible, and finally, a two second pause at the top to reset and get ready for the next rep.
Our goal is to get stronger legs but also to be able to have some capacity for life (long walks, golf, etc.). If we do really heavy singles, we won’t have any work capacity, and if we do sets of 20, it won’t allow us to use enough load to get stronger. So usually, unless you’re training for a specific athletic goal, I would use sets of five. This is a sweet spot between strength and capacity.
We want to make sure we are getting stronger, so we have to increase the load (stress) each time to make sure we have a dose-response. So, I might say to a client one week that they will perform three to five sets of five reps at 32X2 with two to three minutes rest between sets at 95lbs, and then the following week, everything will remain the same except for the load, which will increase by 5lbs. We may see a client be able to increase by 25lbs but should always hold this back, because our ligaments and tendons don’t adapt as quickly as our muscles and are always lagging behind and this may result in an injury to a tendon by progressing too quickly.
Now, this method (linear progression) will eventually stop working when all the novice gains have run out because you have picked all the low-hanging fruit. That is when you may start to add greater complexity of movement and program design (see episode 594 below).
So that’s it, Kevin? I just hit the gym and do 5×5 squats and leave? Well, no. It’s important for us to identify weaknesses and become more well-rounded. Some of us may have weak ankles or flat arches on our feet, causing our knees to collapse on the squat. Some may have a knee collapse caused by weak glutes. We may see hips lifting too early because of weak hip extension and trying to use the quads more. These are all things we want to address.
Now, let’s go deeper on how to assess your squat pattern by common errors and talk about some “fixes” you may want to try! Everyone should be performing squats, but how do you know if you perform them correctly? And if not, how do you address that?
There are two major camps that any loaded movement will fall into:
- Poor motor control, meaning you just can’t make the pattern
- Just not strong enough
It’s pretty easy to tell the difference between the two, and which one you find yourself in will affect the way you will address the problem. Let’s say you go to the gym and warm up your squats starting with some unloaded ‘air squats’, which by the way, I would ALWAYS recommend. The best warm-up for squats is squats. So, they look great. So, you move to a 45lb barbell, still looking good; 65lbs, 95lbs, 135, 155, 185 all look and feel great. At 195, your knees collapse, your back rounds and your eyeballs come out on stalks. This right here is a case of ‘just not strong enough.’ I know this because every preceding set and rep was good.
If, on the other hand, you are making any of the major points of performance issues mentioned above from the get-go, including in the warm-up, well, you, my friend, don’t have the motor control yet.
So, either way we have problems. How do we go about fixing these problems? Listen to the episode to find out. Use the player above or click right here:
Depending on how you do a squat, you may work your low back more than your quads, or your hamstrings more than your low back. By knowing different squat variations, you can not only target a body part or movement more efficiently, but you can also have an option to turn to if your favorite piece of exercise equipment is getting monopolized at the gym, or you just can’t make it to the gym!
A previous Get-Fit Guy, Ben Greenfield shared his own lower body wisdom back in 2013 when he gave us 13 squat variations to work the lower body, boost performance, and improve strength.
But squats aren’t the only game in town for leg day. Another of our great Get-Fit Guys, Dr. Jonathan Su provided his thoughts on the benefits of squats and lunges for stronger legs. Listen as Jonathan discussed both exercises and answered the age-old question, are squats or lunges better?
If you are looing to move more of your body, more often, and in more interesting ways, tune in weekly to Get-Fit Guy!
Disclaimer
All content here is for informational purposes only. This content does not replace the professional judgment of your own health provider. Please consult a licensed health professional for all individual questions and issues.