Legs not getting bigger, but getting stronger.

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oicdn

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Been awhile since I've posted. Been in and out of the gym...lots of riding being had...school...etc.

So my problem is that my legs aren't getting bigger. They're definitely getting stronger, but not increasing in size like my core and upper body, back, and arms. What gives? I have a feeling I'm starting to look like:

stronglegs.jpg


My leg routine is:

Squats - 1 wu then 5 sets to failure aiming for 8-10
Leg press - 5 sets to failure aiming for 8-10
Leg curls - 5 sets to failure holding full extension for 3 seconds

Friday - evening - calves and hammies
Split squats - 1 wu then 3 sets each side of 8-10
Hamstring curls - 4 sets to failure holding curl for 3 seconds
Standing calf raises - 4 sets to failure
Seated calf raises - 5 sets of 15-20 reps holding peak for 1 second

Sometimes when I can't make it to the gym on leg day (the Y closes at 8pm, I get off work at 7) I do each exercise to failure:


Hindu Squat
Crazy Lunge
One Legged Bird Squat

—1 minute break—

Karate Squat
Falling Tower Exercise
Duck Walks Exercise

—1 minute break—

Catcher’s Squat
Sunken Squat
No push-up burpee


So what gives? Everything above my waist is getting bigger, but my legs aren't despite getting crushed. Any advice?
 
Hmm, good question.

Is your bodyweight changing? Have you been taking measurements of your calf, thigh, hip, waist, chest etc girths? It's possible that you've been recomping, ie gradually gaining muscle and losing fat, and you hold more fat in your lower body than upper, so there's more definition showing up top. Below about 12% bodyfat for males, with the same amount of muscle we look bigger to the untrained eye, just because it makes our muscles more visible.

Conversely, the opposite could be true. If you're between about 12-18% bodyfat and you store more fat up top, then increasing bodyfat could be causing your upper body to appear to be gaining muscle more readily than your lower body is, because in that range your body fat levels are high enough to remove definition, but low enough to still see the shape of the muscle.

Assuming neither of those are the case, and you are in fact building muscle up top but not in your lower body, it could be that the volume you're using is too high, or too low for your body to respond the way you want it to. My calves prefer not to exist, so it took 6-10 sets of calf raises, several times per week, last year to make my calves stop looking disproportionately small. Not big, just less toothpicky. Just as your volume could be off, your frequency could be off. How often are you training legs? Twice a week? Maybe you need to train them more frequently. Maybe less frequently. Or it could be the intensities that you're using. Maybe you need to do lower rep work. Or higher reps. Or both. Or it could be that your technique isn't loading the muscles the way you want it to. Maybe you need to be taking your sets beyond failure (eg drop sets) to provide a more powerful stimulus. Maybe you need to stop going to failure so much, so that your recovery is better and you can get more out of the next session.
 
I train legs on Fridays. I am a form nazi, so I'll use less weight at the expense of staying on point with my form.

However, I'm a cyclist and my type of riding is ALL fast twitch. Below is a video of us messing about at a local park and some guy wanted to film us.



and



That's the kind of riding I'm doing probably 3 -5 times a week in addition to training. I'll do light pedaling on Saturdays to spin the lactic acid out of my legs on my road bike, but that's about it. That style of riding in the video (trials) is VERY dependent on upper body strength as well, so "over training" would mean I probably wouldn't see the gains up top that I am in fact seeing if that were the case...I assume at least. It may not look it, but trials is like like 60% upper body (shoulders and back mostly) and 40% hip explosion/extension. Strength helps, but the hip explosion/extension will almost always beat brute muscle.

As far as my body, I have the typical male problem of storing it in my midsection and NOWHERE else. I didn't get man boobs, my arms didn't get larger, nothing. All belly and hips. In fact, the reason I started going back to the gym was I've been a 32 all my life....since high school where I graduated in 2000. It wasn't until 2 years ago that I started wearing 34's and just staying there. Then all of a sudden the 34's started to get tight and that's where I drew the line. Funny thing is, nobody knew my weight changed or that I even wore a 34 pant. My frame looks like I'd hold more like a 30-31 waist, but nope.

In any case, my diet is on point so it's not that. Mostly because I wanted to eat healthy and wholesome foods. I'm consuming ~120 on a normal day, 180-200 grams of protein on a good day. Me being healthy is more of a side effect with the gym time (imagine that, lol)

As far as measurements, my calves unflexed sit at 15 3/4 inches. I only know this because I wear compression socks. The fit of the socks haven't changed, and neither has the size visually. They've gotten more defined, but they're not getting bigger. Same thing with my quads...more defined, but not bigger. Definitely not to the extent that my upper body is. I know I've lost weight in my thighs because right when I drew the line of gaining weight, my thighs would rub just under my balls. They still do, but to a MUCH lesser extent. I still can't fit in 32's though :(
 
Cool sport of choice.

So, you did get to a point where you had more fat than you were willing to tolerate, and started working on getting rid of that excess fat. Is that still the focus of your training? In general, the amount of muscle mass you can build while focusing on fat loss is fairly low. It's not impossible to build muscle and lose fat at the same time, but it's easier to build or lose at any given time, rather than to see good results in both together. So that could be it.

If you are focused on building muscle rather than fat loss, then it won't just be protein consumption, but total energy consumption, that will be an important factor. So while you're definitely consuming enough protein, you might need more calories in general to get the lower body muscle mass you're after.

If calorie consumption -- not just protein and general healthiness of diet -- is on track for your goals, then I'd go back to experimenting with different intensities, volumes and frequencies.
 
Well, the focus of my training, I figured I'd gain some muscle for power when riding....and as a side effect of more activity lose the fat. The reason why I gained fat was because I went from a completely active lifestyle to a rather sedentary one sitting at a desk (engineering school....lots of studying and desk time.) My activity level literally got chopped into 1/10.

I'm back to my normal activity level. Here's my gym routine:

Monday - morning - Chest
Flat bench -3 sets of 8-10 reps (alternating weeks dumbells and bar) with a double dropset
Incline bench - same as above with a 1 set warm up prior
Decline bench - 4 sets of 10
Cable cross - 3 sets of 8 reps with a single dropset
Seated chest-press -3 sets to failure

Monday - evening - Triceps and abs
Rope pull-downs - 1 warm up 3 sets of 8-10
Underhand tricep pull-downs - 3 sets of 8-10 with a dropset
Single arm skullcrushers - 3 sets of 8-10
Dips - 5 sets to failure
-
30 of each in a circuit, 2 minute break, then repeat one more time
Barbell roll-out
Swiss ball Russian twist
Reverse crunch
Knee raise with a drop

Tuesday - Back
Lat pull down - 1 wu then 3 sets of 8-10
Single arm bent over rows - 3 sets of 8-10
Close grip pull downs with seated rows superset - 3 sets of 8-10 with drop set on each
Dead lifts - 4 sets of 8-10

Tuesday - evening - biceps
Standing bar curls 1 wu with 3 sets of 8-10
Preacher bench curls - 3 sets of 8-10
Incline dumbell curls - 4 sets of 8-10 with a long negative

Wednesday - Cardio
Interval sprints of 15 seconds 20 reps

Thursday - shoulders and traps
Seated lateral deltoid raises - 1 wu then 3 sets of 8-10 with a single dropset
Seated military press - 3 sets of 8-10 (alternating weeks dumbell and bars)
Dumbell shrugs - 4 sets of 8-10
Reverse flys - 4 sets of 8-10

Thursday - evening - abs
Same as Monday evening ab session

Friday - quads
Squats - 1 wu then 5 sets to failure aiming for 8-10
Leg press - 5 sets to failure aiming for 8-10
Leg curls - 5 sets to failure holding full extension for 3 seconds

Friday - evening - calves and hammies
Split squats - 1 wu then 3 sets each side of 8-10
Hamstring curls - 4 sets to failure holding curl for 3 seconds
Standing calf raises - 4 sets to failure
Seated calf raises - 5 sets of 15-20 reps holding peak for 1 second

Saturday - Abs and cardio
Same as Thursday and Monday evening ab sessions
Cycle (spin) at 70% for 30 minutes

Sunday - Off


It's fairly flexible and the exercises change up, like going to flys intsead of benching, front squats instead of back squats, etc just to keep things interesting and changing up. And the morning evening thing isn't necessarily that way, like lately I've been doing the entire thing in one visit. The one thing that's pretty much changed is my deads have gone to rack pulls to focus on more hip explosion and work the back better. It's a bit safer too.

That amount activity alone has been shedding fat and I've been seeing massive gains...but again, my legs aren't really getting any bigger. They're getting cut, but it's so hard to layer on muscle to em. I know they're getting significantly stronger because it's showing in my riding and I can increase weight every week....just not growing visually.

My diet is pretty on point too. If it comes in a box it's not getting eaten. Fast food and sodas have been nixed. I know any routine's success is 90% diet...so I make that a focus. I've been doing small fasting cycles with great success too...but the legs are still not packing on mass. They're sore and weak like would make me think they're slapping on mass like my other muscles, but nope. Just getting stronger.
 
You do 3-6 upper body workouts a week, and 1-2 lower body workouts on the same day. I think I've found an explanation for why your upper body is growing more than your lower body.
 
That's not an accurate statement at all. All of the exercises are isolatory and they're laid out so not one muscle group is fatigued from being used the day prior (take another look at it....it's laid out pretty well.) Each day is one muscle group isolated as much as possible and if it's a compound exercise, it's the secondary muscle group and that secondary group gets worked the following day.

All my muscles are seeing one day a week of being worked and are aimed at the 8-10 rep in being failure...so the heaviest I can push/pull. If anything my lower body is getting worked SIGNIFICANTLY MORE than my upper because of:

1. rack pulls/deads on Tuesday
2. interval sprints on Wednesday
3. the spinning on Saturday (both for lactic acid AND the routine)

IN ADDITION to seeing lots of jumping and hip extension training when riding the trials bike 3-5 times per week.

So no...my upper isn't training any more than my lower....in fact, it's MUCH less. As far as percentage of increase in being able to tack on weight (roughly 7-10% weight increase per week) they are right on par with the rest of my muscle groups, they're just not visually growing as much. E.G. say I was able to push a 65 lb DB 3x8, each time the 8th rep being failure, the next week I would be able to go up to a 70-72 lbs DB with the same result. My legs are seeing that same percentage of increase as the rest of my body. The legs just aren't visually getting larger despite the increase in strength.

I also know my legs have gained much more strength (and again, not visually getting bigger) because my standing vertical and horizontal jump distances have been increasing every week. I've been at a standing box jump height of 48.5 inches for the past two years....just in the past two months I've gained over 2 inches of height...which for anybody who box jumps, 2 inches is a massive increase in height in that short of a time.

With a percentage increase each week that's on par with the rest of my body's other muscle groups AND having a measurable increase in jumping height and distances, one would logically think the increase would be linear, i.e. my legs growing at the same rate since I'm working them out exactly the same as the other muscle groups (3x8 or 4x8 one day a week with the 8th rep being to failure since I'm using the most weight I can) but nope...it's not. I was hoping somebody could help me figure out why.
 
new here bump!
 
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