Don’t Skip Leg Day

Leg day, the day by which most weight-lifters dread, and many tend to leave out of their routine. Everybody notices the upper-body the most, so people tend to work that part of the body the most, leaving out the legs. However, that isn’t the best way to improve your body. The best route to an aesthetic build is to work every muscle group in the body. If you are leaving out leg day, thats an entire half of your body that isn’t being trained. Leg day is more important than most people think, and here is why.

Many weightlifters seem to be under the common misconception that working out your upper body more often will make it bigger. If you don’t break up your workouts it can actually lead to muscle fatigue and injury. But did you know that working out your legs actually aids hypertrophy in your upperbody? According to this Norwegian University study, it’s true! The study took eleven male test subjects whom have never done weight-training before, and put them on a workout plan where they trained 4 days a week for 11 weeks. Two of the days they only trained their left bicep alone; this was used as the control for the study. The other two days they trained their legs then immediately after trained their right bicep; this was the experimental variable. The results of the test showed that the bicep trained right after legs was significantly bigger in every one of the participants. We can’t conclude causation from just this study as it only had eleven participants. However, it shows there is definitely a correlation between training legs and hypertrophy of upper body.

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Don’t be like Tyson Chandler, train your legs.

How can training my legs possibly improve my upper body?

Testosterone and growth hormone are two key hormones for muscle growth. Training legs boosts both testosterone and growth hormone levels of your body. Well, testosterone and GH are produced and circulated throughout the body during all forms of exercise, but training your legs is the most effective way to do so. Dr. Amy Vivien Tanner was quoted saying, “The response will also depend on the intensity and volume of the session, in addition to the volume of muscle engaged in the session.” The most effective way of generating these hormones is by hitting the bigger muscle groups hard. The legs are considered the biggest muscle group in the body. Assuming that you are woking out all muscle groups with the same intensity and volume, that leaves them as your number one target to boost testosterone and GH. Squats work almost the entire lower half of your body, which makes them perfect for it. In the conclusion of a study at the University of Northern Texas, it was stated that squats are the leading exercise to produce both when compared with other exercises. When squats are compared with another high-volume hormone-generating leg exercise, the leg press, squats generated higher levels of both. You can view this in the charts below. All of the experiments mentioned so far in this blog contain evidence supporting the hypothesis that testosterone and GH are both increased significantly with leg workouts. There is enough support and we can say that lifting legs directly causes the generation of both.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last reason as to why you should partake in leg day is it will improve your athletic performance. This should be obvious. Whether you are a basketball player or a track runner, there are many athletic benefits from weight training involving your legs. I played basketball all throughout high school. When I entered high school as a freshman I always wanted to be able to dunk, but couldn’t. After an entire off-season of weight training, I went from grazing the rim to being able to put one down. It vastly improved my vertical jump height. I also became faster and more explosive. Skip around this video of one of Justin Verlander’s workouts and take note of how many exercises he is doing for his legs. He is a pitcher! Perhaps the most deadly of such. The position is known for using its arms to throw the ball, but what isn’t recognized is that the power of the throw is generated through the legs.

If you are looking for quicker gains, to become a better athlete or to sculpt the perfect body, be sure to include leg workouts into your training. There are too many benefits to miss out on. You might be sore tomorrow, but it’ll help you look better than you did yesterday.