So we are aware of the commitment you need to show to get your muscle growth on a regular basis. Once you pass this test, and you’re ready to give the commitment, you need to think about exercise selection and why you need to choose certain exercises over others.
Here is how it needs to go.
Each and every exercise has a certain “exercise cost”. This means certain exercises burn more energy and calories more than others, and break more muscle tissue down than others.
For example, a squat will always burn more calories than concentration curls. This is because the squat is primarily working yours legs which are your body’s biggest muscle group, and indirectly works the rest of your body too because of the sheer effort involved in the exercise.
On the other hand, concentration curls just work the biceps, when compared to the legs is one of the smallest muscle groups. Not only that, but you will notice that the squat is a far harder exercise to perform than the curls. Any time you recruit more muscle groups or bigger muscle groups to perform an exercise, you will be working harder full stop. Any time you work harder, you break down more muscle tissue which is what we are aiming to do here in this post.
So when it comes to exercise selection, try and think which exercises are going to benefit you MOST in your workouts. The chances are that the most beneficial exercises will often be the hardest, and the ones that most people put off! This is why you need a great attitude to break down muscle tissue and create the conditions for muscle growth. You won’t get away with “namby pamby” exercises and still develop significant lean muscle tissue, it simply can’t happen unless you are using steroids, and you don’t really want to cheat and use substances that will have highly negative side effect do you?!!!
So if we are looking at your legs for a start, i would look at doing squats (if you have no knee/ankle/back problems), if you do have any problems, i would substitute this with leg presses, which can still give good results, but you won’t develop any associated problems.
If you have no access to a squat rack, i would try some lunges with some dumbbells by your side, these have a very high energy cost again and you can send that cost much higher if you turn them into walking lunges. Proper form is essential on this exercise keeping the knee in line with your ankle, and not stomping your knee down, be gentle with your knees, you’re going to need them when you’re 70!!
So these 3 exercises are great for muscle gain, and to develop some definition and thigh and hamstring development, i would try leg extensions (make sure to lower slowly too) and leg curls (lower slowly here too). Nothing looks more silly than well developed thighs and weak hamstrings, so make sure to include these too.
For calves i would try standing calf raises, number one for calf development or calf raises on the leg presses which you need to lighten up the weight, as its more of a specialist movement than the leg presses, you are trying to replicate the standing calf raise movement on the leg press.
I would look at doing 10-12 reps on each movement, as legs tend to need slightly more reps.
I would try 3 sets of each.
You will notice from doing this workout that you breathe heavily, and usually get a good sweat up and generally are very tired that night and day after maybe. This shows this workout is a HIGH ENERGY COST and WILL break down a lot of muscle tissue.
As long as you eat a lot of food and regularly, you will develop some serious muscle in your legs!
