2 Biggest Leg Training Mistakes

Having strong, lean legs (and glutes) with good muscle tone is a key goal of most people’s workout regimes. But a lot of people make these 2 errors and therefore seriously limit their results. Check out my 2 Biggest Leg Training Mistakes.

1/ Isolation Training

The best way to get the best results in the gym no matter what body part you are targeting is to choose exercises that work multiple muscle groups at the same time. Let’s compare a squat to the adductor/abductor machine. (That’s the machine in the gym that you sit in and either squeeze your legs in or out). With a squat you exercise the inner and outer thighs, the quads, the hamstrings and the glutes. Basically everything from your core down. With the abductor/adductor machine you only hit the inner or outer upper leg muscles. So the number of muscle fibres recruited could not be more different. Probably 100 times more muscles fibre recruited with the squat.

This means 2 things;

a/ You are burning far more calories from the squat. Because you are recruiting so many more muscle fibres you use a lot more energy and burn a lot more calories.

b/ In addition to this your heart will have to pump far more oxygen to all these muscles fibres thus creating a much greater cardiovascular result. So you will get your heart rate up as well as training anaerobically. Which is good for you heart health as well as good for the calorie burn.

2/ Over-dominance on quads (thighs)

Its human nature to want to prioritise those muscles which we can see most easily in the mirror. In the case of legs it’s the quads. So most people’s workouts over-work the quads relative to the hamstrings and glutes. This is a big mistake as it will lead to muscle imbalances. These imbalances firstly look a bit odd if you have more lean muscle in one area compared to another. And secondly it can lead to pain and increased risk of injury. Weak hamstrings and glutes are one of the main causes of lower back pain for example.

It’s important to say that exercises such as squats, split squats, Bulgarian split squat and lunges do work the quads, hamstrings and glutes. However they are all quad dominant exercises. That is to say that the quads are worked most and it will more than likely be the quads you feel working and tiring more than anything else.

Let’s say you do 2 of the above exercises in your workout, you then should also have 2 hamstring/glute dominant exercises in the workout as well to balance it out. Probably one hip hinge exercise, so either hip thrusts, Romanian deadlift or glute cable pull through. And a leg curl exercise such as lying stability ball leg curls, slick floor curls or reverse Nordic curls.

Conclusion – 2 Biggest Leg Training Mistakes

Avoid these 3 mistakes and you will get far more out of your lower body workouts. You will increase muscle definition, burn more calories and protect yourself from injury.