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Is it possible to have decent legs w/o doing squats regularly?

View attachment 172434
I really labored over posting a pic or not (esp after bboy dropped the mic w pro legs) because i am genuinely embarrassed and so down on my legs but this is where they're at presently. This pic was just after waking up in the AM and getting dressed, no pump or anything. The public shaming I'm feeling is gonna add to my motivation to rebuild my legs. I'll post a pic in a few months to hopefully show some progress w what you guys have shared w me

Bro you’re 6-4. You’d have to add 50lbs of weight to make visual changes that a 5-9 guy could do with 20lbs regarding legs.

Drop your upper body volume. Do

Upper(pulling dominant)
Quad heavy+knee flexion hams
Off
Upper(push dominant
Hamstring heavy. RDLs, SLDL, GMs. And quad touch up
Off

Repeat
 
Damn! What’s your go to movement for quads? Your teardrops are OUTRAGEOUS!🤯
Yea I was about to say I have a LeMond spin bike and I’ll get pumps so intense when I stop I get off and get stuck for 5-15 minutes and I have big ass legs, then I looked aft the pic and my tear drops have never been at that level I know you work crazy hard but that’s where the genetic 1% and hard work combine.
 
My legs are nothing special but I am a prime example of improving (significantly) your legs without squatting. I literally went from having very strong chicken legs to having decent ones without any barbell squatting. Moreover, when I had chicken legs I used to squat very heavy for a period of time. Although as posted using a squat variation is only going to help build your legs but sometimes the classic barbell squat does not suit everybody. In my case after injuring my back barbell squats become very problematic and only went against me.

I could do more because I don't even hack squat that much and nearly all my old gyms didn't even have a hack squat. I can duplicate many movements but I have mainly built my legs from leg pressing, leg extensions and spilt squats. When I do have a hack squat available to me I will always incorporate that into my routine. So many gyms have great belt squats and hack squat machines that anyone could use to build great quads. Mechanically speaking just hack squats (or any squat variation) and leg extensions are more than enough to build impressive legs. For me I just went to hell and back on the leg press weekly to build my legs over time. I had to because I am 6ft 2 and naturally skinny so I did not have genetics on my side at all... I forced them to grow.

I wish I had the machine Luki posted. I had something similar in a gym and went to about 8 years ago and nothing similar ever since. I love that leg press variation and you can safely go to hell and back without any fear of injuring yourself (for people who have bad backs). Anyone with a home gym who wants to build their legs I would recommend getting that.

As posted legs can be built using any equipment you just have to train hard and pick movements that suit you best. Most of the squatting I have done recently has just been with 1 DB. I used to lift so much more weight with my legs than I do now and my legs are much better than the past so don't get lost in the more weight the better. Obviously you want to get as strong as possible in the movements that suit you best so it's still very important just don't get lost in the numbers.

Train every part of your leg so hip abductors/adductors should also be in your routine and they are just as important as anything else. For hamstrings ideally you want a stiff leg deadlift variation and a leg curl variation. Train your calves hard and regularly. Just all basic stuff and just put in the work. Heavy weight for high reps but you also don't need to be beating any powerlifting records to build impressive legs. I barbell squatted over 200kg regularly and had shit legs. I hack squatted 10pps and had ok legs. I would leg press 12pps regularly and had ok legs. By ok I mean compared to most gym goers and in regards to bodybuilders they were shit. Now I am leg pressing 3-8pps and hack squatting 2-5pps and my legs are much better.

Again nothing special but I am tall so it's very hard and I went from having very strong chicken legs to decent sized human legs :D

 
You also have well developed tear drops! @bg65
Wow man thanks. I got lucky w the shape i guess, even as they've been shrinking. I just want to get the size and fullness back to some degree.
 
Bro you’re 6-4. You’d have to add 50lbs of weight to make visual changes that a 5-9 guy could do with 20lbs regarding legs.

Drop your upper body volume. Do

Upper(pulling dominant)
Quad heavy+knee flexion hams
Off
Upper(push dominant
Hamstring heavy. RDLs, SLDL, GMs. And quad touch up
Off

Repeat
Thanks man i think that's a great idea. I've been giving more attention to my legs than upper body but have never split quads and hams days separately. For like 25 years just a "legs" day. I'm sure it'll shock the shit out of my legs.
 
My legs are nothing special but I am a prime example of improving (significantly) your legs without squatting. I literally went from having very strong chicken legs to having decent ones without any barbell squatting. Moreover, when I had chicken legs I used to squat very heavy for a period of time. Although as posted using a squat variation is only going to help build your legs but sometimes the classic barbell squat does not suit everybody. In my case after injuring my back barbell squats become very problematic and only went against me.

I could do more because I don't even hack squat that much and nearly all my old gyms didn't even have a hack squat. I can duplicate many movements but I have mainly built my legs from leg pressing, leg extensions and spilt squats. When I do have a hack squat available to me I will always incorporate that into my routine. So many gyms have great belt squats and hack squat machines that anyone could use to build great quads. Mechanically speaking just hack squats (or any squat variation) and leg extensions are more than enough to build impressive legs. For me I just went to hell and back on the leg press weekly to build my legs over time. I had to because I am 6ft 2 and naturally skinny so I did not have genetics on my side at all... I forced them to grow.

I wish I had the machine Luki posted. I had something similar in a gym and went to about 8 years ago and nothing similar ever since. I love that leg press variation and you can safely go to hell and back without any fear of injuring yourself (for people who have bad backs). Anyone with a home gym who wants to build their legs I would recommend getting that.

As posted legs can be built using any equipment you just have to train hard and pick movements that suit you best. Most of the squatting I have done recently has just been with 1 DB. I used to lift so much more weight with my legs than I do now and my legs are much better than the past so don't get lost in the more weight the better. Obviously you want to get as strong as possible in the movements that suit you best so it's still very important just don't get lost in the numbers.

Train every part of your leg so hip abductors/adductors should also be in your routine and they are just as important as anything else. For hamstrings ideally you want a stiff leg deadlift variation and a leg curl variation. Train your calves hard and regularly. Just all basic stuff and just put in the work. Heavy weight for high reps but you also don't need to be beating any powerlifting records to build impressive legs. I barbell squatted over 200kg regularly and had shit legs. I hack squatted 10pps and had ok legs. I would leg press 12pps regularly and had ok legs. By ok I mean compared to most gym goers and in regards to bodybuilders they were shit. Now I am leg pressing 3-8pps and hack squatting 2-5pps and my legs are much better.

Again nothing special but I am tall so it's very hard and I went from having very strong chicken legs to decent sized human legs :D

Ha! Id say that's pretty special, that's a shit ton of muscle on a 6'2" frame. I've always said I'd rather be like 6' or 6'8" rather than my height. As it is I'm tall enough that it's a hindrance for some things but not tall enough to be useful, like play college ball.
Well, except when an old lady needs something off the shelf at a grocery store. Maybe it will help me get digits when i myself am geriatric haha
 
Ha! Id say that's pretty special, that's a shit ton of muscle on a 6'2" frame. I've always said I'd rather be like 6' or 6'8" rather than my height. As it is I'm tall enough that it's a hindrance for some things but not tall enough to be useful, like play college ball.
Well, except when an old lady needs something off the shelf at a grocery store. Maybe it will help me get digits when i myself am geriatric haha

It literally took me over 15 years of training before I was happy with my legs. I used to feel embarrassed wearing shorts on holiday and it pushed me but even after 10 years of hard training they looked shit :eek: It used to annoy me that people would look at me and think I was the typical gym rat and trained my upper body hard but didn't bother with my legs. The truth was I trained my legs harder than any other body part and had nothing to show for it. I am 6ft 2 but I have long legs as well. I see tall guys today deep barbell squatting 4-5pps and they have shit legs and I know their pain :D

Bodybuilding is an illusion in many ways. I just saw your pic and your legs are good regardless of height. Now knowing you are 6ft 4 makes them better because it's hard to make them look thick when they are so long. Even with some thickness when very tall guys diet down to a lean bodyweight a lot of that thickness will disappear. All you can do is keep at it and never lose motivation and just keep pushing it.

I will go over a few things with you another time (going to bed now) because when something is stubborn you have to make sure all areas are covered. By that I mean your training (split, movements, form, volume, intensity etc) and your recovery (volume, frequency, nutrition, sleep etc) and with something like this it only helps making sure everything is in your favour on your legs days. Meaning your pre and post meals, intra nutrition (if any), intra drugs (if any), hydration, stretching, massage and ensuring all areas are in place to ensure your effort in the gym will result in even weak body parts improving.
 
Rest paused 30 rep leg presses are magical.

And leg press doesn’t have to be one exercise. Low and narrow day 1, normal stance day 2, high and wide day 3. Progression in the 15-25 rep range on those movements. You get to where you’ve added 2 extra plates per side on your 25 rep RP set, there will be some growth.
 
in my experiences for the average person or gym rat YES, EASILY. NPC physique and beyond this is debatable and up to the eye of the beholder

Hit All 4 stances on leg press. Low and wide (sumo) + low and close (sissy) + high and wide (sumo) + high and close (sissy)
tear drop and sweep recruitment and development can be expected also, and even a bit more further if you dare go lighter and bow your toes/feet out a little and also inward (pigeon toed). clearly one can infer this will drastically affect your R.O.M so be careful when doing so. Pre-exhaustion even. Combine with YOGA alone and you will be quite surprised. The sickest legs I have ever had were during intensive muay Thai training periods. It probably at least for me was the most gratifying also beyond the superficial "damn I look awesome". Lunges bodyweight trackstar strides will break you off bigtime also (incorporate some incline and decline angles and you are set)

then from this blueprint you can play around and deploy diff agents and variable to champion further your desired outcome (rest pause, quick explosion, slow-mo negatives,forced contractions, and rep schemes)
 
I never really felt the benefit to squatting purely for leg growth. I built up over time to 5pps for deep reps and I’m 5’11, nothing amazing by some standards but for the overall toll it took on the body, my legs never progressed as much as when concentrating on leg press / hacks / pendulum where I feel quads much more isolated.
 
John Jewit and Dusty Hanshaw some some serious pounds on the smith squat, and since you don’t have to balance, you can really mess with the tempo, 1/2 reps out of the bottom, pauses….
 
You wont like getting old as that happens no matter what you want. Ah to be 40 again and in my prime!
I find a leg press builds better quads then squats do. But it doesn't do much in the way of hamstrings or glutes from my experience as the range of motion for those groups is very limited as the hip never comes close to a full contraction.
When i got my first gym membership my legs were better then most that had been there for years as i had done many leg presses as my high school had one. And all the miles i logger on a bicycle especially uphill really causes a hell of a pump in the legs.
If you put your feet up high and wide while doing leg presses you’ll strongly stimulate your glutes/Hams along with your quads.
 
In this picture I had not trained legs seriously or done squats for nearly a decade. I still don't. Lol. At the time I was only doing a few sets of light weight leg extensions and body weight lunges. That's it for quads. They aren't massive, but they had good shape and cuts for never training them.


View attachment 172271
If you can’t get big quads doing one-arm Dumbbell stationary lunges and leg extensions, squats won’t do it either.
 
My gym finally got a hack machine. Now, hack squats are not new to me, the last gym I trained at had a good one and I have used many other good ones over the years. So I can say this with complete confidence . . . the machine is not ‘biomechanicaly’ correct, it will completely destroy your knees. The one my gym just bought is the Nautilus brand and it must have been designed by somebody who knows nothing about training and probably never even tried the machine because if he / she did it would not have been built the way it is.

I tried it with every foot position, had my training partner use it, again every conceivable foot position and several other people watching did the same. They all said it hurt their knees. Really sad. A few design tweaks and it could be golden. Great quality, poor design.

Am not saying hacks are bad, they are not and are a very result producing exercise as are leg presses, on a correctly designed machine.

Rant mode off.

I wish my gym had one 🙁
Sometimes there’s no way to work around a poor design.
 
Building up adductors will also make you legs look bigger
 
Mate I’m in the same boat with low back issues and haven’t back squatted in years. My ssb has cobwebs on it. two exercises I do regularly at home that hammer my legs with minimal low back involvement are Bulgarian split squats. Do a couple of 20 rep sets per leg with a 3 sec tempo and paused and the burn is insane.
also,pick up used a cheap sissy squat bench or rig your own and do the same 20 reps.
 
Both Phil Hernon and Dante taught me about optical illusion in bodybuilding, and when it comes to big legs it's all about adductors.
 
If you put your feet up high and wide while doing leg presses you’ll strongly stimulate your glutes/Hams along with your quads.
I have done those for years mostly with little results. And do not think they do near as much as a full range of motion. Range is still very limited in that position. RDL's and such are much more effective from my experience.
 
I have done those for years mostly with little results. And do not think they do near as much as a full range of motion. Range is still very limited in that position. RDL's and such are much more effective from my experience.
The only thing I have with RDL’s is that cause damage the discs in the lower back over time. A better range of motion is obtainable by doing the leg presses one leg at a time. This will really fire up the glutes and put less strain on your lower back.
 
The only thing I have with RDL’s is that cause damage the discs in the lower back over time. A better range of motion is obtainable by doing the leg presses one leg at a time. This will really fire up the glutes and put less strain on your lower back.
Still only a partial range of motion doing those as well. I have done them on and off over the last 30+ years and never saw any real gains. And the uneven loading of the spine with doing 1 legged presses or squats with any real weight leaves me to think it raises the risk of spine trouble over the years.
 

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