Strength coach Eugene Teo makes YouTube videos sharing his expertise and advice on how to most effectively train muscles to see sustainable results while also avoiding injury. In his latest, he breaks down five things to bear in mind while training legs, just in case you’re inadvertently holding back your own gains.
Exploit the full range of motion
Teo states that you need to be getting to the point where your hamstring is touching your calf in your lower body workouts, in order to make sure that you’re stretching out the quads sufficiently. He recommends the split squat as an exercise where this kind of underload is more achievable.
Ensure you have the right stance and foot placement
“You need to use whatever stance allows you to get that range of motion for your quads as comfortably as possible,” says Teo. “Don’t buy into the hype that you need to take these really awkward stances just to target different areas of your quads. All that’s going to do is limit the amount you can push yourself comfortably, and hold back your progress.”
Don’t focus too much on the weight you’re lifting
While lifting heavier weights over time is important for building strength, it’s also important to increase the amount of stress you’re placing on your quads, rather than what you’re putting on the bar or machine. If you’re doing fast reps with the help of momentum, those two are not going to be the same. Teo recommends introducing pauses and slowed-down eccentric movements to your sets to eliminate momentum and maximize contraction.
Use machines, not just free weights
By doing machine exercises like the hack squat, Teo explains you can really test your strength and push yourself while staying safe and injury-free. “It’s a whole other level of hard beyond what you can achieve on barbell squats or on lunges,” he says.
Put in the effort
“The reality is, training is hard,” says Teo. “And training legs in particular is even harder because of the size of the muscle and metabolic demands… Because of the energy demands and the byproducts created in the legs, you’ll end up not just pumped up in the legs but also physically gassed if you’ve done everything right and you’ve pushed to your limits.”
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