Are You Training Your Legs Frequently Enough?

Size definitely matters! And so does training frequency! So are you training your legs frequently enough to optimize results? It is often forgotten but how often you hit legs is just as important as exercise selection and intensity.

Let’s look at the anatomy of legs!

Our legs make up the biggest muscle group in our body. They comprise of the muscle in our thighs (aka quadriceps), the muscles in the back of our legs and of course the muscle surrounding our pelvis and hips (aka glutes). It’s important to note that each of these muscle respond to training DIFFERENTLY and so much be trained with specific exercises. For example our quadriceps are made of both fast and slow twitch fibres meaning both heavy low rep exercises are just as essential to them as fast, high rep exercises.

How does muscle anatomy relate to training frequency? And are you training your legs frequently enough?

Due to the variety of muscles in our legs calls for a variety of exercise and training methods. Often times it’s difficult to jam all the exercises we need in a one hour or even a two hour workout. So to answer the question as to whether you are training your legs frequently enough, if its only once a week then you are not! It is best to hit legs two or three days a week to optimize results!

Training a muscle group more frequently can help increase protein synthesis (or growth) as the muscle is being stimulated with resistance work more than once a week.

For many individuals, training legs two or three days a week is more effective than only training them once. Why? Because hitting a muscle group means we are loading the muscle more often and thus asking it to adapt more quickly.

Now there are a large variety of opinions still on their on training frequency. And the science is out on whether training with high volume once a week is more optimal than training more frequently at a lower volume. However, many individuals will find that training more often does indeed maximize their results!

If you are a female looking to build some lean but curvy legs best to stick with more frequency so you can use a larger variety of exercise and methods (check out our article on in home glute building here). It’s more beneficial to have heavy and light days. Due to their anatomy, legs generally require both fast twitch and slow twitch work. So it’s far more efficient to use a larger repertoire of specific exercises, like the ones in this program.