How important is it to work out the legs?

[PCS244]

I've been neglecting my legs for the past two months...and because of the extra time I've been spending on my upper body, I've been seeing gains a lot faster in my arms than I did a year ago when I was working out my legs too.

Is it necessary to workout my legs a day or two a week? Will my body still grow even if I don't work out my legs? I have a friend who doesn't work out his legs and his body seems to be growing while he's neglecting them.

Advice please! Thank you.

[tooncesthecat]

Answer: VERY IMPORTANT!

Oh wait, that's assuming you want to have great overall body development, better upper body gains, and be less prone to injury.

SO squat, then squat, and follow that up with squats. Then stiff leg deadlifts, stiff leg deadlifts, and finally stiff leg deadlifts!

[mukey]

Would you say stiff leg dead lifts are a better exercise than doing regular dead lifts?

[DEALER]

PCS244, have you payed any attention at all to these posts over the past two years? Your legs are very important. That said, if you are only concerned with "looking" strong, then don't work your legs. You'll be just like 75% of all the gym goers I see, fairly decent upper body development with twig thighs and non existent calves.

You see, your buddy may "look" strong, but the fact is, if he has no legs, he is not strong. Ask your self, "Why am I spending all this time in the gym? Do I want to be just like most of the guys I see in the gym? Or do I want to accomplish something significant? Do I really want to build an impressive physique? Do I want to only "look" strong? Or do I want to "be" strong?"

These are questions only you can answer, and I suspect most of the people around here are not going to bull shit you. You are not going to get the answer you are looking for.

To put it in plain terms for you, WORK YOUR LEGS AND BE STRONG. DONT WORK YOUR LEGS AND BE A PUSSY.

[wildstang]

your legs are the most important muscles in the body for overall growth of the human body. without working them im sure you can still get the arms to respond and grow but just not at the rate you could using the largest muscles in your body. not 2 mention 4 the thousandth time 4 newbs the legs trigger more test in the bloodstream! more test equals more growth!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DEALER]

Would you say stiff leg dead lifts are a better exercise than doing regular dead lifts?

These exercises are not interchangeable. I use deadlifts to build overall explosive strength, and size. Primarily to develop back thickness.

I use straight leg deads as a mass building movement focused on my hamstrings and to help develop excellent lower back strength.

If done properly, both exercises will ensure you have a rock solid lower back. If done improperly, they will destroy your lower back. Take your time when increasing weight on both these exercises, you may feel like you can use a lot more weight but it's best to work up slowly here. This will ensure your lower back is prepared for the pounding it takes. I am speaking from experience, as I have payed the price for over enthusiastic deadlifting.

[helpmespock]

very important.

[Steel_UK]

As others have already stated, legs are incredibly important.

When I'm checked out medically okay (NHS takes its time with some things!) and finally get back to the gym, I will be resuming my quest for tree trunks. (even if I already have trouble with trousers fitting round my legs) I have this weird concept in my mind that it's better to have a body like a tall building, for it to be larger at the base than it is at the top.

[torofuerte]

Originally Posted by mukey

Would you say stiff leg dead lifts are a better exercise than doing regular dead lifts?

Dude. Just... no!

Ok, to elaborate, let me ask this: better for what?

As an overall mass builder, regular dead lifts.

Build leg and back strength and size? Regular dead lifts.

A warm up and ham stretch? stiff/straight leg dead lifts.

Already strong and want to isolate the lower back during flexion? Stiff/straight leg dead lifts, but you need to know what you are doing.


To be honest I prefer romanian dead lifts, even for ham stretching, over the stiff/straight leg variety. You take that function out, and all you have with stiff/straight leg deads is training the lower back during flexion. And you should have a very specific reason and goal to train to flex that area under load.


I guess my main beef with stiff/straight leg dead lifts is that, barring the few who know how, when and why to do them, most pple in the gym do not. My greatest beef of all is when I see so-called "personal trainers" getting their clients, new to lifting, to do those.

The average person in the industrialized western world have poor glute development and weak lower backs. Furthermore, those who spend a large amount of time sitting tend to have shortened hamstrings and hip flexors.

You take that people and put them to do stiff leg deads, either you have to weights so light that they cannot possibly provide any stimulation, or you risk them having a herniation. For the general population and for people with injuries in their lower lumbar and/or where the lumbar meets the sacrum, this exercise should be a no-no.

There are better ways to stretch and warm up the hamstrings and build lower back strength : romanians, good mornings come to mind. Once you have several years of lifting, and with a healthy back, straight/stiff leg deads are a good supplement.

Except for a narrow function and for a specific group of people, stiff/straight leg deads can never be better than regular ones.

[DEALER]

To be honest I prefer romanian dead lifts, even for ham stretching, over the stiff/straight leg variety. You take that function out, and all you have with stiff/straight leg deads is training the lower back during flexion. And you should have a very specific reason and goal to train to flex that area under load.

Toro, I have mentioned this before, and still am confused! What the hell is the difference? It seems to me that some people call what I know as the "straight leg deadlift" the "romainian deadlift" and vise versa.

I have done what I call the SLDL since day one of my training. My legs are in not completely straight, and I consider these one of the main contributors to my hamstring development. I often use 185 for reps and have not noticed any irritation to my lower back, my glutes & hams get murdered on this exercise.

Like most of my info early on, I got direction from Arnold's Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding and from my training partner, who himself has been strength training on and off over 25 years. I am still confused at what the difference is, and maybe what you call a RDL is what I have called the SLDL.

[pliny_2001]

I call RDL and SLDL the same thing, but I've noticed that some of the (very few) other people on earth who do either of them refer to SLDL as the one where your knees are, well, stiff, and RDL as ones where you have a small bend in your knees and the movement takes your hips slightly backwards and down as your knees take in a few more degrees of bend.

When I do what they call RDL I can move significantly more weight, but I personally don't get the point as they don't do as much to the hamstring, which is what I feel the whole point of the exercise is for (bonus points for some glutes). So I do the straight leg variety and call them all the same thing, as I try to make the second option the red-headed step-child of the lifting world.

I've always felt that the SLDL/RDL movement essentially clones that for good mornings, the difference being in where you want to feel it: use the same muscles from a good morning on your SLDL and you'll ruin your back, use your SLDL/RDL muscles on a good morning and you won't get any effect at all. But the two will look practically the same.

After a brief time training only the beach muscles, RDL/SLDL have been a staple of my training and I'll don't have a problem repping 275 (fear of lower back injuries keeps me out of low rep work on this one). Be sure to include hamstring curls as well, the two really work the muscles differently.


And as for PCS244, the OP: You have to train legs. If dropping legs and giving that time to upper body means that you've significantly increased your upper body gains, it probably just means that you weren't training upper body enough to start with. What's your split? Upper/Lower? Body part per day? I've found that I can train legs once every 5 days, though I only do them once every 7. I can really only hit upper 2-3 times a week before I start running out of recovery time (I seem to recall that you're younger and can probably handle more volume).

[mooshue]

aren't your legs half of your body?

[wil]

I don't have anything new to add that hasn't already been said. But I will echo those sentiments because they are very important.

# 1... YOU MUST TRAIN LEGS.


# 2...

Would you say stiff leg dead lifts are a better exercise than doing regular dead lifts?

NO NO NO NO NO.

You will find a lot of articles out there saying (and I agree completely) that deadlifts are just as (if not more) important to overall body strength and mass as squats.

[PCS244]

Read every post in this thread. Thanks a lot guys. i'll start wokring them out again.