How to Build Leg Muscles

Video Transcript

"Are you interested in building leg muscles and you're not sure how to go about it? This is Alice Monsaert and I have some tips for you on building nice strong leg muscles. Leg muscles involve the quadriceps, the hamstrings, the tibialis anterior or shin muscle and the gastrocnemius or the calf muscle. To involve the quadriceps and the hamstring you can do squats or lunges, split stance for a lunge and drop straight down into your position making sure that the knee is underneath the hip and the knee is over the ankle. You can also seek the advice of a personal trainer who can teach you proper form and technique. Once you master the lunge and/or the squat with your own body weight then it is time to incorporate some resistance training or dumb bells or weight training to over load the system. In order to strengthen the tibialis anterior which is usually a weak muscle in the leg you need to do what we call toe taps or actual dorsiflexion of the ankle which is bringing the toes up towards the shin. It is kind of hard to add resistance training to this but usually this action within itself will help to strengthen the muscle. The opposing muscle group or the gastroc, the calf muscle, you can build muscle there by simply raising up on the toes and contracting the gastrocnemius and solis together at the same time. Once you have done that several repetitions up to about 15 you can rest and do another set or you can start to add additional weight for overload to the system so you could hold a set of dumb bells in front of you or toward the shoulders for your resistance. For your squats do your lunges and your calf raises. This is Alice Monsaert encouraging you to increase your leg muscle by adding resistance training daily."