Why Won’t My Legs Grow?
Q: Back in 2016 on the TLC cable channel, there was this reality series about three women and the medical conditions they had that made their lower limbs grow excessively. The show was called My Legs Won’t Stop Growing. Is it possible that I’m similarly afflicted with something that causes the opposite problem, which is my legs not growing at all no matter what the bleepin’ fuck I do to them in the gym?!?!
A: There are a number of disorders and diseases that can explain why you’re not building muscle in the lower extremities, so I’m sure you have your eyes wide on possibly securing a TV deal of your own to document your struggles but medical complications are absolutely not the reason for your issue!1Sure, as a personal trainer, it’s outside my scope of practice to diagnose medical conditions and doing so as I just did can open me up to legal action but I’m, like, a bazillion percent certain here!
So why won’t your legs grow then?
Well, there are a few possible reasons that are much more realistic and a lot less delusional…
One explanation for why your legs are the way they are has to do with genetic variables like limb length, muscle belly size, and the amount of fast-twitch muscle fibers you have. Each of those can play a role in how easy or difficult it is for you to build muscle and are a limiting factor in how much you can expect to gain.2Smaller limbs are advantageous for building muscle because they have less distance to travel under resistance, with that shorter range of motion allowing for greater contraction of the muscle; smaller muscle bellies make it so that less muscle mass is needed to fill out a body part and make it look muscular; and fast-twitch muscle fibers have a much higher growth potential than slow-twitch muscle fibers. But while the influence of one or a combination of those variables are a possible reason for your skinny legs, genetics aren’t entirely to blame because they can usually be overcome to a certain extent.
Lagging leg growth may have to do with your genetics but that’s more than likely just a contributing factor, if any, and the greater fault lies in what you’re eating and how you’re training to maximize the effects of nutrition and exercise to blunt or augment your genetic strengths and weaknesses. So if your legs aren’t growing, then the question you have to ask is if your nutrition is on point so you’re eating the appropriate amount of calories and protein to fuel muscle growth and if you’re performing mostly compound exercises with proper form through a complete range of motion.
Inadequate nutrition and poor exercise selection and execution are among the most obvious reasons for a lack of results. But if you’re doing things correctly and your legs still don’t show significant progress, then the issue more than likely comes down to volume and frequency, which aren’t as obvious for the legs.
The legs are an extremely powerful muscle group because they have to support and carry the weight of your body around every day. As such, making the legs grow generally requires more effort than the upper body, as they have to overcome the stimulus they’re accustomed to receiving on a daily basis. So for bigger legs, high volume work of 15-20 reps with moderate to heavy weight might be necessary for hypertrophy instead of the normal range of 8-12 reps that’s usually enough for the upper half.3For bigger quads, for example, you could begin leg day with leg extensions and front squats with moderate weight in the 15-20 rep range to drive blood into the muscles and fully engorge them. Next, follow the pump work with heavy weights for hack squats and the leg press so you can achieve overload in the same rep range. Afterward, end the workout with one or two exercises with moderate weight for additional pump work.
Working the legs with enough volume is one change to your training approach to make them grow. Another is to add a second leg day if you’re only hitting your legs once a week.4I know, the horror!!! As mentioned before, a lot is demanded of the legs and because of this, they can take a pounding. That being the case, your legs might respond better to more frequent training so long as there’s ample recovery time between sessions.5Examples of ways to do this include training your quadriceps and hamstrings on their own separate days or continuing to train them together but pushing heavy weight for low to moderate reps on one day and performing more volume with lighter weight on the other day.
Things like nutrient intake and exercise choice might be responsible for the state of your legs, as well as training volume and frequency. But there are also items that weren’t even broached, such as foot placement, lifting tempo, rest period length, sleep hygiene, and stress levels, for example. Making a tweak to them might make all the difference in the world, too. So it’s only once all possibilities are considered and addressed that you should worry that you’re not seeing the results that you want from leg day because of a medical condition, buddy!
Now, does anyone else have a fitness or nutrition question of their own that they want to ask?
Glossary: calories, exercise, fitness, frequency, genetics, gym, hypertrophy, leg day, leg press, lifting form, muscle, muscle group, nutrition, personal trainer, reps, train, results
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