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Want Big Legs? Do Deep Squats
By Charles Glass
Best Glute-Builder
Q: I’ll get right to the point. My glutes need to be bigger! I’m tall and have trouble developing them. Pants literally fall off me if I don’t cinch my belt tight. I just want to know the exercises that will build huge glutes. I’ve tried squats, but as I’m 6’3”, they’ve always felt very awkward. I can’t do lunges as they bother my knees. Also, my inner thigh isn’t developed to potential, though I’m pretty happy with my quads. If you could please suggest a few exercises for building the glutes and what rep range I should be using for them, I would appreciate it.
A: I think the very best glute-builder you could do is deep squats, below parallel. Most people who squat don’t even go down to parallel, so they never reap the true benefits of the exercise. Usually, when someone as tall as you is having trouble with squats, I have them open up their stance wider. That almost always solves the problem. All of a sudden, they aren’t leaning forward so much, and they can get the proper depth. If you’ve been doing squats with your feet set at shoulder width as a man as tall as you are, I can understand why they’ve felt awkward. If you really want to stress both the glutes and the inner thighs, do plié squats, named after the stance in ballet. Your feet are set very wide and your toes are pointed out (you may want to use a Smith machine for this version). If, for whatever reason, you just can’t get the form down right on squats, you can go ahead and use a leg press, either the standard-angled type, or a vertical leg press. Again, you want to set you feet fairly wide apart, and also put them near the top of the foot platform. This will emphasize hamstrings, glutes and inner thighs. For a little more work on your inner thighs, also known as the adductor longus muscle, use a leg adductor machine. These are usually only used by women to “tone” flabby inner thighs, but if you work hard and challenge yourself to use heavy weight, you can definitely build mass with it. As for your reps, 12-20 should be a productive range for building size in the glutes as well as the inner thighs.
No Partial Reps
Q: There’s a big guy at my gym. He’s not exactly a bodybuilder, but he’s much bigger than me. Anyway, the way he trains is kind of odd, but I wondered if maybe it’s something I should be trying. He seems to only do the bottom part of exercises and the reps are very fast. For example, he’ll pick up a bar at the cable crossover and do curls, but he only does them from the bottom and maybe 3 inches up, and does about 30 or 40 reps in less than a minute. I never see him do full reps, and he always goes very fast. Is this guy an idiot or is this just another style of weight training that could help me grow?
A: I don’t want to call anyone an idiot. The man is probably just ignorant, meaning he doesn’t know any better. He probably has either picked up everything he knows about weight training from people in his past, or has just made it all up as he went along. I doubt he’s as astute as you are, reading MD every month for the latest information on training, nutrition and supplementation. I’ve been asked about partial reps many times before. There was even a fairly popular training system about 25 years ago based on doing only the part of the rep near lockout, using much heavier weights than you could handle for full reps. I’ll say the same thing about the big guy at your gym’s method of training as I did about that system. You can’t fully develop a muscle with partial reps, you simply have to move resistance through a muscle’s full range of motion. Otherwise, it never stretches and contracts completely and appreciable growth is impossible. Another factor I would take issue with is the 30-40 reps the man is doing per set. That’s simply too many reps to do anything but improve muscle endurance. An explosive rep speed can stimulate gains, but it sounds like this man is going beyond that, plus he’s getting no stretch on the negative stroke of the rep at that speed. You may wonder if all this is true, then why is this guy so big? He may very well be a naturally large person. The truth is, there are a few guys out there with the type of genetics that they could never even touch a weight, yet still carry more sheer bulk than most hardworking lifters in the gym. I bet you good money that if this man did full-range reps, slowed his rep speed down to a more controlled tempo and did about eight to 12 reps on upper-body movements and 12-20 for the lower body, he would soon start growing much larger.
Charles Glass is the Godfather of Bodybuilding, with over 35 years of experience as a trainer of champions. Charles’ methods produce dramatic and significant gains to anyone that applies them. His clients cross the spectrum from celebrities, fitness athletes, and pro athletes to everyday people, and include some of the most successful people in the fitness industry and numerous Mr. Olympia and Bikini Olympia champions. For more information, visit godfatherofbodybuilding.com
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