Squats... Not Enough For Legs

Here's what else you need

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Squats, squats, squats, squats, squats, squats, squats EVERYBODY.

I don’t know if I just wrote squats enough times there, but if you’re in the vicinity of the same age as me you read that in a Lil’ Jon voice.

Photo by Andrew Valdivia on Unsplash

Hello friends, happy Friday, happy weekend. I hope your week was productive and the weather was nice wherever you are.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m feeling pretty ready to hit the golf course. Too bad I live in Alberta so we should be good for another winter or two before that happens.

Today, we’re going to get back to what I know best. Lifting heavy, metal objects multiple times with the intention of making our muscles stronger and larger.

Who here has heard this before? That squats were all you need to build your biggest and strongest legs? I know I have.

Wanna build your legs? Just do squats bro.

I was even told that squats would fix my terrible, incurable tiny calf syndrome. Which, if you know anything about basic anatomy and physiology, you would know that isn’t how that works unless you’re squatting really wrong.

Turns out, that advice is misguided. Not just the calf stuff, but the idea that squats are all you need to build your legs.

Let’s dig in and find out why.

What squats are…

Alright, when we think about building our legs what do we think of? Quads, glutes and hamstrings right? I don’t hear many people talk about wanting to build their adductor magnus, even though maybe they should.

Fun fact, a strong adductor magnus will make you a stronger squatter, but I digress.

Don’t be all up in here thinking this is an anti-squat piece. I love squats, they’re one of the most effective lower body strength builders out there. I’m just here to tell you that you’re missing a crucial element if squats are all you’re doing for your legs. You need one other thing.

Before I tell you what that thing is, let’s discuss what squats are.

Squats are a fantastic lower body strength builder, I’ve made that clear. The main muscles worked in any squat exercise will be the quads and glutes. When we squat down we’re bending at the knees and the hips, and when we stand back up we straighten at the knees(thanks to the quads) and straighten at the hips(thanks to the glutes). In addition to that, any squat exercise, whether it’s a barbell back squat or a goblet squat, will force the deep core muscles to work pretty hard to prevent your upper body from folding like an accordion.

This all sounds great and very important, and it is, but we’re missing a key piece of the puzzle here.

Take a minute to see if you can figure out what that is.

I know there’s several of you reading this with extensive training in human anatomy and physiology so you’ll know the answer, but don’t spoil it for the rest of the class.

What squats are not…

If you figured out that I never once mentioned the hamstrings in connection to the squat then you were spot on. Hi-five.

As much as we may try to force it, squats just don’t stimulate the hamstrings effectively. Hamstrings are what we call a multi-joint muscle, meaning it crosses two joints. In the case of the hamstrings they cross the hip and knee joints, and the main action of the hamstrings is hip extension(straightening the hip) and knee flexion(bending your knee).

But didn’t I say that the hips have to extend when standing up from a squat and that the hamstrings work to extend the hips?

Yes I did, let me explain.

For a muscle to be grown and strengthened it has to go through what’s called the stretch-shortening cycle.

Let’s use the quads in a squat as an example and keep it real simple. As we descend into the squat, our quads get stretched out under load, and then when we stand back up, they get shortened again. This is the stretch-shortening cycle in a very small nutshell.

This doesn’t happen to the hamstrings in a proper squat pattern. Yes, they get stretched at the hip in the descent of a squat, but they shorten at the knee because our knee is bending, so overall the length of the hamstrings don’t really change, they don’t get that full stretch and full shorten.

Why does this matter?

Well, it turns out that the hamstring muscles are pretty important, and I don’t even mean to the appearance of your legs. I don’t really care about that. Strong hamstrings contribute heavily to strong knee joints. If you have weak hamstrings, your ACL’s become more susceptible to injury if you try to do anything that puts some force on the knees, such as running, skiing or playing sports of any kind.

Basically, strong hamstring in combination with strong quads and glutes = healthy knees.

What else do you need?

I mentioned there was one other thing you needed. What is it?

A hinge.

No, not the dating app.

A hinge motion. Think things like RDL’s, good mornings, or b-stance RDL’s. With these motions the knees stay pretty much fixed and straight and the motion comes around the hip joints, which will take the hamstrings through that stretch-shorten cycle.

Heavy hinges are also great because they help to build a strong and resilient lower back and big, nasty grip strength.

I’m a big, big fan of hard and heavy RDL’s, but good mornings, b-stance RDL’s or straight leg deadlifts will also do a great job.

Photo by Anastase Maragos on Unsplash

Are there other things we could still add? Sure. a leg extension and a seated hamstring curl both come to mind here. But when we’re short on time and want to get the most bang for our buck, a squat pattern and a hinge pattern will do the bulk of the heavy lifting.

Pun absolutely intended.

Now go forth and build some legs my friends.

Oh, and you can ignore your calves, those don’t grow anyway.

I’ll see you next week.

-Justin

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