Muscle Growth Tips For Leg Training and Effective Squatting

Through these Muscle Growth Tips, I will cover some aspects of leg training in detail, which can be applied, albeit at different levels, by both the beginning and advanced trainee.

The leg press is often used as a main mass-building exercise for people who have problems with the squat, but DO NOT make the above an excuse NOT to perform the squat merely because you find it unpleasant to do in terms of effort and fatigue pain; you will be doing yourself a great disservice in the long run.

The muscles which are the ‘prime movers' in the squat comprise the musculature of the lower back, hips/buttocks and thighs. Muscles which receive secondary stimulation are the muscles of the shoulder girdle, upper back, calves, and a great many other muscle groups throughout the body involved in stabilisation throughout the movement.

The involvement of so much muscle tissue means that very heavy weights can ultimately be utilised in the squat, providing tremendous demands on the body at both anaerobic and aerobic levels. As a result, coupled with a good diet and plenty of rest, an effective squatting program within your workout schedule will yield great gains in muscle mass throughout the entire body.

So, you've heard how great this exercise is, but how do you do it, and how do you incorporate it into your workout program? Read on……

Muscle Growth Tips For Effective Squatting…….
In order to squat in a correct manner, you will first need a set of ‘squat racks' which hold the bar at shoulder height, ready to be used. This is important, because your ability to move weights in the squat will far exceed your ability to clean the weight from the floor to your shoulders, and then get it behind your head without breaking your skull – not easy to do with 500 pounds, or much lighter weights. The other requirements are as follows:

Weight-lifting belt – to support your lower back and midsection.

Strong shoes – to supply stability. Preferably, these should not allow your feet to easily move from side-to-side while lifting – you don't want to twist your ankle and lose control of a heavy weight. Specially designed weight-lift0ing boots are the ideal choice.

Those are the basic pieces of kit that you will need in the beginning. As you progress, you may want to have periods in you're training where you want to lift very heavy weights – for example, you may want to compete in power lifting, or smash through a strength plateau on a lift. You will then need knee wraps, and also a ‘lifting suit', which is a garment composed of very tough material that is very tight-fitting when tailored correctly. This gives your body a lot of support during the lift, and aids the movement of the biggest possible weights.

However, you must use caution with the use of these last two pieces of equipment. It is no good using such items until you are already very strong, and you must not come to rely on them in you're training. This is because the knee wraps and/or the lifting suit will give you a much greater leverage advantage, which means that although you will be able to lift bigger weights with their correct use, the actual stress on the muscles may not be as great due to the increased leverage.

Long-term use may lead to strength imbalances between the muscle groups involved, and possible injury as a result. It is only really in the run-up to a power lifting meet, or to attaining a specific strength goal, that the suit and wraps really come into their own.

The use of these training aids allows you physically, and especially psychologically, to better cope with handling really heavy poundages over the short-term, which will translate into larger weights being used in your ‘non-wrap, non-suit' squat workouts, and so improved progress in terms of size and strength. It is therefore important that you base the majority of you're training in the squat around the use of a good belt and lifting shoes.