How to Get Bigger Legs – 3 Science-Backed Tips

Sometimes it does not matter how much you train, your lower body doesn’t seem to grow. Find out how to get bigger legs with these 3 science-backed tips from a top trainer.

Jeremy Ethier is a kinesiologist and fitness trainer, co-founder of Built With Science. His YouTube channel has over 4 million subscribers and he delivers clear information with sound background research.

In one of his videos, he shared his frustrating experience on how to get bigger legs, focusing on improving his quads width.

According to Ethier, there are 3 mistakes most athletes do when trying to improve their lower body size. Luckily, it is easy to fix those mistakes.

How to Get Bigger Legs

Mistake 1

Exercise execution doesn’t emphasize quads

Ethier explains that you can make minor tweaks to leg exercises to shift the tension away from glutes and hamstrings and put it onto your quads.

The lunge, for example, can be performed with shorter steps forwards so that the knees are past your toes, keep the torso upright and push through your whole foot rather than only the heel.

This trick can be applied to any other lunge variation you do, such as the Bulgarian split squat.

When doing leg press, you can also choose to place your foot lower on the platform to increase quad tension and you will be on the way to discover how to get bigger legs.

Source: Scott Webb / Pexels

These tweaks, however, are not advisable if you have knee pain or injuries.

Mistake 2

Cutting range of motion

The deeper you go on any squat exercise, the more your quads are activated, up to around 105-109 degrees of knee flexion. In simpler terms, you should bend your knees until your upper thig is at least parallel to the ground.

For the leg press, you should bend your knees at least 90 degrees to get a better quad tension.

Mistake 3

Neglecting ankle mobility

In a study published in 2015, ankle mobility appeared to be the most dominant factor that affected squat depth. Taking into consideration mistake 2, we know that the deeper you squat with proper form, the better it is to activate your quads.

There is no way to cheat your way through having good ankle mobility. If this is a problem you are facing, you need to work on your ankle mobility so then you can start improving other areas and see how to get bigger legs.

Click here to find out how to improve your ankle mobility.

Read More: The Ultimate Kettlebell Leg Workout to Build Muscle and Endurance