Monday Muscle - The Foundations Of Your Temple

Imagine for a moment a lean, muscular, toned body. This person is standing on a beach gazing out across the waves. As your eyes take in the the good looking body you start to track downwards to come a cross a pair of stick thin, almost toothpick like legs!! Whoa - what happened there? All of a sudden that body atop those legs doesn’t look so good anymore. In fact it looks faintly ridiculous.

You see that is the problem. Most people who train with weights, to achieve the body they dream of, pay ample attention to their upper halves but when it comes to the foundation they tend to be sorely lacking. It’s easy to understand why - working the legs is hard, extremely so, and most people reckon that most of the time the legs are covered anyway so it doesn’t seem to matter so much.

Unfortunately in order to achieve a complete physique strong legs are a necessity. Most sports also require strong legs (soccer, running, cycling, swimming and so forth) and since they take up almost half of a fully functional body it’s a shame to neglect them.

There is no other animal in the world that can run for as long or for as relatively long distances as humans. If you doubt the truth of that statement name 1 animal that can do so. People run marathons, tri-athletes demand even more. Horses, by comparison, only run for a relatively short time before slowing to a canter. Camels, zebras, wildebeest, bison and so forth all the same. Only humans have the capacity to keep running for great distances and for great lengths of time.

So what to do? Well since your legs are designed for arduous work they need to be worked intensely. I remember that the first time I ever picked up a set of weights (as a very young teenager - around the age of 13 in a dark corner of the school gymnasium with a group of other young boys) the first exercise I did was squats. Since then whenever I have trained with weights I have never neglected my legs.

Conventional wisdom has it that squats are the primary exercise for legs. However because they tax so much of your body they are a great overall exercise. So if you want strong shapely legs, a stronger chest, a better back, firmer arms, to be stronger generally - you should squat. See the video below for pointers on how to do this correctly.

However, this is a technically difficult exercise and some people genuinely cannot squat. It may be because of body mechanics, back problems or some other reason. If this is the case then try leg presses with your back supported. If even this is not possible then leg extensions and leg curls can be used. However, these are not really full substitutes for full proper squats.

Remember - if you want your body to be a strong temple you need to build the foundation first. So go ahead and build that strong foundation. Go ahead and squat.