How to Get Big Legs like a Cyclist

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[ssanderson]

I had chicken legs my whole life until I started dedicating serious time in the gym doing squats, deadlifts, leg presses, lunges, etc. Coupled with the proper food, my legs grew. Crazy how that works. I've since stopped lifting weights and shifted 100% to cycling for the last 9 months and haven't lost any leg size.

[rickyhuff]

For years I lifted in the winter with fairly light weight and very high reps, so I wouldn't gain weight. One day while talking with a friend and very accomplished track rider, I mentioned this. He paused, and looked me over and said; "Don't worry about lifting big, you aren't going to get big and bulky. " He was right. Went with very high weight, lower reps and sets. Got much stronger and only got slightly, almost imperceptibly bigger, but with more definition. Funny how that works, and how my friend called it.

[onset]

Big legs are a massive inconvenience. I used to squat 180kg at my weight now which is 75kg. My legs were huge. I squatted 3 times a week. I could never find trousers that fit me properly. Carrying around my legs all day felt exhausting. I had no use whatsoever to have legs that big. So I stopped squatting so heavy and so frequent. and took up cyclying last November. My legs have 'shrunk' but are much more useful now and I feel much happier having legs that 'feel' useful rather than just looking impressively big. I think you should aim for what feels good to you and what makes you happy. If your legs actually feel weak or are ridiculously small like Jonny Bravo then I would probably make you happy to train them. To get big legs for the sake of it seems pointless and will take a lot hours to maintain which is time spent better elsewhere unless you're investing in this endeavour for a purpose.

[arnthorla]

I got big legs doing level 3 volume. So after building base in level 2 I put more emphasis on muscular endurance doing long rides in level 3. So the main thing is that you are always touching a bit on your strength, putting a little extra into the pedals, cadence 80 to 95 more or less. Be careful not going into lactic acid because that will just burn you out.

[cerocerocinco]

I have a friend who does 2000km a year and has legs like André Greipel. While i do 10.000km a year and have the legs of an average kenyan long-distance runner. It's all in the genes.

[AP-vdve]

About the fat cell thing that you mentioned, I think that in childhood fat cells can be multiplied and then in adulthood the existing cells can grow in size but never get lost completely

[veronicaivy]

Track sprinters have the biggest legs, and at least half of our training is effectively powerlifting in the gym. But our races are very very short, and we're not maximizing w/kg--we're maximizing raw watts and torque. If you want big powerful legs, lift heavy: 1-5reps.

[onset]

'12-15 reps are like the sweet-spot for hypertrophy' This ties in to muscle fibre distribution so seems odd to say that following what was pointed out prior. The sweet spot for one person might be different for another depending on distribution of slow/fast twitch fibres. For me 12-15 reps does nothing. My body prefers 4-8

[derekmoore]

Another great video guys. Really enjoying these lately...quality discussion and information

[mosubekore]

Legs seem to respond well with a lot of volume.

[carlmons]

I used to have huge quads (almost as big as my waist!) purely from track training and racing- never did weights. It takes a lot of hard accelerations from low speeds to high speed sprints. I didn't do weights because track racers have to spin extremely high cadence, and I was afraid weights would slow my leg speed. Maybe I was wrong thinking weights would be detrimental, but I can tell you definitively you don't need them to get monster quads.

[FractalY]

you need to start being able to accelerate a hard gear and go full lactate with pushing a gear trying to overcome its force.

[USSHammerology]

Squats, sumo deadlifts, and Nordic curls. Big legs!

[donhoover]

Great podcast as always. 5 star For sure. Interesting with new research on hypertrophic changes. Chad could have gone deep with these and body type differences. I’m a mesomorph who still hypertrophies with 30-35 reps, but at 10-12 reps I look like I’m playing football and not cycling. Thanks for always bringing home the facts. Love the podcast

[DigitalvideotoolsOrg]

If you are a chronic leg day avoider (like myself), then you are going to add inches to your legs over a year from cycling, assuming your getting enough and sleep.

[speedwobble]

Goddamit chad your knowledge never ceases to impress me!

[woodenbat]

seems like ftp is tied to quads (leg press). Let’s say that a person with a 100 ftp can press 100 lbs (50 lbs per leg), 200 ftp can press 200 lbs, 300 ftp can press 300 lbs and so on. Say an average male racers weigh about 165 lbs. Most racers average above 300 ftp, which means that on every pedal down stroke, they go weightless on the saddle? No wonder they seem comfortable on ridiculous looking saddles that cause tremendous pain for normal people.

[wizzelhoart]

it is not a smart idea to "give it all you got" when training for hypertophy. That's like doing RPE 10 each set and this causes more damage than whats reasonably recoverable. Its best to train at RPE 7-8 (or 2-3 RIR). Remember it's stimulate not annihilate

[anujkalmane]

Hey guys for double days where you do a gym session and a ride what do you this ideal? The ride first or the gym session?

[darrellwhitford]

Hi guys love the podcast. This topic of big legs, so genetics is the main hurdle I have done through my life a fair amount of for want of a better description ‘muscle building ‘ however never successfully. Only way I grow bigger is more fat 😔 But of late with TR I have seen an increase of muscle on my legs however my pants fit more loosely than ever how strong is this genetic hold? My wife wants more upper body by definition I don’t think I will ever be able to achieve a significant increase in dimension?