Bri­an Chin Le­ung

Some men au­to­mat­i­cal­ly as­sume that be­cause they have big legs, it means they have great legs. A tree trunk is big, but it has no shape. Like­wise, some women au­to­mat­i­cal­ly as­sume that skin­ny legs are beau­ti­ful legs. A twig is small, but it has nei­ther shape nor enough "bulk" to sculpt it in­to a work of art.

A great look­ing leg must have shape, qual­i­ty mus­cle tone, is cel­lulite free and must be in pro­por­tion to the rest of the body. The quadri­ceps and ham­string mus­cles of the up­per thigh must pro­duce beau­ti­ful lines that flow in­to strong look­ing calves.

Shap­ing the Legs

A leg that is well shaped will al­so look lean and de­fined. How­ev­er, you must re­mem­ber that a mus­cle can on­ly do three things re­lat­ed to size: it can get big­ger, it can get small­er, or it can stay the same size. Mus­cle de­f­i­n­i­tion is achieved by two fac­tors. In­creas­ing mus­cle size (hy­per­tro­phy), and re­duc­ing body fat per­cent­age.

I am go­ing to list the best ex­er­cis­es be­low for in­duc­ing great leg shape. To re­duce body fat per­cent­age, you must clean up your di­et and en­gage reg­u­lar­ly in some form of car­dio, al­ter­nat­ing be­tween H.I.I.T (High In­ten­si­ty In­ter­val Train­ing) and some low in­ten­si­ty ses­sions. Con­trary to pop­u­lar be­lief, de­f­i­n­i­tion is not achieved with light weight and high reps; that is a lot of hog­wash! All you will be do­ing with high reps is build­ing mus­cu­lar en­durance.

The Best Leg Ex­er­cis­es

The Free Squat–The squat, us­ing free weights, is the king of all leg ex­er­cis­es. No amount of leg press­es, leg ex­ten­sions or leg curls can add qual­i­ty mus­cle fast to your legs like the squat. In fact, I will go out on a limb (no pun in­tend­ed) to say, that un­less you squat, you can nev­er achieve per­fect leg shape; squat­ting is that im­por­tant! The se­cret of prop­er squat­ting lies in ad­her­ing to strict form and not cor­rupt­ing it (your form) with ridicu­lous­ly heavy weight.

The Walk­ing Lunge–Be­sides be­ing the best butt ex­er­cise, the lunge is al­so a great move­ment for de­vel­op­ing leg shape. The lunge is ba­si­cal­ly a one legged squat; you are hand­i­cap­ping one leg (the back leg) and mak­ing the next leg do all the work. It is im­por­tant to get the knee of the rear leg about an inch off the floor, dur­ing your de­scent; be­cause in do­ing so, it will en­sure that the back of the thigh of the front leg lines up in a par­al­lel po­si­tion with the floor, which is ide­al for re­cruit­ing the quads and glutes dur­ing your as­cent.

Stiff-legged Dead­lift–This ex­er­cise re­al­ly brings out the shape of the ham­strings, which in my opin­ion is the most sen­su­ous look­ing mus­cle on a woman's body. Sprints–In ad­di­tion to the ex­er­cis­es list­ed above, try to en­gage in some 100 me­tre sprints at least once a week. You may have no de­sire to try out for the next Olympics, but the fact re­mains that sprint­ing does won­ders for your quadri­ceps and ham­strings.

Have you ever no­ticed the awe­some leg shape of world-class male and fe­male sprint­ers? Al­so, re­mem­ber to work your calves reg­u­lar­ly with stand­ing and seat­ed calf rais­es. You don't want to be walk­ing in the road with such skin­ny calves, that you may step in­to an emp­ty soft drink bot­tle by mis­take. Keep train­ing.