Everyone wants leaner legs…
When I was younger I remember being called “thunder thighs.” I wasn’t overweight but I had very muscular legs and I envied my friends with slimmer body types. I didn’t know it back then but I had a mesomorph (muscular) body type and because I did so much figure skating and rollerblading, I had thick. muscular quads.
If you are reading this, you’ve got a complaint (or complaints) about your legs and you aren’t alone. Probably the biggest issue I’ve helped ladies address with my online training programs is the shape of their legs. A lot of the struggle happens because you don’t understand your body type and you don’t know how to train to address it.
For example, I will never have a massive booty or super shapely legs no matter how hard I train. It’s just not possible because of my genetics and the shape I was born with. I could spend my whole life feeling dissatisfied about my legs – or I could train them the best way possible and focus on the positive things about my body instead.
My job is to help you understand what is possible for your body type so you can set realistic goals and feel great about how you look.
Below I’ve set out some of the most common complains women have about their legs and how I address them. Later in the article, I’ve given you a list of exercises you should be doing and some tips for putting together a training program that will help you get leaner legs and target cellulite.
LEG COMPLAINT #1: Thick, Muscular Legs
Are your legs “thick” or “bulky?” Are you someone who easily gains muscle? If I even walk by the squat rack I can feel my legs growing – so I understand this body type well. I’ve spent my whole life dealing with this body type.
Mesomorphs have some really good things going for them – but usually they aren’t happy with their legs. It’s harder for us to get shapely legs and we don’t feel comfortable in shorts. In reality, we have less cellulite than other body types so we can get away with wearing shorts, but we are self-conscious because our thighs just feel so darn thick!
All the advice out there to just “squat” and train heavy doesn’t work. It just makes our legs bigger.
Case in point. Check out my photos below. Sorry about the photo quality – when I took these so many years ago I never planned to share them with anyone. The first photo was taken about two years after I started training with a trainer, and before I knew what I was doing in the gym. For two years, he had me doing very heavy squats, lunges and leg presses, as well as leg extensions for the quads. You can see how my legs looked after two years of training like that.
Around the time of taking the first photo I decided my legs were too thick and lacked shape, so I changed how I trained legs. I quit squatting and I pretty much quit training my legs with weights at all except for glutes and some medium-heavy work for my hamstrings. The second photo shows how my legs looked about nine months later. You can see they have better shape and definition, especially around the knee area.
If you, like me, have thick muscular legs, you won’t need to lift heavy except for some direct glute work. You may even have to be careful with body weight exercises and sports that hit your quads. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t get bulky because how you feel matters more than someone else’s opinion who doesn’t understand your body type or goals.
Learn more about how I leaned out my legs in the video below.
LEG COMPLAINT #2: Cellulite
Oh cellulite! What a cruel joke! As if being a woman isn’t hard enough. All of us have some cellulite – even if it doesn’t look like that on social media (always remember it’s extremely easy to smooth and blur things with photo editing tools).
Some body types have more cellulite. If you are someone with more of an hourglass shape, you are going to struggle more with cellulite than the mesomorph ladies we talked about in the previous section. Even if you don’t think you are an hourglass, if you hold more weight in your hips and legs, cellulite will probably be an issue for you.
Cellulite is multifactorial – genetics, hormones and aging including changes in circulation and collagen are all part of the problem – which is why no one has come up with a good, permanent solution. Training, nutrition and maintaining a healthy weight can all help. Making sure you have a clean lifestyle and diet may also help (ie. reducing your exposure to xenoestrogen, preservatives, not eating too much salt).
In my experience, if you want a visible improvement in cellulite you need to go all in. You can’t just do a training program and expect results. You need to address everything and you need to be very committed. My client below is a good example. She decided to do a fitness competition and was training very hard and counting calories diligently. We still weren’t happy with how her cellulite looked so I suggested we also change a few things such as removing plastic food containers and drink bottles and using more natural skin care products. We also added some additional leg training but more body weight style and using bands. It was only when we did absolutely everything that we saw changes.
Cellulite needs a lot of work. You’ll get better results if you can train legs twice a week and even better if you can get in a third session. In fact, I would say this for most of my ladies looking to shape up their legs but it’s especially true if you have a lot of cellulite.
Check out Ash’s photos as an example of the typical hourglass. Great upper body, small waist but just a tendency to hold a bit more on her hips. When we created a program for her based on the strategies above, she had fantastic results.
The final thing I would say about cellulite is that you are probably never going to be happy with it, especially if you are getting older and if you are genetically predisposed to it. You can do a lot to improve the appearance of cellulite but you also need to focus on other things about your body that are positive and more in your control.
LEG COMPLAINT #3: Flat, Saggy Bottoms
You may have a flat bottom, no bottom at all or areas of it that just seem to be saggy or less perky. This is common with women who are naturally leaner or women who choose endurance events or yoga as their main form of exercise instead of weight training. Also, as you may well know, things also tend to sag after we have kids and as we age.
To build shape you need heavy, consistent weight training that targets your glutes. “Heavy” means working on progressively lifting heavier weights on key exercises like the hip thrust and glute bridge. Light weights and/or high repetitions alone won’t build shape and size on your glutes. Muscle = shape and you build muscle by lifting heavy weights.
If you are interested, here’s a photo of me when I started training and a photo of my legs now. Even though it’s hard to tell in this photo – you can see how my jeans just hang off me (back then I mainly did group fitness classes and yoga). My mesomorph thighs were the same size as they’ve always been but I didn’t have much for glutes. You can see in the second photo how much more muscular my glutes are now (and therefore round and more prominent).
Your Lean Leg Workout Plan
In this section I’m going to give you some tips for which exercises you should be doing if you want leaner – not bulky – legs. Remember, everyone is different and it’s up to you to assess your progress regularly and adjust your training program. For some women, squats are perfectly fine and add beautiful shape to the legs. I use squats with my clients but for most ladies, we stick to light weights and higher repetitions. I also use lunges – but mostly reverse lunges because they target the glutes better (and are more knee-friendly). We also don’t use too much weight on lunges and instead focus on good form and activating the glutes.
How you train depends entirely on your goals but here are some tips to help you out.
If you are worried about making your legs bigger you may want to limit:
- Heavy squats
- Heavy leg presses
- Weighted lunges
- Leg extensions
- Stationary bikes (ie. especially at hard levels like the ‘mountain climb’ in cycle classes)
- Stairclimbers
To shape up your glutes and reduce the appearance of cellulite, incorporate these exercises into your training:
- Glute bridges or hip thrusts (weighted, single leg or any variation)
- Cable kickbacks or donkey kicks on a machine
- Reverse lunges
- Band exercises
- Hip abduction on a machine
- Hamstring curls (on a machine or stability ball)
- Stiff leg deadlifts or romanian deadlifts
- Good mornings, pull throughs and sumo deadlifts (more advanced exercises so work up to these)
For best results and to make a really visible change, I recommend incorporating glute training into your program three times a week. In most of my programs and my own training, I include one dedicated leg day, one “backside” workout where we hit glutes and hamstrings as well as some exercises to target the back and posture, and then glute work at the end of one or two upper body workouts. This means we are hitting the glutes at least three times, sometimes more, each week.
Check out my (completely free) exercise database on YouTube for more ideas!
Your Body Is A Work In Progress
In the end, the best way to train your legs depends on your body type and your goals. Stop to assess your legs from time to time. If they are looking too thick, you can pull back on quad dominant and/or weighted exercises. If they need some shape, hit the weights more often. If you are in your 40s or older, you may find that the more you train your glutes the better results you get.
I recommend using both a combo of photos and girth measurements (for your hips and thighs). If you are already fairly lean then you aren’t going to see big changes (losses) in your girths but you can use them to make sure you aren’t getting bigger from your training. If you are starting proper glute training for the first time your hip measurement may increase but monitor your thigh measurement to make sure your quads aren’t growing too.
View your body and especially your legs as a work in progress. Transformation takes time!
Approach it with thoughtfulness – about where you want shape, where you don’t. That’s a huge aspect missing from most programs and a big reason women often aren’t happy with their results.
If you want some help – be sure to check out my Online Training Programs. When you work with me, I will help you monitor your legs and make decisions about how you train. Reach out if you have any questions!
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