Legs..... Heavy Weight vs Light Weight

[25catfishperday]

I've been training for (4) years and consider myself an Intermediate / Advanced lifter. Started with a body weight of 135 lbs and now I'm 195 lbs.

Over the (4) years, I've trained strictly low reps, heavy weight, and focused on compound lifts and getting stronger every week. Namely, weighted dips, weighted pull ups, dumbell chest presses and ohp, rows, squats, and dead-lifts.

I've got stupid strong and put on over 60 lbs over the (4) years, but my legs have fallen behind.

I've defiantly gained a lot of strength in my legs, but not seeing a lot of development like in my upper body and I need some advice. Should I give up the heavy squats and do light weight or higher reps for my leg training? Any advice is appreciated.

[CW47]

It's hard to give decent advice with the information you've provided.

Are your legs behind from a strength or size standpoint? Or both?

What does you current programming look like for Squats and Deadlifts?
About how long have you been running this programming?

What type of squats and deads are you doing right now? Low bar vs High bar, Conventional vs Sumo, something else?
Do you ever do any variations on squats and deads, or are you always doing the same thing?

[TAWS6]

Dropping weight/intensity is the worst thing a natural can do. If not natty it doesn’t matter because the drugs make up for it. You could look into specialization but after 4 years you’ve already make about 85-90 percent of the progress you’ll ever make.

[Xpiro]

Dropping weight/intensity is the worst thing a natural can do. If not natty it doesn’t matter because the drugs make up for it. You could look into specialization but after 4 years you’ve already make about 85-90 percent of the progress you’ll ever make.

But... more reps? It’s not like we can fk with heavy ass weights forever, I mean, the joint wear and tear adds up and things get stale. Why would dropping the weight matter if you go from 5 reps to 10?

[SuicideGripMe]

Progressive overload can be done in a lot of ways. Heavy squats are great until you can't keep doing them. Personally, I like heavyish squats with a lot of pump work through accessory work.

[TAWS6]

But... more reps? It’s not like we can fk with heavy ass weights forever, I mean, the joint wear and tear adds up and things get stale. Why would dropping the weight matter if you go from 5 reps to 10?

It wouldn’t matter in your example. I was referring to pump and fluff since he said light weight.


He also probably needs to cut if he gained that much weight. That might uncover the muscle.

[air2fakie]

If what you're doing isn't working, do something else. Sure you could change your rep range (while keeping intensity high enough even at lower weights). But in this case, it sounds like you're only doing big compound lifts.

So regardless of what you do with your rep ranges/resistance for your current lifts, you may be better off adding in some other lifts/variations (RDLs, trap bar deads, front squats, goblet squats etc.) and isolations (leg extensions, leg curls, calf raises etc.) and see if that changes the results.

Some of your lagging leg development compared to upper body may be genetic as well, but you definitely should be able to grow to a point where you're at least satisfied that you're seeing decent results.

[GrouchyUSMC]

Have you ever tried 20 rep squats? That will be a kick in the nuts for sure.

[MyEgoProblem]

Does 5 big lifts for upper body
Does 2 big lifts for lower body
Wonders why he has less leg gains with less workload and less variation.

There is some advice in there somewhere.