Need bigger legs

Not knowing your specifics, it could also be that you need a smaller upper body to achieve your goals rather than a larger lower body. Bigger legs may not help much just by being bigger. Focus on making them stronger, improve your core, and improve your running form. Just focus on doing whats right from a runner's perspective, making yourself stronger but not bulkier, and it will eventually balance. Trying to make quick "fixes" by bulking up your legs can lead to more issues.

formerbosox9yo wrote:

Not knowing your specifics, it could also be that you need a smaller upper body to achieve your goals rather than a larger lower body. Bigger legs may not help much just by being bigger. Focus on making them stronger, improve your core, and improve your running form. Just focus on doing whats right from a runner's perspective, making yourself stronger but not bulkier, and it will eventually balance. Trying to make quick "fixes" by bulking up your legs can lead to more issues.

Yes, I agree with you. This is why I am in a calorie deficit to decrease the size of my upper body. As for bigger legs, I don't necessarily want bodybuilder like quads with cuts and veins dividing each muscle group (though that would be a nice bonus!), but a legitimate few pounds of lean mass could help me reduce chances of tendinitis, stress fractures, and other overuse injuries.

I like your point about making them stronger, today I will be running around 7 and my legs are still sore from yesterday's run. Would you recommend I do some squats and core work before my run? Since I am coming back from injury, the run is just a moderate pace right now to get my legs used to running again.

Do you want bigger legs? Or, do you want to run faster? Those are two different questions with (almost) completely different answers.

To run faster, you don't need bigger muscles. You need strong muscles (which is very different), a strong core, great running form, a strong cardio system, speed, endurance, and a good weight for your particular body.

There are lots of threads on letsrun about good leg exercises for runners. Maybe someone will post a link to them or you can search for them.

For the 1500, you need miles. That, consistency, and staying uninjured will take you a long way. Add some core stuff, form drills, proper weight for your body, and some mile-specific intervals and tempos and you'll see a big improvement.

fisky wrote:

Do you want bigger legs? Or, do you want to run faster? Those are two different questions with (almost) completely different answers.

To run faster, you don't need bigger muscles. You need strong muscles (which is very different), a strong core, great running form, a strong cardio system, speed, endurance, and a good weight for your particular body.

There are lots of threads on letsrun about good leg exercises for runners. Maybe someone will post a link to them or you can search for them.

For the 1500, you need miles. That, consistency, and staying uninjured will take you a long way. Add some core stuff, form drills, proper weight for your body, and some mile-specific intervals and tempos and you'll see a big improvement.

Running faster is my number 1 priority. My weight has never been an issue, I am right around race weight and currently intend of recomping to lose the last bits of excess body fat before the spring. My main point is that even when I was at my exact ideal race weight, my legs were bigger than they are now because they atrophied when I was injured. I was very consistent before my injury, hadn't taken a day off in months and stayed consistently above 60mpw. As I get more adapted to the training I was doing prior to my injury, I do think that a very minimal amount of muscle gain on my lower body will help in the long run (pun intended).

I don't want anything to interfere with running, but in the off season it may be beneficial to take some time now to address the problem to avoid setbacks in the spring. To clarify one more time, putting on a little weight is no problem for me and easily sustainable, I just lost a little weight while recovering. That little bit of functional muscle can go a long way after adapting it to running specific training, just look at Alan Webb.

OP here,

Was going to start a new thread but I remembered I had made this one a year ago.

Since I last posted here, I got really lean and was crushing my mileage and workouts very consistently. I was racing well, too. I lost the excess weight in a healthy way by eating a good amount but just increasing the amount I ran. I actually look like a runner now.

Unfortunately, I came down with a stress reaction in my calves and while this wasn't due to a disproportionate upper body like I had theorized (happened because of sleep being cut down when school started), I knew that it would occur in the lower legs because I am prone to getting hurt in that spot.

Now, my legs are hurting and it hurts to walk, let alone run. I am almost recovered and will be running again soon, but I want to remedy this by becoming stronger in the lower legs. What should I do? Band exercises? Calf raises hurt right now so I am going to stay away from those, but I'd like to throw in some strength along with my cross training.