The other day, I posted this picture: Every Day is Upper Body Day.
Then, this crazy asshole replied saying he doesn’t understand why people need to lift legs:
constructyourself:
I don’t understand the contempt that people have for dudes who only lift upper body. Unless you have weirdly small legs (like the dude in the pictures) I don’t see the need for lifting for legs (that is, unless you’re a competitive bodybuilder and focused only on all out, limitless, muscular hypertrophy.)
In my case, I’m not into competitive bodybuilding. You’ll never see me post these ridiculously large dudes because that’s not my goal body. I personally think it looks stupid but if that’s your goal, I won’t mock you for it.
Dear ConstructYourself,
How the fuck do you expect to construct anything productive if you don’t ever lift an ENTIRE HALF OF YOUR BODY? Imagine if other people who constructed things did that? Let me tell you a story my grandfather use to tell me.
In the year 1919, a master ship builder named Barnaby McNosquat built the most beautiful boat ever seen in the free world - ornate cabins that led out onto majestic balconies stacked 5 stories tall, with a sleek design that would soon give the vessel the illusion of gliding across the water like Poseidon himself.
When it came time for the boat to be launched from dry dock, throngs of people crowded to shoreline to give the ship a glorious send-off. Yet, when the boat was launched, it immediately sank to the bottom of the ocean.
People on the shore were stunned. “What could have ever caused such a majestic craft to sink so quickly?!" they cried.
When Barnaby was asked how a boat, that looked so beautiful above the hull, could sink so fast, he replied, “I don’t lift legs."
That story is a metaphor, fucker. Figure it out.
Fictitious anecdotes aside, there are so many things wrong with what you said, I can still taste the vomit in my mouth over the sound of my laughter. Don’t get me wrong, I do understand where you are coming from. I went through my beach body phase too… when I was 18 and an idiot. I have learned since then, so let me teach now.
Why You Should Lift Legs:
1) It increases your testosterone. Doing big complex movements “recruits more total muscle mass and, along with a challenging motor pattern, it leads to a big metabolic stress on your body. This is the perfect formula for releasing more testosterone." - T Nation
2) Lifting legs will increase your bench press. Clearly, bench pressing is important to you if you only want to lift upper body. Fuck, you probably just alternate Bench Press and Incline Bench Press on even and odd days of the week. Good for you. Now, why not help yourself out and add 10 pounds to your bench by doing a fucking squat.
When you are benching, you should plant your feet and drive with you legs. If you do this correctly, you could actually strain a thigh muscle. “Your legs actually get that involved." -Chaos & Pain
“Leg Power: Before [Rob Kennelly] broke the [Bench Press] World Record [of 1,075 pounds], Kennelly was stuck in a rut that he couldn’t seem to dig his way out of. That’s when he realized that he never paid any attention to the two limbs hanging off the other end of the bench: his legs. Like throwing a baseball or a punch, most of the power comes from your legs. Sure enough, when Kennely started taking his leg-training seriously by incorporating squats and deadlifts into his regimen, he watched his plateau disappear." -Built Fit
3) Doing squats will give you better abs. Large, compound lifts like squats, deadlifts, bench press, and Olympic lifts engage a huge number of core muscles. There are a number of people, including myself, who can never train abdominals and still grate cheese on their stomachs.
I get 95% of my ab work from compound lifts. The other 5% comes from the Ab Wheel once every two weeks when I have a lot of extra energy at the end of a workout. Imagine, eight-pack abs without a single fucking sit-up? Yup, Tony does it. And you can too, by lifting legs.
Don’t believe me? Here is a picture of Omar Deckard. Read any of his training programs, guess how often he does abs? Hint: He doesn’t. But he does squat, and look at his abs:
4) Balance. How do you think your body reacts when you put 10 pounds of muscle on just the top half of your frame? It puts undo stress on the weaker half of your body, and makes you more prone to injury.
"In addition to abnormal compensatory changes, muscle imbalance can lead to faulty joint alignment and inefficient movement—all of which can set the stage for injury." - Sports & Spinal Injury Therapy
5) You look better naked. Back when I was that young, naïve 18 year old, I was in the gym with my friend - we’ll call him “Brad."
Brad is one of my larger friends: Four or five inches taller, and 20 pounds heavier than most of my other friends. An AllStar in football, hockey, lacrosse, and crushing vag. You looked up to this guy when you were in the gym.
I had just finished my 12th set of Bicep Barbell Curls in the squat rack next to Brad when I walked over to him doing Barbell Squats, and I asked him, “why do you lift legs, bro? Why not just get huge biceps?"
To which he replied, and I’ll never forget this, “so I look good naked. Bro."
I had just taken a class in Broscience actually worth taking, and from that moment forward I have used the squat rack for its intended purpose.
You don’t get hamstrings like these by doing forearm curls.
If I didn’t just give you 5 diesel reasons to lift until you have legs like Tom Platz, then I will give up entirely on trying to give out sound, rational advice on TwoScoops and just post stupid meme pictures all day like every other blog out there.
Tom Platz shows you what happens when you do HGH squats EVERY DAY.
-Tony “Two Quads" Muscoli
