Stop training legs?

I feel that my body has some major strength differences. I feel that my legs are significantly ahead of my upper body in terms of development. I do a full body routine 3 days a week but my upper body training has been trash for a long time. I basically hate the majority of upper body lifts I do. Bench press I particularly hate and have hated for a long time. I recently switched over to weighted dips emphasizing the chest. Not sure how effective it is but I enjoy those way more than bench press. What I want to do is cut back on the lower body training to make more room for upper body training. Its not that I don't like my legs and how strong they are, I just don't like the idea of being a quadzilla. Would prefer general overall strength. Weakest part of my body by far is my chest and probably abs and shoulders. I also had fallen for the "compounds train your abs also meme" now I train abs directly though.

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I wouldn't say stop so much as just decrease your load/intensity from what you normally do. Maintain but focus harder on upper body.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Upper body contrary to powershitter claims can be trained with higher volume than legs just don't go too heavy and your body will develop.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    legs are for WALKING
    not TRAINING

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Leg muscles are all much bigger than arm muscles of course they are going to develop more. You are developing normally. Where the frick do people get these dumbass ideas from. What exactly are you trying to look like?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      This, what do people expect? The quads, glutes, adductors, hamstrings, etc are all enormous muscle groups, of course they're going to grow very quickly compared to the biceps, which are a much smaller muscle group.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      OP here, good point. Maybe I am already at the point of "looking" strong. My friends have told me stuff like "Man, you been taking HGH or something!" as a joke when one of them had not seen me in 2 years. I might just go back to training normally but just ditch the exercises I don't mesh well with. Barbell bench is truly my anathema. Gotta find a replacement.

      Compounds do train the abs or what might better be called "the trunk" since it's more that they completely develop the core. Compounds only train the core when proper bracing is done under adequate enough weights. Your direct ab work is probably shit compared to the total core stimulus of a heavy front squat.

      Its interesting that you mention front squat. I do zombie squats currently for a portion of my leg training. I like those so much and they quickly became my favorite. I actually don't back squat anymore just because I strongly prefer the zombie squat which I hear requires that you have a strong upper back and possibly abs?

      >Would prefer general overall strength.
      It doesn't sound like that is what you want. Sounds like you want to overdevelop your upper body. Strength is synonymous with developed legs/back. Someone without developed legs is by definition of strong. Ever heard a professional bench presser talk about how all the power for the lift comes from their leg drive? Ever hear strong benchers talk about pulling muscles in their legs when benching?

      True. I guess my worry was that if some looked at me and thought "Wow, that guy definitely doesn't skip leg day but his chest sucks." I forget that bench incorporates a lot of leg drive.

      >Your direct ab work is probably shit compared to the total core stimulus of a heavy front squat.
      Tell me, does anyone actually fail a front squat due to their abs giving out? Pretty much never. While if you go to failure on an ab exercise, the muscle giving out is certainly the abs. Therefore ab exercises are better for ab growth (no shit) because the abs get taken close to failure. "Compounds for abs" is a meme for a reason, it isn't true at all. I don't even know why people propagate this shit, you can just superset ab work inbetween sets of other stuff, it hardly takes any time at all.

      I actually have been enjoying the ab training lately. My issue though is that when training them, I sometimes get this weird cramping when going to failure. Its like my abs start to spasm and I have to stop sooner than I anticipate. Not sure why that happens.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >I actually have been enjoying the ab training lately. My issue though is that when training them, I sometimes get this weird cramping when going to failure. Its like my abs start to spasm and I have to stop sooner than I anticipate. Not sure why that happens.
        I train my abs very hard and I never suffer from this, maybe this is an issue with your electrolyte consumption? Not sure tbh

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Hmm not sure. Maybe this is actually whats fricking all my other lifts. When I lift weights, I basically don't drink anything besides regular water for electrolytes or whatever. Should I be drinking like salt water or something? I thought sports drinks were a meme or something.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Sports drinks are a meme. The only one with actually any effective degree of electrolytes that AI have found is body armour. They actually have more potassium than sodium which is what you want and also other electrolytes in magnesium. I'm not shilling them just a heads-up to save some time if you decide to read some labels. But yeah you can make your own electrolyte drinks which is obviously better than processed drinks. If you do suffer from cramping and weird tight pains worth a try dosig up on electrolytes pre and intra workout.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Water + sodium + potassium, those are the things you need. Some carbs can help as well. Sodium is easy to source since you can just use salt, potassium is a bit more tricky but it's doable (you can also source it via a carb source, eg two bananas would have a good bit of potassium in them)
              [...]
              Also this

              When would you typically consume the salt and potassium though? Mid workout? I have noticed that sometimes on leg training, my legs sort of turn to gello with slight quivering. Not massive spasms but just a slight quivering which makes me feel that the set is over. For the longest time I have just been drinking plain water during workout. Should I be eating a banana post or pre workout?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >When would you typically consume the salt and potassium though?
                Maybe a little before, and then the rest during the workout
                >I have noticed that sometimes on leg training, my legs sort of turn to gello with slight quivering. Not massive spasms but just a slight quivering which makes me feel that the set is over.
                Could be an electrolyte issue but it also could just be massive amounts of disruption, which is a good indicator that you're stimulating the muscle very well
                >Should I be eating a banana post or pre workout?
                Pre in most cases, mid if you want to. Post would be okay but I'd generally opt for more food after the session

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Speaking of disruption and such. Is training to failure for most sets a bad idea? I have been working on not doing that but a part of me thinks in my head "If you aren't going super saiyan for most of your sets, then whats the point?" But I know that isn't true. I would enjoy not doing sets to full muscular failure all the time but its almost ingrained in my head. I remember I was doing a hammer curl set and the muscle literally would not contract anymore even though I was forcing it with all my might. It made me feel bad but that was true muscular failure I guess.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >Is training to failure for most sets a bad idea?
                Depends on the movement, on isolations it's alright, on big compounds maybe not. Though if you're mega autistic with your form you may be able to get away with that on certain compounds (esp modified ones with disadvantageous leverages, since the absolute loads are much lower)

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Pre training session most important but also good to have some electrolytes intraworkout. Importance of intraworkout depends on the type of training. If high heartrate really breaking out a sweat type of stuff you want to have some electrolytes intra training.

                https://i.imgur.com/AjzkAuZ.jpg

                Speaking of disruption and such. Is training to failure for most sets a bad idea? I have been working on not doing that but a part of me thinks in my head "If you aren't going super saiyan for most of your sets, then whats the point?" But I know that isn't true. I would enjoy not doing sets to full muscular failure all the time but its almost ingrained in my head. I remember I was doing a hammer curl set and the muscle literally would not contract anymore even though I was forcing it with all my might. It made me feel bad but that was true muscular failure I guess.

                Training to failure is really subjective. Most people never actually even come close to try muscular failure. You need to be doing excessive things like cheat reps burnout reps drop sets etc to really be failing a muscle. I'm just saying just go hard enough that you prove to yourself you have progressed. That is what is important.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Water + sodium + potassium, those are the things you need. Some carbs can help as well. Sodium is easy to source since you can just use salt, potassium is a bit more tricky but it's doable (you can also source it via a carb source, eg two bananas would have a good bit of potassium in them)

            Sports drinks are a meme. The only one with actually any effective degree of electrolytes that AI have found is body armour. They actually have more potassium than sodium which is what you want and also other electrolytes in magnesium. I'm not shilling them just a heads-up to save some time if you decide to read some labels. But yeah you can make your own electrolyte drinks which is obviously better than processed drinks. If you do suffer from cramping and weird tight pains worth a try dosig up on electrolytes pre and intra workout.

            Also this

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              You can get the product called "no salt" at almost every grocery store or walmart which is potassium.

              Protip: salt and potassium in a blender mixed with pitted dates. Enough dates that the salty taste is masked by the sweet taste of the dates. Basic DIY sports drink. Obviously can add whatever other fruits you like or use cherries or whatever instead of dates. Frozen fruit or whatever. Blended date water is really nice though. Something about the sugaryness of dates.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Also
        >Barbell bench is truly my anathema. Gotta find a replacement.
        If you can get into training with gymnastics rings I highly recommend it, ring pushups and ring dips are extremely good chest exercises that I find much more enjoyable than barbell bench. Maybe have a look into those.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        If bench isn't jiving definitely focus instead on a variation of a horizontal press you enjoy. I know a lot of people enjoy incline bench much more. And you can experiment with various inclinations. You might enjoy incline benching at a very slight incline then down the line regular flat bench will feel better.

        Weighted dips are great but just for better progressive loading you are going to want a barbell pressing variation.

        It does sound like maybe you just need to up your upper body training g frequency. You can overhead press with minimal days of rest since the loads never really get too crazy until you are at an advanced level. But if you want chest you need a bench variation. Incline bench and dips will be enough if you enjoy them.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Idk man my legs were always stronger than my upper body but people didn’t stop saying that it looked like I skipped leg day until I was squatting 5pl8s. Smaller muscles are easier to make look bigger

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Compounds do train the abs or what might better be called "the trunk" since it's more that they completely develop the core. Compounds only train the core when proper bracing is done under adequate enough weights. Your direct ab work is probably shit compared to the total core stimulus of a heavy front squat.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Your direct ab work is probably shit compared to the total core stimulus of a heavy front squat.
      Tell me, does anyone actually fail a front squat due to their abs giving out? Pretty much never. While if you go to failure on an ab exercise, the muscle giving out is certainly the abs. Therefore ab exercises are better for ab growth (no shit) because the abs get taken close to failure. "Compounds for abs" is a meme for a reason, it isn't true at all. I don't even know why people propagate this shit, you can just superset ab work inbetween sets of other stuff, it hardly takes any time at all.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Would prefer general overall strength.
    It doesn't sound like that is what you want. Sounds like you want to overdevelop your upper body. Strength is synonymous with developed legs/back. Someone without developed legs is by definition of strong. Ever heard a professional bench presser talk about how all the power for the lift comes from their leg drive? Ever hear strong benchers talk about pulling muscles in their legs when benching?

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    When it comes to barbell squats, can you inherently do less weight on front squats when compared to back squats? I feel like front squats humbled the frick out of me.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Yes just Google it front to back squat ratio. It is important for Olympic weightlifters. Usually front squat weight is 80% of back IIRC

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