5 reasons to never skip a leg day again

I'm sure you've heard it to your heart's content: never skip legday!  But how often do you hear a good justification for this? After reading the text below, you can tell everyone that they should no longer skip a legday and you can thoroughly back this statement up!

1. A leg day boosts your hormone levels

Training your legs provides an extra boost to your hormone levels, namely it boosts your testosterone level. Especially, heavy compound exercises such as squat, deadlift and leg press are responsible for this. Testosterone plays a big role in building muscle mass for the whole body. Not only your legs will benefit from a good leg day!

2. A leg day stimulates your fat burning

A good leg training mainly consists of compound exercises complemented with a number of isolation exercises. Not only do compound exercises stimulate the production of testosterone, they also give your fat burning a boost because multiple muscles (groups) are addressed. Think of your leg, back and abs. Not only is a legday important for building muscle mass, it is also recommended to incorporate exercises such as the squat, deadlift and leg press if you want to lose weight.

3. A leg day increases your mental strength

Sigh, it's legday again. Recognizable? It seems like pre-workouts were invented to survive legdays. Leg trainings aren't just physically very hard, it also demands a lot from you mentally. Getting yourself to expose your body to the heavy weights again and then also squeeze out the last heavy reps, it's not nothing! Every legday you push a boundary, both physically and mentally. If you can survive a legday you can handle anything right?

4. A leg day prevents the Johnny Bravo look

Nobody wants a body that is out of proportion. Your legs simply make up half of your body. If you don't train the legs or train them too little, you not only miss out on the three advantages mentioned above, you also miss out on symmetry. Nobody wants to look like Johnny Bravo, right? It is not for nothing that he is always unsuccessful with the ladies!

5. Endurance training is not strength training

During endurance training you use the leg muscles in a completely different way than when you (heavily) train them during a leg day. During endurance training you mainly train the endurance of the muscle (type I muscle fibers) and you break down less muscle fibers compared to a heavy leg day (type II muscle fibers). Tears in the muscle fibers are necessary for the build-up of muscle mass. You will therefore have to train your legs at all times, endurance athlete or not. 'I play soccer, so I don't have to train legs' is no longer a valid excuse from now on.