360 Fitness: How To Get Athletic Legs Without Doing Squats

When it comes to getting athletic legs, the barbell back squat has always been considered the king of exercises to help build the muscles around your legs. But what if—either due to injury or an inability to get the form right—you can’t squat?

The truth is training one leg at a time can be just as effective and provide an alternate path to stronger, more athletic legs. A study conducted in 2017 and published in the International Journal of Exercise Science compared muscle activity in the back squat, split squat (both legs on the floor and a split stance), and Bulgarian split squat (rear foot elevated).

The study concluded that there was no significant difference in the amount of muscle activated by the three exercises, except that the Bulgarian split squat worked more of the hamstrings—meaning, Bulgarian split squats can be a useful alternative to barbell squatting.

When Squatting Can Be Difficult
The classic back squat is perhaps the best overall muscle- and strength-builder. It targets the quads, glutes, hamstrings, and lower back. It however also requires work from the core, upper back, and shoulders to stabilize the bar.

Because this exercise is designed to let you lift heavy loads, it encourages bone growth and the release of muscle-supporting hormones such as testosterone and growth hormone.

Make Your Legs Stronger
Performing a back squat the right way can help you get athletic legs. Most lifters don’t have the hip mobility to squat without their tailbone tucking under, which puts the lower back at risk for injury.

Furthermore, there is the likelihood of falling forward on the descent, or failing to push their hips back far enough, so their knees travel well in front of their toes, which can cause knee injury.

Instead of performing a back squat, you can instead opt to form the bulk of your lower-body training with front squats, trap-bar deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, and various single-leg exercises.

Work A Leg At A Time
Working one leg at a time, as with the split squat, the lunge, or stepup exercises, is generally considered an adjunct to barbell-squat training but the core of the legs doesn’t work itself out.

Changing that to Single-leg exercises most times offers similar benefits to traditional squatting, but it still reduces the risk for injury. Doing this allows you to get a training effect for your legs with much less load.

If you can back-squat 225lbs five times and also do Bulgarian split squats where you take a staggered stance and raise your back foot on a bench with 75-lb dumbbells, which gives a total of 150lbs, your legs will get a lot more load without subjecting your spine to the 225lbs from your back squat.

You can put more than 100lbs directly on one leg, as your back leg can take up to 15 percent of the load which is more than the back squat can load on each leg. With the distribution of the weight, your back and shoulders take on much of the burden.

Kettlebell Leg Workouts
It is easier for you to keep your shins vertical in a way that your knee doesn’t move past the toe when performing a squat on one leg. This will help you avoid putting shear forces on the patella.

Knee pain usually occurs as a result of weak glutes and single-leg exercises force you to stabilize in three planes of movement, which works the glutes hard.

Because single-leg training must be done lighter, it doesn’t cause the same nervous-system fatigue that heavy squats or deadlifts do. As a result, you can do it three or four times a week without fear of overtraining for your athletic legs.

More frequent training means more stimulus for growth. However, the same doesn’t apply for training one arm at a time. This is because there’s no less load on your joints when doing single-arm presses instead of double-arm.

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