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It’s fairly common when people begin weight lifting routines for them to focus on the chest and arms. Men want to build big, strong chests and arms while women want them to be strong and toned. It’s important, however, to also focus on the legs as well.

If you don’t, you could end up looking disproportionate and strange. It is also true that as you build muscle it is your body’s natural reaction to build muscle all over. If you don’t properly take advantage of this buy working your leg muscles as well, you will not see as much success in your upper body.

Before beginning a weight lifting for legs program you should understand the different muscle groups in your legs and how they can be best utilized. The gluteals are the muscles that cover your behind. They are best exercised by performing squats, leg presses or lunges.

The quadriceps are the muscles on the front of your thighs. These are most effectively exercised by doing the same types of exercises you’d do for your gluteals, which are squats, leg presses and lunges. The hamstring muscles are those on the backs of your thigh.

These are worked out by doing dead lifts, straight leg dead lifts and leg curls. Your calves are on the back of the lower leg. There is really only one exercise that will work for your calves and that is the seated and standing leg raises.

Let’s start off by learning about one of the most versatile exercises that will work out the maximum number of muscles, the squat. A squat is performed by standing with a barbell positioned on your shoulders and squatting until your thighs are parallel to the floor and then slowly rising again.

Be sure to keep the weight on your shoulders and not your neck as this can cause neck strain if not done properly. Your feet should be shoulder width apart and it’s important to look forward while doing this exercise. The squat should be the most important part of your weight training.

A lunge is done by standing once again with the barbell on your shoulders and lunging forward with one leg landing on your heel then forefoot, lower down until knee of other leg nearly touches the floor. Then return to a standing position and repeat with other leg.

You should keep your back arched slightly inward would doing this exercise and be sure to keep your back upright. Look forward and once again make sure you are not letting weight rest on your neck.

Finally, a dead lift is done by standing while holding the barbell at arms length in front of you. You should hold it at around shoulder width.

Then lower the bar to the floor by bending with your knees and waist. You’ll then slowly return to a standing position. Be sure not to rush through this exercise, as it’s much more important to do the exercise correctly than to do it quickly.

Resources: Richard Black helps people learn about a weightlifting routine at his website on weightlifting programs.