I have always been "broad" from what I have been told...this is not fat, but more or less that I carry a good amount of muscle on my frame. As a result I tend to gain easily especially doing compound excersizes like squats and the like. This is a blessing and a curse :confused: . I have found that even when I am at a low bf% I often times grow out of my clothes (particularly pants) because I grow quite a bit in the glutes and hips...in my mind to a point where I may be a bit mis-proportioned.

My question is this: I am currently cutting...still (had a major hold back with some injuries). What can I be doing in terms of lifting (especially lower body) that will help tone and build strength instead of bulk? I really want to be able to hit 8-10% bf, but it would be nice if by then I could still fit in my 34 to 35 waist size pants!

Well, John (Stone) temporarily stopped working his legs cause he felt they were out of proportion. Not sure if he's still skipping leg workouts. Somewone else, Karatetricker I think, was concerned with the same issue. Not sure what he ended up deciding to do. You might want to ask them about it. I do know that leg workouts are very beneficial, and they're conducive to helping drop bodyfat. Avoiding them altogether might hurt your progress. Maybe someonw knows of a happy medium between normal leg workouts and skipping it altogether. I, myself, do not. Good luck with it though.

I don't know.

My first thought, though -- higher reps, lower weight.

Is is just your legs that grow muscle fast, or your whole body?

It is mostly my legs/glutes, not so much the upper body.

Keep working out upper body three times a week and run 17 miles every morning on an empty stomach :p

Just a joke...

I think what williamso said makes sense, don't stop working your legs, glutes, but use lower weights.

Keep working out upper body three times a week and run 17 miles every morning on an empty stomach :p

Just a joke...



Joke or not, that would work. Actually if your nutrition is good, I don't see why you would loose leg muscle, even with lower weights. Maybe a bit is you are really built.

Long distance running or biking is the best way I know of loosing muscle.

Do a glycogen depleting workout before bed every night and don't replete, that'll eat away at leg muscle pretty well.

I find loosing muscle is all a matter of glycogen depletion (starvation of the muscle tissue I guess). I've done keto/Atkins starting from 350 pounds and can say carb depravation + intense cardio is the #1 way to loose muscle.

I have to say loosing muscle is never comfortable experience, you're undoubtedly going to feel weak if you're stressing your body enough to loose muscle.

I don't know why on earth anyone would want a decrease in muscle mass (well, other than if you were an IFBB pro and wanted to return to somewhat civilian size.) I wish my legs were gaining so much muscle that I'd have to buy new pants. I certainly wouldn't mind.

You could just not work legs...but then they'd lose definition and shape. Try doing real low reps (5x5), as I've found that only high reps 10-15 make me add size.

Don't try to burn it off by doing a lot of cardio or having a crappy diet, because that will certainly effect the rest of your body mass.

I have always been "broad" from what I have been told...this is not fat, but more or less that I carry a good amount of muscle on my frame. As a result I tend to gain easily especially doing compound excersizes like squats and the like. This is a blessing and a curse :confused: .

My question is this: I am currently cutting...still (had a major hold back with some injuries). What can I be doing in terms of lifting (especially lower body) that will help tone and build strength instead of bulk? I really want to be able to hit 8-10% bf, but it would be nice if by then I could still fit in my 34 to 35 waist size pants!

Use isolation exercises, leg extension and curls. Drop deadlifts and squats. I bet that is also where fat pops out on you, also.

I don't know why on earth anyone would want a decrease in muscle mass (well, other than if you were an IFBB pro and wanted to return to somewhat civilian size.) I wish my legs were gaining so much muscle that I'd have to buy new pants. I certainly wouldn't mind.

You could just not work legs...but then they'd lose definition and shape. Try doing real low reps (5x5), as I've found that only high reps 10-15 make me add size.

Don't try to burn it off by doing a lot of cardio or having a crappy diet, because that will certainly effect the rest of your body mass.

The reason I would like to decrease in that area is as I mentioned, I dont really care to go by new pants if that means that I have to buy 36-38 inch waist size and a height of 5'8.

Rtestes - Thank you, I think that is good advice. During my squats this morning I was even thinking that might be the way to go. I think my plan now is to get back into HIIT and for lower body do isolation exc. as you mentioned along with leglifts of several variations. I am interested to try doing the glycogen depletion route, but I need more info on how that would effect the rest of my workout and I also would not do that for an extended period of time. My nutrtition IS good, I may just re-evaluate it a bit.

Thank you.

Joke or not, that would work. Actually if your nutrition is good, I don't see why you would loose leg muscle, even with lower weights. Maybe a bit is you are really built.

Long distance running or biking is the best way I know of loosing muscle.

But this wouldn't only target leg muscle. Muscle lost from the legs would occur in a somewhat greater proportion, but there would most likely also be an overall unwanted loss of muscle from the upper body if the mileage was enough and not compensated by an appropriate calorie increase.

Ryanator, I sort of understand where you're coming from. At 5'7, my waist size is 31. I actually just bought two pairs of jeans right before I posted this. I bought 31 waist size in a looser cut. In slit fit, I had to buy waist size 33. I have decent, solid leg muscles, but my upper body is actually stronger, and I find it a lot easier to buy shirts. never any problems. It seems that the nicer, more expensive jeans are made for anorexic Europeans with no leg muscles. pretty obnoxious. nevertheless, I don't plan to decrease the size of my legs. The 33 look just as good with a belt on as 31s in the other style. I don't really care what the tag on the jeans says. BTW, what is your waist size and body fat? Is it possible your legs are carrying too much body fat/fat deposits as well as being muscular?

But this wouldn't only target leg muscle. Muscle lost from the legs would occur in a somewhat greater proportion, but there would most likely also be an overall unwanted loss of muscle from the upper body if the mileage was enough and not compensated by an appropriate calorie increase.

My thoughts exactly. Everyone is suggesting things to lose muscle, but the problem is, who is to say it will come from (only) your legs?

I did mention stopping leg workouts and I have so far, for two weeks. My reasoning was not so much to lose leg mass as much as it was for personal reasons. I did say that my legs have always been quite large and I wouldn't mind if they lost a little mass. The reasons I wanted to take off legs for now were: First of all, my lower back and knees have always had problems due to gymnastics and martial arts and leg workouts were really taking a toll on both. Second of all, I take martial arts classes every week, and the soreness in my legs from leg workouts was just too great that I was missing them too often since my schedule this semester doesn't allow me to go as often as I used to be able to.

Therefore, I thought I'd stop leg workouts just until the summer and instead, use that day as an extra day to work my bis/tris and do some cardio. I do plan to do squats on back days and calf exercises on that arm day however. We'll see what happens, but to be honest, I doubt it will effect me in a negative way very much at all.

Well, my hieght is 5'8, not sure the BF, but on my current cut I will probably drop and inch in waist size. I am not necessarily speaking of just jeans...actually when I wear jeans I am just lounging around, and I dont care so much how they look. I am speaking in regards to pants like suit and dress pants which I wear daily since I am meeting with clients. Having jeans that dont fit the way I like is no big deal, but having suit pants that dont fit are a different story as it effects the overall professional presentation my clients expect and I want to portray...I guess the word "frumpy comes to mind when I look at my legs and hips when I wear dress pants. I guess it could be in my head???...for example if they have pleats, the pleats flare out instead of sit flat etc...

I have about ten pounds to go on my overall weight loss so that will help loosen things up a bit, but even when I have been very low BF before I have had this problem.

Just to clarify; I guess the issue here is PROPORTION...and in that respect I could swing to two extremes in this situation. I am not wanting to be one of those guys who builds their upper body and lets their legs go to crap...I want them toned and strong. I also do not want to keep doing what I am doing that is giving me results I dont want, and expecting the results to become different. I am just asking what the best route is to do all this without the end or main result being increase in SIZE. I am not stopping leg workouts, I just think I should make some adjustements...thank you for all your input to help me do that! I have every intention to find out what I need to do to tone them and strengthen them...believe me they are plenty big to begin with and there is plenty of muscle there to tone.