Best advice for those with big upper body and skinny legs

by Eric Sean

Now that you understand how important it is to work on your entire body, let’s fix the problem of skinny legs and bring balance back to both parts of body.

Here are seven different ways you can try to get bigger legs, or better yet, legs that match your body!

1. Warm Up

If you start exercising straightaway without warming up, then you will probably injure yourself rather than promoting muscle growth of your lower body. Please make it a point to warm up by either 5-10 minutes of light cycling or running with a proper session of muscle stretching following it. Again, you need to focus on your quads, hamstrings, calf muscles and groins during warmups.

2. Forget Cardio

Yes! You read that right. Don’t bother yourself with cardio now, since it makes your muscles stronger but not bigger. And we want the latter for now. So avoid cycling, swimming, running, biking and power walking.

Focus your energy and efforts on lower part now. Cardio is for people who need a whole-body workout. Cardio doesn’t strain enough on legs, instead consumes a lot of energy. Get back to cardio, when you’ve achieved the desired leg size.

3. Do Leg-Targeted Exercises

Since the problem now is skinny legs, big upper body, you should make legs the focus of your workout. So, let’s sculpt the hamstrings and quad muscles by making use of those leg extension and leg curl machines.

Keep the weight on medium resistance and make sure you adjust the machine according to height so that your knee joints are in line with machine axis. But, also make sure you lift as much weight as possible so that you feel the burn during such high-intensity workouts.


Although we’ve stressed on isolation exercises, whole-body training shouldn’t be ignored as well. You can try sprinting, squat, step ups and lunges and plyometrics to get a proportionate body.

4. Train Two Legs Uniformly

You obviously don’t want one leg looking better than the other one, do you? So, go for unilateral exercises, focusing on one leg at a time so that both of them get equal share of torture. If you don’t exercise like this, your dominant leg would work out a bit more resulting in an evident imbalance of muscle growth and size between two legs.

5. Fuel Up Your Body

Working out requires a lot of energy, especially when we’re talking about legs. So make sure you keep your energy levels high and calorie intake good enough to exercise hard. Muscles are all protein, so having a good protein intake during such workouts totally makes sense. For growing muscles, eat meat, whole grains, beans, eggs, tofu, fruits and vegetables.

6. Stretch Stabilizer Muscles

Seeing the bigger picture doesn’t obviously mean to ignore smaller muscles. Stabilizer muscles are small muscles in the gluteal region that prevent injury and as the name suggests, stabilize pelvis and other joints. You can’t rely on your body during workout if these muscles aren’t functioning properly. Make sure you train your adductors (inner thigh) and abductors (lateral/outer thigh) especially before squatting.

7. Wear Appropriate Clothing


For those who have just realized the presence of skinny legs, big upper body problem in their life, this one is a quick fix. Wear appropriate clothing. Go for baggy pants to add a little bulk, choose boot-cut pants, or wear boots beneath pants. Avoid baggy shorts and skinny jeans at all cost.

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Eric Sean is an individual wellness specialist who has had great success with helping people rediscover their love for life.