If you’re like most people new to strength training you probably concentrate on your upper body and either pay very little attention to your lower body or completely ignore it all together. I mean, most people are looking at your arms, chest and abs, so that’s what you care about, right?
But did you know that lower body training can and will actually improve your upper body results and vise versa? Yep, it’s true!
You see, Your legs are full of muscle. This muscle is comprised of LOTS of muscle fiber, even more than your upper body. When you do any weight training lots of different hormones are released into the body. These hormones play an important part in building lean muscle mass!
Think of the muscle fibers in your body as release mechanisms. When you subject them to heavy weight, they release testosterone, growth hormone etc. which in turn helps the other muscles in your body (your upper body) grow!
Is Running Good Enough? – No, it helps, but to really get optimal hormone release you need to subject your lower body to deep, somewhat strenuous repetitions.
So, to make a long story short, working your lower body helps your upper body grow as well and vise versa!
And of course there are the other obvious reason to work your lower body like improved balance (balance is very important in regards to overall fitness,) injury prevention and ensuring you don’t have a unbalanced body in general (big upper body, small lower body.)
img credit: orionoir
One Response to “The Overlooked Importance of Lower-Body Workouts”
You are so right, you can’t build a house without a foundation, and that goes for the body too. Your legs hold you upper body up, strong legs help the body move more easaly.