are nice legs too much to ask for in life?

I am about to be 21, female, 5'4" and 123-126lbs [fluct]...

always been pear shaped, fairly trim upper body, totally out of proportioned lower half.

below my waist i've got it all, the ghetto booty, hips aka saddlebags and gargantuan legs.

my calves are the size of normal ppls thighs.

i eat between 1200-abt 1500 cal/day, lightly active most days, between 30-60 min cardio 4-6 days a week lately.

i guess i would say i'm in shape, people see me as skinny, but they never see my legs, which i have always been ashamed of.

i desparately want to not have my thighs touch.

or to have cankles.

i have never known what that is like.

ever!

workouts that target inner and outer thighs and just tone and lengthen leg muscle altogether would be right up my alley!!
help plzz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Basic weight work like squats, lunges, dead lifts, etc are the best things you can do to shape your legs.  Activities like running or cycling don't hurt either.

I am in the SAME exact boat. People think im tiny when they see my upper body, but when I show my legs they are like "whoa I didnt know you had such big legs". Mine is due to years of soccer and genetics.

Anyway, I would suggest to you- running. Run, run run. Running will probably make your muscles a little leaner. Picture long distance runners? They are like string beans.

Honestly I would stay away from squats and lunges. It was squats, lunges, and sprinting that increased my muscle mass in my legs.

Believe me, my mother was shaped just like me and she has been running for years, she completley changed her body shape with running (my entirley family thinks so).

Maybe pilates as well? But running for sure. I would run, but im a lazy mofo. One day Ill do it though. Because I am quite sick of having such huge legs that arent in proportion with the rest of my body.

Good luck xx

I hear ya! I hateeeeeeeee my inner thighs! They're one part of my body that I have never been satisfied with.

Everyone suggested weighted squats and lunges to me.

I'm working on them, not seeing much progress though :(

Oh I totally feel you on this one!  I have the same exact issue.  Until I started lifting weights I looked freakishly emancipated on top and so out of proportion with my lower body.  I actually got them down to a fairly small size by just doing cardio (running, elliptical) BUTthey were still flabby and had the saddlebags and all that cardio made my butt saggy.  So my suggestion is to run but also do things like cycling and squats, lunges, dead lifts.  I had great results over the summer but have slacked on the weights lately and they have gotten bigger.  I have had the issue lately that I feel like some of the weight lifting has made them bigger but let me tell you that it is better to have a little muscle than all flab.  I seriously had to wear spandex shorts under my pants and other shorts because I still had fat after all that cardio.  I'm still struggling with the idea that my thighs have gotten a little bigger but it looks better (so hubby says) and I don't have all that jiggle and all.  So it is all a matter if you want to have legs that fit is a size 2 but jiggle all over the place or a 4 with a lot less jiggle and a lifted tush!  So maybe try running but do some weight work as well to firm it all up.

Good Luck!

you are a healthy weight for your height. I am the same height, and even when I was thin I never had super model legs. I had what I call "thunder thighs" EVEN AS A RUNNER. It was awful. Now I am obese, and trying to get back my old thunder thighs, instead of the ones I have now. SOme things are purely genetics, and no amount of workouts will fix them. Love your body. Love your curves, even your ghetto bootie. Add in squats and other such lower body workouts to become more muscular, but you can't change your DNA.

thnx everyone.

i run abt 2mi a day and do more cardio after, i will do some yoga or pilates here now & then, not as much as i used to, and do upper body wk mostly at home...

i can tell running does shape my legs just takes time.  i do an hour of spinnin atleast once a week idk if that helps or not but i like how much it burns.

waitin for stuff is the worst!

For legs - do low reps, apparently.

Generalization #3: Low rep leg training builds bulky legs, whereas high rep leg training brings out the detail and will build nicely toned legs.

Truth: For the majority of muscle groups, performing reps of 10 or below does seem to work better for mass, but legs are an exception. Assuming you're training close to failure, nothing builds "bulky" legs faster than performing intense sets of 20-50 on squats, leg presses, lunges, and other hard movements.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but keeping the reps low when training legs is more conducive to "tone" than to "bulk." I can't stress this enough.

The girls who come to me complaining of stocky legs are almost always doing sets of 20 or more on legs. I simply switch them to lower reps; over time, the legs stop blowing up, and daylight starts peeking through between the thighs. Hallelujah!

Jen Heath, Ten Training Truths You Need To Hear

Stop doing a million reps of everything which causes sarcoplasmic hypertrophy - that is, enlarged muscle cell volume - and start lifting heavy (5-8 reps) - and your legs will stop swelling with retained fluid and lose that soft look.

jesselou,

From my experience I would say one of the absolute best things to do for nicely shaped legs and a nice butt is to ride the stationary bike VIGOROUSLY for 60 minutes a day, 5-6 days a week.  Seems to always work for men, women, athletes, whatever.  The key is that you have to really ride it HARD, but do that 5-6 days a week. 

Truthfully, I'd consider leaving the weights alone... Even with what "melkor" suggest, it is too easy to go into bulk mode.  I've seen it happen to girls at the gym.

BEST ADVICE: Keep doing your running.  Ride that stationary bike HARD, 5-6 days a week.  *Drink extra water*.  Keep the fat intake a little lower than usual.  Results are just around the corner.

It's not me saying that, it's Jen Heath, Krista, and the Other Krista.

 If you know more about training women than these women trainers, I'd be extremely surprised.

 There's a whole lot of extremely harmful myths about women and weight training being perpetrated by people influenced by marketing and other non-physiological nonsense, and telling women to avoid lower-body weight training is one of them.

 Best advice: knock it off with overdoing the cardio, and do some crosstraining to avoid the inevitable training injuries that stem from excessive one-sided anything.

Jesselou,

Do your research and experiment - on YOU.  Professional advice is wonderful, but ultimately it comes down to you, how your body reacts to your diet and training, and other variables.  Only thing I'll say is research and experiment - on YOU.  Best of luck.

haha common now, dont argue abt whos givin more sound advice.

i appreciate you both.

but uhh who has time to push that out on a bike for that long every day?

i dont wk every day, 3 days in a row is the most i ever wk.

but theyre 12 hr shifts.

7-7.

do you know how drained i am at 7 pm after workin all day?

the gym opens at 5.

i have 2 b at wk at 645.

im not gna get up at 3 on days i wk just to go ride a bike for an hour.

in a perfect world, yes i would be able to wk out every morning.

i sooo wish i could!

im gna keep runnin tho, and prly change it up more.

i will try things that you all have suggested and once again thank you for understandin and lendin a hand.

jesselou:

here's an article from women's fitness about different exercises to make the most of your body shape:

http://www.womenfitness.net/exerciseshape.htm

their advice is pretty much what you'd expect, but you might want to check it out anyways.

melkor:

i'd like to inquire about you're post about lower reps for legs...do you know how many sets would be ideal?

 Yep, "exercise for your shape" is the standard terrible advice straight out of "Shape", "Self", and "cosmo", written by marketing professionals who have no clue as to exercise physiology.

 "Do low resistance, light weight, lots of reps" is pretty much nonsense, and any training article ever that advises you to use that sort of training is marketing without a shred of exercise physiology in the mix, what Paige - and the rest of us- call The Pink Dumbbell Myth.

 I've gone into a bit more detail on the recommended rep ranges in 6 to 8 reps or 8 to 12 reps or 10 to 15 reps does it matter - for strength without size you'd want to stay in the rep range where neural (rate coding) effects predominate, that is a weigth you can only lift 1-5 times. Generally, I like the "starting strength" template of the basic 5x5 workout for a beginner, two ramping sets to your top weight and then 3 sets of 5 reps at a weight you couldn't lift 6 reps. 

I just wanted to say that I have nice legs and don't life weights. I run and do cross training. No access to a gym. Some people aren't lucky enough to have access to any kind of weight system and are stuck using their body weight for training. And also, just to say something that irks me just a little...anytime someone suggests anything other than lifting in the fitness forum people jump all over them. Lifting isn't the only thing to get definition.

In regards to the original op, I run. Then for the imbalance I do bulgarian slpit squats, lunges, core exercises, and thrusts. I did get some good exercises for imbalance at the No Business Running article. Good luck!

I'm gonna hop on Melkor's wagon here!

I started lowering my reps and increasing the weight and I noticed a world of difference. 8-12 reps works well for me right now and when it feels too easy I up the weight. I am hardly bulky nor do I want to be but I do love muscle and low reps gave me the definition I want with out the bulk! As a plus you get stronger and who wouldn't want that!! I also run and box but listen to Melkor he knows what he's talking about!!!! 

Original Post by belladonna1026:

I am hardly bulky nor do I want to be but I do love muscle and low reps gave me the definition I want with out the bulk! As a plus you get stronger and who wouldn't want that!!

x2

 One point I do want to make though - in a calorie surplus and training in the medium-high rep ranges with high volume it's possible for you to gain muscle size; in a calorie deficit it's pretty much impossible to gain muscle no matter what you do but you can gain cell volume size (sarcoplasmic hypertrophy).

 High volume training can also cause transient fluid retention in your muscles (the "pump") that temporarily increase the size of your muscles; this is not actual muscle gain but can freak out people who weren't expecting it.

 Weights are no the only way to fitness, and not the only suggestion I make - I'm just a very goal-oriented person and suggest the most efficient route to the stated goals.

 If your goals aren't fat loss but sports performance, weights play a different role - the exercises that are most suited to prevent loss of lean mass while dieting are not neccesarily functional for the dynamic power demands of any given sport.

Original Post by carlynj21:

I just wanted to say that I have nice legs and don't life weights. I run and do cross training. No access to a gym. Some people aren't lucky enough to have access to any kind of weight system and are stuck using their body weight for training. And also, just to say something that irks me just a little...anytime someone suggests anything other than lifting in the fitness forum people jump all over them. Lifting isn't the only thing to get definition.

In regards to the original op, I run. Then for the imbalance I do bulgarian slpit squats, lunges, core exercises, and thrusts. I did get some good exercises for imbalance at the No Business Running article. Good luck!

No, lifting dumbbells/barbells isn't the only way to get muscle - if you're smart about bodyweight exercises.  And I see a lot of recommendations for squats, lunges, push-ups, pull-ups, etc. that don't necessarily involve extra weight (though, at some point, you'd need to add weight if you wanted continued improvement rather than maintenance).  So, your routing of split squats, lunges, core exercises, etc. falls perfectly in line with what people recommend for muscle retention while the running is one way to create a calorie deficit.

And, honestly, the main reason the lifters are so vocal is that we're trying to counteract a lot of social conditioning and misinformation that tries to keep women out of the weight room out of a fear of getting bulky.  Every woman knows that she can run or do yoga/pilates or go for walks as part of a fitness program.  Very few women realise that weights are a viable option, and that they won't get bulky unless they're consuming more calories than they burn.