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Can You Train Legs Every Day? (Pros, Cons & Safety Tips!)

If you’re wondering whether you can train your legs every day, you’ve come to the right place!

In this article, we look at the pros and cons of doing leg day every day.

woman doing a goblet squat

Benefits Of Training Legs Every Day

There are many benefits of training your legs every day, including:

  • Increased Leg Growth
  • Increased Leg Strength
  • Improved Bone Strength
  • Increased Testosterone Levels
  • You’ll Get Better At Other Exercises
  • Improved Heart Health
  • Improved Joint Health
  • Lower Cholesterol
  • Improved Balance
  • Improved Circulation
  • Improved Sleep Quality
  • Improved Brain Health
  • Reduced Stress and Anxiety

Let’s take a look at these in more detail.

Increased Leg Growth

When you train your legs every day, your leg muscles will experience more micro tears due to an increase in training volume.

The body responds to these micro tears by repairing the muscle tissue and making it larger in a process called hypertrophy.

So you should see more leg gains if you train legs every day.

Increased Leg Strength

One of the golden rules of working out is called progressive overload.

This means that in order to get stronger, your muscles need to experience more stress/tension than the previous workout.

Now, let’s say you train legs once a week.

Well, that means that you’ve only got one opportunity per week to get stronger.

Whereas if you train your legs every day, then you’ve got 7 opportunities to lift more than your previous workout!

To be clear, this doesn’t mean you should add 5lbs of weight to the squat bar after every leg session.

(Not even Ronnie Coleman could do that…)

But instead, lift more than your previous workout.

So this can be either more weight, or even more reps.

Improved Bone Strength

When you do leg day every day, it’s not just your muscles that develop and strengthen; your bones do too.

Leg workouts can help reduce bone loss, since stress is placed on your bones which causes your body to product more bones cells.

This helps strengthen your bones which will reduce the risk of bone injuries.

It’s worth bearing in mind though that if you have bone issues, then working your leg muscles every day may not be optimal, and could even make things worse.

Increased Testosterone Levels

Compound exercises (like squats and leg press) have been shown to increase testosterone levels.

As you’re probably aware, testosterone is a vital hormone when it comes to building and repairing muscle tissue.

By doing leg day every day, your testosterone levels will naturally increase which will help keep you in great shape.

You’ll Get Better At Other Exercises

When training your legs regularly, your hips will become stronger which is especially useful if you’re a runner.

(Since hip injuries are common in runners.)

Leg exercises are great if you’re wanting to improve your power too, which is important in many different sports and exercises.

Improved Heart Health

While most people do leg workouts to improve their physique, they offer many other benefits too.

For example, resistance training has been linked to lower risk of heart disease and improved cardiovascular health.

It’s worth noting though that for some people, there’s no additional benefit from training more than 4 times a week.

Improved Joint Health

Some people that intense workouts, like leg day, can worsen your joint health.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

When building your leg muscles from frequent leg sessions, your leg muscles get bigger and stronger, which helps support your joints.

If you experience joint pain during exercise, it’s worth checking your technique as poor technique is often the cause.

If you’re certain that your technique is correct, then you should consult your medical professional who will advice the best course of action.

Lower Cholesterol

With so many adults having high cholesterol levels, it’s important to know easy ways to reduce these to safer levels.

So, you’ll be delighted to know that training your legs every day can positively impact your total and LDL cholesterol.

Generally, the more intense the exercise, the better it is at improving your cholesterol balance, which is why leg workouts are so good.

Improved Balance

There are many different factors which maintain your balance.

If you’re trying to improve your balance, then exercises which work one body part at a time (i.e. pistol squats) can do a great job.

These can be quite hard to master though, so practise them and stay patient.

The more you practise, the better you’ll get at them, which is why training legs every day is so beneficial.

Improved Circulation

While improved circulation is typically associated with cardio exercise, weight training can provide many benefits too.

In one study, resistance training provided greater blood flow to the limbs than aerobic training.

If you’re wanting to improve leg circulation, isolation exercises like leg curls and leg extensions make a great choice.

Improved Sleep Quality

One of the lesser known benefits of regular weight training is improved sleep quality.

In a recent study, the participants reported improved sleep quality after doing resistance exercises.

However, the study was limited as the results were reported by the participants (rather than measured using metrics of sleep quality).

Improved Brain Health

Regularly working out your legs can help improve brain health and reduce the risk of neurodegenerative diseases.

In one study, subjects at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease who strength trained for 6 months had additional protection of the hippocampus.

(Which is an area of the brain involved in learning an memory.)

Reduced Stress And Anxiety

stressed out man holding his head

While some people approach leg day with anxiety, research shows that regular strength training can actually improve your mental health.

This is because regular exercise releases endorphins, leading to an improved mood.

That being said, if you train too hard too often, you could actually end up with increased cortisol levels which can have the opposite desired effect.

Drawbacks Of Training Legs Every Day

Increased Risk Of Injury

Many people suffer injuries from overtraining.

Why?

Well when you’re training too much, you’re putting lots of stress on your muscle tissue before it’s had the chance to fully recover.

So if you do leg day every day, your legs may not have fully recovered between workouts which increases the chance of injury.

Disproportionate Body

Bros who skip leg day are mainly ridiculed because their body shape is so out of proportion.

They have bulging biceps and a wide thick back, but tiny weeny chicken legs.

And I’m sure you’ll agree, it looks ridiculous.

Well, if you train your legs every day, then chances are you won’t have the time to train other body parts.

Which means that you’ll have legs like a stallion, but arms like spaghetti.

Not a good look.

(For those wondering whether you can do legs every day on top of a typical workout routine, I’d highly recommend against it. Your body will be stressed the F out.)

Low On Energy

A topless man lying down in the gym while resting his arm on his head

Leg day is so, so hard.

One of the reasons is that your legs are the biggest muscle group, and so they require the most energy to exercise.

(This is why many people feel drained after a brutal leg session!)

So if you’re training your legs every day, then expect to feel this burned out each day.

Less Intense/Lower Volume Workouts

There are 3 key variables you can change when working out:

  • Intensity
  • Frequency
  • Volume

The intensity of your workout describes how difficult your workouts are.

So if you usually do sets of 8 squats, but you’re capable of doing 10 at a big push, then you could increase the intensity by pushing for 10. Another way to increase the intensity is by slowing down the reps, so your muscles are under tension for longer.

The frequency of your workout describes how often you work out.

So if you usually train legs once a week, you could increase the frequency by training legs every day.

The volume of your workout describes how many sets and reps you do when working out.

So if you usually do 3 sets of 12 leg raises, then you could increase the volume by doing 5 sets of 12 leg raises. Or even 3 sets of 20 leg raises.

Generally, you should only tweak 2 of the 3 variables, otherwise your workouts will suffer, and your performance will decline.

And since training legs every day means high frequency, then you must sacrifice the intensity/volume of your workouts.

How To Do Leg Day Every Day

So you’ve decided to bite the bullet and do legs every day.

Brave choice my friend…

But how do you go about it?

Well, in my opinion, the best way is to alternate each day between quads and hamstrings.

This way, you’re giving your muscles at least 2 days to recover, which should reduce the risk of injury…

…as well as keeping your performance at a good level.

So as an example:

Monday: Quads

Tuesday: Hamstrings

Wednesday: Quads

Thursday: Hamstrings

Friday: Quads

Saturday: Hamstrings

Sunday: Quads

Conclusion

In summary:

  • There are many benefits of doing leg day every day.
  • Overtraining is a real risk of training legs every day.
  • It’s best to alternate between quads and hamstrings so that your legs have enough time to recover between workouts.

That’s all for this article, but does leg day burn more calories? Or perhaps you’re wondering why you’re feeling sick after leg day?

Hope this helped!

Sources

https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/02/11/strength-training-can-help-protect-the-brain-from-degeneration.html

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/how-resistance-training-can-help-you-sleep-better