Just love the title of this one. Pretty cheesy, but that is exactly what we are going to address.
In our 19 years in business I have had maybe a handful of female clients that actually requested large thighs. Typically, ladies want to reduce the size of their legs and could give less than 2 sh*ts how much they squat or deadlift.
This next piece is for the trainers reading– now, before you go all, “Who cares about size, it’s about body composition. Women should feel empowered and strong. To hell with what everyone tells you what you should look like.”, be honest. Try feeding that line to the lady who can no longer fit into her $200 size 6 jeans because your program has her deep squatting for 4 sets of 20, three times a week.We fitness folks live in a pretty small world where even aesthetics sometimes take a back seat to being a total beast in the weight room. Earth to trainer, this isn’t the norm. If you want to make a decent living in the fat loss industry, you’d better read up.
In reality, most women just want to be functionally strong, but not at the expense of larger thighs.
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| Not desirable for most women |
So how do we accomplish this? Most of the exercises that will increase heart rate, build nice glutes and “tone” the legs are going to greatly effect the thigh musculature. If you have the propensity for gaining large amounts of muscle in your thighs, you’ll want to avoid tons of volume with knee dominant movements (squats, step ups, etc) I should mention that you need to be honest. If your nutrition is bad, you are more than likely gaining fat and not packing on muscle. Just sayin.
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| Desirable by most standards |
There are a few ways to work the glutes with minimal quadriceps involvement.
My two favorite are:
KB Swings
and
Bridges
As you can see, it is possible to use a considerable amount of weight with these movements. They both involve serious glute recruitment without much risk of building thunder thighs.
I want you guys to know that I, by no means pretend to know what each and every person desires or should look like. Personally, I think strong women are sexy due in part to the self confidence that goes with having a fit, strong body and mindset. I am simply relaying to you the feedbaclk from the thousands of women who have walked through our doors at NPPT.
