Coaches need to prioritize leg strength with their athletes. Open skill sports like football, soccer, lacrosse, and basketball all place value on explosiveness, speed, agility and an athlete’s ability to generate power and force through the lower extremity.

Training for stronger legs involves having athletes develop their strength, explosiveness, speed, and endurance. And yes, the ability to endure is important to maintain strength late in a game to have the gas in the tank to score that game winning point.

Let’s discuss how coaches can set their athletes up to have the strongest, most explosive legs to improve sports performance.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Programming

Frequency

Volume & Intensity

Exercise Selection

The Bottom Line

Programming

Having strong legs begins with programming. Our strength training app, Peak Strength, will ensure that the program is periodized, is directed toward the competitive sport of choice, and is ideal for skill development, whether beginner, intermediate, or elite for athletes of all ages.

The principles used in Peak Strength are derived from Garage Strength Program Design and the Sports Depth lens. Meaning, that the programming oscillates like a parabola between volume and intensity in a periodized manner that is directed towards developing the attributes of strength, explosiveness, speed, and endurance.

In a perfect world, coaches will have at least 20 weeks worth of time to develop a periodized program to train an athlete to develop stronger legs.

The primary vehicle for developing stronger legs comes in the form of resistance training. Basically lifting weights.

Lifting weights occurs in three manners: technical coordination lifts like the snatch and clean, absolute strength exercises like the squat and deadlift, and accessory movements, such as structural bodybuilding type exercises to isolate muscles to increase size, blood flow, and joint integrity.

Besides lifting weights, plyometric exercises are another form of training that are valuable to developing stronger legs. Plyometrics are explosive jumps. And as most bipedal humans can attest, jumping primarily occurs through the explosiveness of the legs.

Then there is speed work. Yes, sprinting and running at max effort makes your legs stronger. The amount of force that is generated is quite high when sprinting. So though it isn’t necessarily a first thought for developing stronger legs, speed training is a prime ingredient for training to develop stronger legs.

Frequency

Coaches knowing that athletes need to lift weights with technical coordination exercises, absolute strength movements, and accessory exercises, including plyometric jumps, and make sure speed training occurs as well, the question remains: what is the frequency of each component?

Starting with the frequency of lifting weights, specific to the lower body, will occur twice a week. The two sessions can be thought of as a Lower Body Power Day and an Impulse Day. The Lower Body Power Day is meant to develop power, strength, and explosiveness through moving heavy, heavy weight as fast as possible.

The impulse day is more about speed of movement and dynamic execution. It isn’t that the weights are light, it is that the weights are submaximal loads that can help with accumulating volume and ensure speed of movement is prioritized.

With plyometrics and developing stronger legs, it is best to reserve a single day in every week that is exclusive to plyometric movements. The plyometric focused day is Athlete Day. On Athlete Day, coaches can organize the training around bilateral and unilateral jumps.

Begin athlete day with a warm up, followed with an easy bilateral jump, like a box jump, super setted with a unilateral jump, like a single leg pogo jump.

From there move into a more difficult pairing of a bilateral jump and unilateral jump. Something like hurdle hops and side to side banded skater jumps. Finish the Athlete Day off with a jump series, where the athlete is asked to do a combination of unilateral and bilateral jumps in both horizontal, lateral, and vertical directions.

The athlete day should occur the day before the Impulse Day.

That leaves the Speed Day, which can occur the same day as the Athlete Day (one in the AM, one in the PM) or can follow the day after the Lower Body Power Day. Speed Day needs to focus on one of three speed attributes: acceleration, change of direction, or top end speed.

No matter the focus, the speed day should consist of a light technical coordination exercise, like a two block power snatch, to begin the training session. The second movement should then be something more technically derived that impacts acceleration, change of direction, or top end speed. So for instance, wicket runs are beneficial on a top end speed day. From there, a speed drill that benefits a specific part of the main movement is applicable. So on a change of direction day, practicing the start and first cut of the 20 yard shuttle is applicable. Then conclude the speed day with the culmination movement, like reps of a 100 meter sprint.

Volume & Intensity

From the above frequency, the legs are being trained four days a week. That is a lot of volume no matter how it is sliced.

This is where prioritization comes into play. Based on the athlete’s needs, coaches need to select which attributes to prioritize: strength, speed, or explosiveness.

Based upon that prioritization, the volume and intensity of exercises will vary and take place. If the athlete needs more strength, the volume and intensity focus goes toward absolute strength movements, which means big squats. Front squats, back squats, and single leg squats. It also means more cleans than snatches when it comes to technical coordination exercise selection, and more full cleans, less powers.

In the same breath, if an athlete needs more explosiveness, the volume and intensity shifts toward the technical coordination exercises and the plyometric movements, as well as making sure the Speed Day has more of an acceleration focus.

And if the focus is speed development, the volume and intensity revolves around the Speed Day and Athlete Day.

No matter which way the stronger leg training is divided out, all components are taking place. Athletes are still performing technical coordination movements, absolute strength movements, plyometric movements, and speed developing movements.

Exercise Selection

Depending on the day and the intention of what component is being developed (strength, speed, explosiveness), the exercise being selected should vary.

However, there are some non-negotiables that stay firm. On the Lower Body Power Day and Impulse Day in which the athletes are lifting, the sessions need to start with a technical coordination exercise, followed by an absolute strength exercise, and conclude with accessory movements that develop the calves, quads, hamstrings, or glutes.

Here is a sample workout for Lower Power Day:

1A. Two Block Clean 5x2

2A. Back Squat 6x3

3A. Nordic Curls 4x5

3B. Leg Extensions 4x25

4A. Banded Side Steps 3x12/12

Here is a sample workout for Impulse Day:

1A. Snatch 4x2

2A. Single Leg Squat 5x3/3

3A. Razor Curls 5x7

4A. Calf Raises 3x25

For athlete day, athletes need to be performing plyometrics. The plyometrics need to be done both unilaterally and bilaterally. The movements need to be done with intention–that means fast and powerful.

Here is a sample Athlete Day:

1A. PVC Pipe Walks 3x10 Meters

2A. Box Jumps 4x3

2B. Single Leg Pogo Jumps 4x8/8

3A. Hurdle Hops 5x3

3B. Single Leg Stair Jumps 5x3/3

4A. Hurdle Hop+Broad Jump+Lateral Single Leg Mini Hurdle Hop 4x1+1+3/1+1+3

Speed day needs to have a specific intention being focused upon. That intention needs to be either top end speed, acceleration, or change of direction. With that in mind, things are targeted and serve a specific purpose.

Here is a sample Speed Day with a change of direction focus:

1A. Two Block Power Snatch 5x2

2A. Drach Step 6x3/3

3A. Sled Carioca 5x10/10 Meters

4A. 20 Yard Shuttle 6x1/1

The Bottom Line

Training for stronger legs is pivotal to any athlete's development. Stronger legs are the foundation to speed, power, explosiveness, and strength as an athlete. Knowing how to program and train for stronger legs is beneficial for athletes.

If you’re an athlete or coach looking to have a periodized program that is dialed in to train for stronger legs, you can download Peak Strength to level up your athleticism.

Later.