Does Walking On A Treadmill Make Your Legs Bulky?

Walking on a treadmill is a low-impact, yet weight-bearing, form of exercise. Weight-bearing means gravity pulls down on your body while you exercise and your bones become stronger. This form of exercise causes you to engage multiple muscles in your legs. However, because walking is done with little resistance, it won't make your legs bigger.

Function of Walking

Walking is a form of cardiovascular exercise. This type of exercise raises your heart rate, causes you to sweat and burns calories. Because you burn calories, your legs will not become bulky from walking; indeed, they can actually become smaller. In fact, when performed regularly and in concert with a healthy, calorie-controlled diet, walking will decrease weight throughout your entire body. Consult your doctor before beginning any new exercise or diet regimen.

Time Dedicated for Weight Loss

To lose weight, you need to work out for an adequate time frame. Walking is relatively a low-intensity exercise form, so you need to do it for a while to reap weight-loss benefits. From a general standpoint, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends 60 to 90 minutes of physical activity performed five days a week to lose weight. Walking several times a day on the treadmill to accumulate your time will still give you the same weight-loss effect and not bulk up your legs.

Muscle Recruitment

The main muscles in the legs are the quadriceps, hamstrings and calves. You activate your quads during hip flexion and knee extension. These motions occur when you move your thigh toward your stomach and straighten your leg. The hamstrings function to extend the hip and flex the knee. Hip extension occurs when you move your thigh backward; knee flexion takes place when you bend your knee and move your heel upward. The calves function to plantar-flex the foot. You perform this motion when you bend your ankle and point your foot down. All of these actions occur repetitively while you walk on a treadmill. This gives your muscles a lean and toned look, but it does not make them larger.

Metabolism Boost

Any time you perform exercise, you burn calories. You also experience an elevated metabolism hours after you finish, which further boosts your caloric expenditure and prevents your legs from getting bigger. The higher the intensity of your workouts, the greater this effect will be. While walking on the treadmill, you can increase the incline to make your workouts more intense, or alternate your speed back and forth between fast and slow.

Tips for Bulking Legs

If you do in fact want to bulk up your legs, you will not achieve this by doing cardio. You will be better served doing weight-training exercises with a heavy resistance. Compound exercises are actually your best option. These work more than one muscle at a time, which leads to maximal gains in size and strength. Perform exercises like squats, leg presses, deadlifts, lunges and stepups to build mass in your legs.