I consider myself to be fit.

i play football semi-pro and train twice a week with matches midweek and on saturday.

im strong, with a slim toned top half of the body.
however. my legs dont look like footballers legs..

their not fat, but their not skinny either.

with the amount of excersize i do and my good diet, im surprised by this.

any help, suggestions would be realy appreciated.

thanks.

It's hard to answer this question.

Your legs could be genetically geared to look a certain way that you're not happy with. If this is the case, you're going to have to learn to manage your expectations.

Or you could be carrying a good big of your fat on your lower half, in which case you'd have to be in a caloric deficit in order to tap into some of that fat. The thing is though, you can't preferentially target the fat on your legs. It's going to leave your body in a predetermined genetic pattern.

In addition, if the latter is the case, dieting might not be the best idea if you're interested in performance for football... I'm not sure where you stand in terms of your season.

Do you train your legs with weights? Also, why do you use machines and not free weights?

thanks steve..

i dont do any machine weights. i just do light free weights.
being a soccer player i do not want to be too big but still strong!

i do long runs, cross country and lots of sprint sessions.

ive seen a difference in my body all over. except im still to bulky on the legs.

i eat healthy foods and never fast food.

we are halfway through our season at the moment..
in training, would long distance runs burn more fat or short and high intensity work outs help more?

thankyou

That's not really possible to answer. How much fat you burn is entirely dependent upon your net calorie balance. In theory, the bigger the deficit the more fat you lose.

That said, striving to create the biggest deficit possible doesn't work usually. ESPECIALLY with regards to an in-season athlete. So I'd be very careful assuming you care about your level of performance.

I'd also ditch the light weight stuff and stick with heavy lifting. Especially in season. Light weights do nothing in terms of maintaining whatever strength you have during the season.

The weight on the bar doesn't make you big and bulky unless you're eating to support muscle growth.