Two Leg Routines - Two Different Styles
Last weekend while I was in Buffalo to help some friends compete, I managed to squeeze in a pretty sweet leg workout that I haven’t posted up on here yet. Yesterday, a week later, I did another leg workout. Both were awesome, as I am typing this I can feel the soreness throughout the entirety of my legs and glutes. Both however where different from the other in style. The workout in Buffalo was a higher volume workout focused mainly on muscle hypertrophy, whereas the workout I did yesterday was focused on increasing strength. Both have their place in the bodybuilders training regime, the key is to know when to incorporate the different types of workouts.
High Volume Workout.
Warm up - 3 sets of squats with increasing weight (reps kept at 20 per set)
Giant Set
- Squat 225 x 20
- Lunge 40 lb Dumbbells x 10 steps each leg
- Prone Leg Curl 100 x 10
- Lunge 40 lb Dumbbells x 6 steps each leg
- Hack Squat 45 lb plate each side x 15 reps
Repeat that rotation 4 times
This should cause your heart to race as though you just sprinted a 5K!!
Superset
- Leg Extension heavy x 15 reps
- Leg Curl heavy x 12-15 reps
Repeat this rotation 4 times
Granted as far as "high volume" leg workouts go, this isnt the most volumous (is that even a word!!??), but after the first giant set I think you will find that you are toast. In the past I had done workouts consisting of 3-4 sets of 225 for 20 reps on the squat and was spent, now try adding all the rest of that onto it with no rest! The key is to pick weights that will make you have to dig deep. I found that by the second set of 225 for 20 on the squat that I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to make the full 20 reps. So you can imagine how I felt on the 3rd and 4th set!
Strength Workout
Warm up - 3 sets squats
Exercise 1
Squat - 7 sets total after warm up
225 x 15
275 x 12
315 x 6
365 x 5
385 x 5
405 x 3
405 x 3
315 x 12
Exercise 2
Dumbbell Walking Lunges
60 lb DBs x 10 steps each leg
70 lb DBs x 8 steps each leg
80 lb DBs x 6 steps each leg
80 lb DBs x 6 steps each leg
85 lb DBs x 5 steps each leg
85 lb DBs x 5 steps each leg
SuperSet 1
Leg Extension ss Prone Leg curl
3 total sets increasing weight each time.
reps kept between 6-10 on each.
All sets to failure.
May 14, 2009 at 8:13 am
I see you are a big fan of Milos Sarcev’s leg training style. I’ve always done compound sets with legs but I’ve never done giant sets, Im going to give it a try next week!
May 14, 2009 at 8:26 am
Yep…Milos is the man!
Good luck dude, giant set leg training is no joke! Be prepared to feel like you are dieing.
Keeping the intensity HIGH is key.
Let me know how it goes.
May 19, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Thanks Man.. I definitely needed to go lighter on the weights, they were extremely hard to lift, even tho the actual weight isn’t so heavy. Im just curious, why did you put in leg curls in the middle of your giant set?? Anyways, I’ll see how the legs feel tomorrow morning…..
May 19, 2009 at 8:30 pm
I need to work on my hams, and I am always looking to improve the ham glute tie-in. The lunges work that area, and sandwiching the curls in there helps me to be sure that my hams and glutes are nice and seriously prefatigued before I go into the hack, so that I can be sure to hit failure on them as well as the quads.
Not to mention the ridiculous fatigue that was felt from the sets of 20 on the squat to start the set!!
By the way Russ…how was your HR going after that giant set?
May 20, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Thats incredible how you are able to hit squats for 20 reps with 225. I did hack squats first to focus on my other quads. My heart was racing by the time I got to doing lunges(3rd exercise), I was gasping for air every time i get to the top of the lift! You probably have thrown up doing this workout, I started gagging after the second set. Like you said, I gotta choose the weights, so I lowered them. I just dropped to my knees during lunges and went on to try to get in more reps on the extension during the first couple of sets.
I will definitely try it again the following week and leave everything out on the gym floor, including my guts!
May 28, 2009 at 1:35 pm
lol…I like the intensity Russ. Truth be told, this is an awesomely intense workout, but I feel like in the past I used to have leg workouts that would put this to shame. I need to get my head back in the game. I attempted 3 sets of 20 with 275 before…I made the first set of 20, then the next to dropped to 16 and 14 respectively…as I was literally going to failure on all of them! The most I have gotten with 225 was 34 reps…and that was a legitimate 1-2 inches below parallel.
Keep at it dude.
JC