Follow This Leg Busting Workout For Monster Gains
Shredded legs are what separate the men from the boys. Leg day can prove to be the most brutal workout for most people. Limping around after a good leg workout is normal. Legs are one-half of your body and training them can be hard and exhausting.
Look around your gym and you’ll surely see people with muscular upper bodies and tiny legs. Leg days also happen to be the most skipped workouts around the world. We can’t make you love your leg workouts, but we can surely get you results.
1. Squats – 3 Sets – 12, 10, 8 Reps
Squats are a complete leg builder. You can’t expect to build muscle mass in your legs without doing this exercise. Squats are a compound (multi joint) exercise which builds size and strength in your legs. This exercise will also make you stronger at other exercises.
Start your workouts with 12 reps, with every set increase the weights and reduce the number of reps. Make sure you have a complete ‘ass to the grass’ range of motion. Performing partial reps won’t do anything for your legs.
2. Leg Press – 3 Sets – 12, 10, 8 Reps
Leg Press can be incredibly efficient in building size and definition in your legs. This exercise helps you train your legs from different angles by changing your feet position on the platform. Placing your feet high on the platforms train your hamstrings and the lower feet position will train your quads.
Close and wide feet placement targets your outer and inner quad sweep respectively. Leg press is also the most abused equipment in the gym. People load it up with more weights than they can handle. Use appropriate weights and maintain a full range of motion.
3. Leg Extensions – 3 Sets – 20, 15, 12 Reps
Leg extensions are an isolation exercise and help focus on your quads. This exercise helps in maintaining tension on your quads throughout the motion. Establish a mind-muscle connection with your legs and squeeze the hell out of them at the top of the movement.
You don’t need to go super heavy during this exercise. Keep the motion slow and deliberate and target muscle failure at the end of every set. You should be doing both compound and isolation exercises to make the most of your leg workouts.
4. Romanian Deadlifts – 3 Sets – 12, 10, 8 Reps
This exercise targets your hamstrings. Hamstrings can be a little harder to train since you can’t see them in the mirror and it can be a little harder to establish a mind-muscle connection with them. Keep your back arches and maintain a slight bend in your knees throughout this exercise.
During Romanian deadlifts, think of your hamstrings as chains being used to lift and lower your upper body. Using more weights than you can handle can shift the tension from your hams to your back, defeating the entire purpose of this exercise.
5. Leg Curls – 3 Sets – 20, 15, 12 Reps
Legs curls are one of the most effective hamstring exercises. This is an isolation exercise where the entire focus is on your hams. Maintain a mind-muscle connection with your hams throughout this exercise and keep your reps slow and deliberate.
Since your knees are the only joints working during this exercise, going too fast can increase your chances of an injury. Squeeze your hamstrings at the top of the movement and follow a complete range of motion.
6. Standing Calf Raises – 5 Sets – 20, 15, 10 Reps
You need to treat your calves just like any other muscle group. Doing three sets at the end of a leg workout won’t do any good for your calves. Standing calf raises target your gastrocnemius muscle which is the long head of the calves.
If you don’t have a standing calf machine at your gym, you can utilize the smith machine. Just like with all the other exercises, maintain a full range of motion and squeeze your calves at the top of the movement.
7. Seated Calf Raises – 5 Sets – 20, 15, 10 Reps
Most people have tiny calves because they don’t train them well enough. You need to be doing both the standing and the seated versions of the calf raises to train them optimally. The seated calf raises train the short head of the calves known as soleus.
You can try different feet placement to train your calves from different angles. Keeping your toes together and heels apart will target the outer head of your calves and placing your heels together and toes apart will train the inner head.
Which is your favorite leg exercise? Let us know in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook and Twitter.
