Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer

Bodybuilding Leg Training

Sometimes you just have to go a bit crazy with your workouts and do something a bit different. I grew up reading about the old Weider Principle of “Muscle Confusion” which was a hybrid hotchpotch of changing the routine and doing something a bit radical, all depending upon which journalist was working which commercial angle in that month’s Flex or Muscle & Fitness. As a result of that teenage influence combined with my own propensity for never doing things by halves, I’ve always been very susceptible to putting together slightly insane workouts designed to kill a Bull Elephant. So when I was asked last night by my partner to put together a bodybuilding leg training routine for the next morning that would leave us unable to walk for the following few days, I jumped at the chance.

The workout that is laid down on this page isn’t pretty; it isn’t periodized; I don’t really give a damn about tempo, and it represents gross overtraining for the vast majority of people. In fact, it represents gross overtraining for myself (no matter where I am in a training cycle) if I were to do it more than once. What makes matters worse is that this was my first leg workout in 3 weeks due to a combination of sickness and injury.

As ever when I publish an individual workout please do bear in mind that it is designed for what myself and my training partner are capable of doing. It isn’t intended for anyone else, and if you want to try it out then do feel free to try and adapt certain areas to best suit yourself and what you can do. Just ask me in the comments section below how your tweaks might work and I’ll do my best to answer any question by the end of this weekend (the last in February 2012). By the way, this idea of taking another workout and then playing around with it is a super smart one if you’re aiming to improve your ability as a trainer. It is only by experimenting in this way, and carefully tracking results and outcomes, that you can really become an expert, and is yet another reason why experience is so vital to becoming the best possible personal trainer/trainee you can be.

One last thing before we get to the interesting stuff. This is a bodybuilding leg training workout designed to be done with a partner who matches (or even better, exceeds!) your own competitiveness. It is a brutal test of mental fortitude and I know that there is no way I would have been able to complete this without having someone else to battle against.

UP trainer, training a client

The Leg Workout Challenge:

A: Safety Bar Squats: 200 reps in total: select a weight that is 60% of your 10 repetition maximum.

Whoever hits 250 reps in the least number of sets has 2 less sets of the last movement of the workout. If it’s a draw there is no winner.

You should note that when you are doing multiple sets of 25-50 reps the comfort and ease of use of the Safety Bar really does come in handy!!

B: Lunges (30 strides – 1 length of the UP Mayfair personal training gym track) with 10kg dumbells.

Whoever doesn’t quit first has 2 less sets of last movement. In other words, you keep on doing an “I go, then you go” with no rest other than when your partner is doing his lunges, until one of you waves the white flag (or by this stage the white tissue by the sick bucket”).

C1: Legs curls – 6 reps to failure

No rest.

C2: Reverse Hyperextensions – 8-10 reps to failure

No Rest.

C3: Standing Calf Raises – 20 reps to failure

Rest 75 seconds/4 cycles.

D: Reverse Sled Drag sprints (one length of UP Mayfair track): 8 sets/60 secs rest between sets.

Looking back it certainly isn’t as complicated a routine as some of the giant sets I have written about later. Also looking back wit the benefit of hindsight, and quads, hamstrings, adductors, and glutes that are already sore only 4 hours later, it is brutally hard. The squats alone are a session in themselves and all I have wanted to do all day is curl up in one of our treatment rooms and have a long sleep. I have to train a client ten minutes from now and am craving an IV drip of caffeine to get my arse into gear!

So give this workout a try if you dare and if you have any questions about how to adapt it then let me know in the comments section below and as usual I’ll do my best to answer as promptly as possible. 

Leave a comment

Latest Posts

© 2024 Ultimate Performance. All Rights Reserved.