Legs

Trained legs with Randy Howard at Strength Beyond in Kalamazoo. We started off with calves.

Our first exercise was horizontal calf raises.
5 sets of 15 reps

seated calves
3 sets of 15 reps.

Then we started on legs. We started out with lying leg curls for 4 sets of 12, just pyramiding up. This was really more of a warm up than anything else.

Then we went to leg extensions, and did 3 sets of 15 there. Again, that was just a warm up.

Then we went over to leg press, and the workout really started. We built up slowly, adding 2 or 3 plates a side, over a course of about 7 sets. We did just straight sets of 10 and ended up with a total workload of about 7 sets of 10, building up to a max of about 12 plates per side.

Then we went to barbell stiff leg dead lift, nothing heavy here. We just stuck at 135 for 4 sets of 15. By this point, my legs were pretty pumped, and on fire, so we went to leg extensions to try to focus on quads.

Leg extensions: I'm trying to really bring out my quad separation this year, so we did 3 sets of 20 there. It was with the whole stack. With this machine, the stack is right about 20 reps at failure, so the first set's a pretty decent set of 20--Not too bad. By the second set, I'm really at failure about 18 reps, and I'm just finding a way to grind out those last 2 reps. By the third set, I'm at failure somewhere between 12 and 14 reps, and those last 6 or 8 reps are just finding any way to get enough momentum to get the weight up.
I was fully wrecked after that. I had trouble standing up, and it took a couple minutes for enough blood to get out of my quads so that I could actually perform a leg curl.

From there, our next exercise was seated leg curls. Again, my quads were so pumped here, they were even cramping up. It was difficult to get a full range of motion on hamstrings, but we did 4 sets of 15 here on the seated leg curl. It's a hammer strength seated leg curl. We did just 2 45's on that, which isn't too bad. The first 2 sets of 15 were pretty easy. By the third set, I was pretty close to failure around 12 reps, but you grind it out. On the fourth set, I was pretty much done at 10 reps. I did more or less partials to grind out those last 5 reps.

From there, we went over to ... We actually wanted to squat, but I ... For one, both squat racks were occupied. For two, I don't think I would've got more than a couple of sets in before I was throwing up. For whatever reason, I was just really, really wrecked this day. I don't know if it's that I took a week off during the holidays or what, but I just wasn't feeling my oats. We went over to reverse hack squats for 4 sets of 10. We started with just 2 plates per side, for a set of 10. Then we went to 3 plates a side for a set of 10, and then finally, 4 plates a side for another set of 10.

We were both pretty wrecked at this point. I don't know what it was about the workout, because it really wasn't anything to write home about. We didn't go crazy heavy on anything. We went decently heavy on leg press, but nothing that I haven't done 100 times before. The tempo was pretty quick....we got all this done in about 45, 50 minutes, including the calves, but Randy and I were both struggling. We sat for about 2 minutes, debating whether to call it a day or not, but we decided to finish off with one last super-set. We went through and super-setted sissy squats on the sissy squat apparatus with hack squats.

I really don't like doing regular hack squats on our hack squat machine. The hack squat is a really strange angle. You can't use very much weight. If you do use much weight, you have to put your feet in a position such that you're not really using your quads at all. If you do put your feet in position where you're using your quads instead of your glutes and inner quads, it's very hard on the knees. What we did was, we super-setted sissy squats with the hack squats, and just kept it light on the hack squats. We did a set of 10 on the sissy squats, followed immediately by a set of 10 of the hack squats. We did 3 sets there, and by that third set of hack squats, I was ... My legs were cramping during the set, and so we were pretty much done.

I didn't throw up, but I was pretty darn close to throwing up. Both Randy and I were kind of looking at each other a little confused as to why the workout was so hard. It must've been just one of those days where neither of us were feeling our oats. I really don't know, but we sat around for about 5 minutes trying not to puke, and then headed out for our post-workout sushi.