I've doubled up on leg training to try and play catch up to my upper body. The additional day is hamstring, glute, and calf dominant with a series of quad pumping exercises to pull blood from the hamstring into the quad giving the hamstring optimal active ranges of motion.

Here is the kicker. In order to optimize the ability to push the compound movements for both  hamstrings and quads I have split hamstrings up into knee flexion exercises and hip extension exercises. This has a number of benefits.

  1. It allows you to keep the low back fresh for hammering squats, hacks and any barbell quad based movement.
  2. It reduces low back fatigue so you can push your heavy hip extension exercises like: RDL's, good mornings, SLDL etc.
  3. You can keep your volume the same over the two days which allows you to push intensity or you can slow add volume if your program calls for it.

Now the key with Hip extension is bracing and allowing the hips to actually travel vs just bending at the hips and having the lumbar take over. The hips must actually displace. Now because the hamstrings in hip extension have a long lever arm its not overly big. You must however make sure that you don't continue extending the movement once you hamstring ROM is done. This would look like your low back is still moving but your hips are not. Here are three movments I performed on my 2nd leg day focusing on hip extension. In order.

Barbell RDL 405x10 (shown) then a strip set of 315 x 10, 225 x 10 .

Next was Seated Good Barbell Good mornings. These really work you hamstrings from the lengthened position. *TIP* elevate your heals to really lengthen your posterior chain for an added stretch. These were 3 straight sets of 10-12 reps. This was my third set.

Lastly, I moved to the standing BB good morning. A variation from above but it changes the feel and where the tension is at completely. This is more of a mid range hip extension movement. Straight sets of 10 for 4 sets. This was my last set. I think I had 3 25#'s per side. Again, the key is tension not weight.

That was it for this second leg day. Any questions regarding therapy, training, or how I program feel free to reach out.

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