Here’s a sample leg day workout, with commentary provided by Mark Dugdale.

Just when I thought John Meadows would back off on the volume for my leg training days, he gave me a workout last night that was absolutely brutal. It was fun, though. Here’s what it looked like:

LYING LEG CURLS

SET 1: 65 x 10 (warm-up)
SET 2: 80 x 10 (warm-up)
SET 3: 95 x 10 (warm-up)
SETS 4-6: 125 X 10
SET 7: Start with 125 x 10, then drop to 80 x 10, then 40 x 10.

After performing some warm-ups, I had my training partner press on my lower back to force my hips onto the pad. This technique makes the weight a lot harder, and the contraction is very intense.

I finished my fourth working set by doing two drops for a total of 30 reps. If you’re going to try this, have your training partner press down on your lower back for every drop set. My hamstrings were totally blown up after doing this.

SQUATS

The way we did this set was similar to last week. With the final challenge set, however, you have to fight for more reps than you did last week. Here’s what I did.

SET 1: 135 x 12 (warm-up)
SET 2: 185 x 10 (warm-up)
SET 3: 225 x 10 (warm-up)
SET 4: 225 + 2 chains x 6 (warm-up)
SET 5: 225 + 4 chains x 6 (warm-up)
SET 6: 275 + 4 chains x 6 (working set)
SET 7: 315 + 4 chains (challenge set)

 

HACK SQUAT (ONE-AND-A-HALVES)

John told me he did these with two 45 pound plates on each side. I thought this was a little light until I actually tried it. This blew up my quads, and it felt like cardio.

SETS 1-3: 1.5 reps with two 45 pound plates on each side.

To perform these, go down all the way, come halfway back up, then go back down all the way and come up all the way back up again. This is one rep, so you’re doing ten reps of these.

UNILATERAL LEG EXTENSIONS (SUPERSET WITH DUMBBELL SQUATS)

The main leg extension machine in my gym was in use, so we used the unilateral leg extension for the first exercise of the superset. These felt really good. We immediately followed extensions with dumbbell squats—performed with 2.5 pound plates under our heels. Doing this will put extra focus on your quads.

SETS 1-3: Unilateral leg extensions (each leg) done for 10 reps with 70 pounds of resistance, holding the contraction for one second.

Superset with:

SETS 1-3: 65 pound dumbbells x 10.

This superset was a great finisher for my quads. I didn’t do any stiff-leg deadlifting today, because I’m saving that for my back day this week.