Hiking with my family on Saturday’s entailed a change in my training schedule. Saturday was designated as my primary leg workout, but Mountain Dog Training severely hampers my ability to climb mountains afterwards, lol. Thus, my primary leg workout was moved to Monday evening at Kirkland Gold’s Gym. Here is my workout from this past Monday…
Lying Leg Curls
I performed several warm-up sets before jumping into the following working sets.
Sets 1 through 4 x 8 bilateral reps + 6 unilateral reps with 125lbs and 60lbs respectively
*The key here is to perform 8 perfect reps with both legs, cut the weight roughly in half and perform an additional 6 reps with each leg via alternating reps. Keep your pelvis forced into the pad to eliminate arching your back.
Banded Frog Stance Leg Press
I attached two of these bands to the leg press: https://www.elitefts.com/pro-strong-resistance-band.html
Set 1 x 12 reps with 3 plates each side + bands
Set 2 x 12 reps with 4 plates each side + bands
Set 3 x 12 reps with 5 plates each side + bands
Set 4 x 12 reps with 6 plates each side + bands
Set 5 x 12 reps with 7 plates each side + bands
*Perform these with a wide stance and toes pointed out so that your knees travel outside your body. The goal is to target more hams and adductors on these today.
Reverse Banded Hack Squats Superset w/Leg Press
I used this band, attached in a reverse fashion, for the hack squats: https://www.elitefts.com/pro-average-resistance-band.html I used a different leg press (Nautilus Xplode) for this superset and no bands for it. After a couple feeder sets this is what I did for working sets…
Hack Squats x 8 reps with 4 plates each side
Immediately followed by
Leg Press x 15 reps with 5 plates each side
*On the leg press portion of this superset keep your feet in a narrow foot stance. Pump the reps out until you hit 15. Perform 8 working sets via 4 supersets.
Cable Pull-Throughs
Sets 1 through 3 x 8 reps with 190lbs
*Face away from the weight stack and attach a handle to the lower pulley. Hinge at the waist and pull the handle between your legs. Get a really good stretch at the bottom and contract the glutes at the top.
That concluded this primary leg workout.
Train hard!
Mark
Good question. I've had increasing pain in my lower back particularly when doing direct load bearing exercises on my spine. Bent over barbell rows and squats are the two exercises that leave me crippled for a week or more. I haven't done an MRI, but I honestly don't think any revelations will occur aside from the doctor saying, "Hey, you might not want to squat." As such if you are following my training log and implementing the workout into your own routine you can pretty much assume that every time you see hack squats in the program it is a substitute exercise for barbell squats. Based on the angle it doesn't seem to both my lower back.
Take care,
Mark