The following details my primary leg workout from this past Wednesday night at Kirkland Gold’s Gym. The workout was based somewhat on a program by my coach, John Meadows. I was fortunate enough to have my youngest and middle daughters – Julia and Lauren – join Christina and I for this workout. I was fighting a head cold, but I’m too stubborn to miss a leg workout so here is what I did…
Seated Leg Curls
I used a Life Fitness unilateral leg curl machine so weight listed is per each leg. Also, I performed three warm-up sets before jumping into the following – FYI.
Set 1 x 10 (rest/pause) reps with 80lbs
Set 2 x 10 (rest/pause) reps with 80lbs
Set 3 x 9 (rest/pause) reps with 80lbs
Set 4 x 8 (rest/pause) reps with 80lbs
*Every rep of every set is to be rest-paused, therefore extend your leg all the way out and pause for a one second count before curling the weight and flexing your hamstrings are hard as possible. Take each set to failure.
Reverse Banded Hack Squats w/Chains
I used this band: https://www.elitefts.com/pro-light-resistance-band.html. I also added two chains to each side, as seen here: https://www.elitefts.com/eliteftstm-pair-of-5-8-chains.html.
Set 1 x 10 reps with 1 plate/side + a pair of chains
Set 2 x 10 reps with 2 plates/side + a pair of chains
Set 3 x 10 reps with 3 plates/side + a pair of chains
Set 4 x 10 reps with 4 plates/side + a pair of chains
Set 5 x 10 reps with 4 plates/side + 25lbs + a pair of chains
Set 6 x 16 reps with 5 plates/side + a pair of chains
*Last week I went up to 5 plates/side, reverse banded, for a challenge set of 16; so this week I wanted to try and get the same number of reps including a pair of chains on each side.
Here is a video of my challenge set:
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2OrPuPwiuU]
Superset: Leg Extensions & Cambered Bar Squats
Here is as similar bar to the one I used on squats: https://www.elitefts.com/rackable-cambered-squat-bar.html.
Leg Extensions x 10 reps with 220lbs
Immediately followed by…
Cambered Bar Squats x 8 reps with 135lbs
*I cannot do barbell squats due to my lower back, so I decided to perform a superset with extensions to pre-fatigue my quads before going immediately into some wide stance cambered bar squats. Pump out the reps on leg extensions, but pause each rep in the deepest position on squats for a brief moment before firing back up. Do this for 4 rounds!
Dumbbell Stiff-Legged Deads
Set 1 x 8 reps with 55lbs
Set 2 x 8 reps with 55lbs
Set 3 x 8 reps with 55lbs
Set 4 x 8 reps with 55lbs
*I was seriously gassed by this point in the workout. I used lighter weight dumbbells for this exercise due to my lower back, so adjust weight as per your ability. Control the eccentric phase.
That concluded this primary leg workout.
Train hard!
Mark