Primary Legs

The following details my primary leg workout from this past Saturday morning at Kirkland Gold’s Gym.  I trained with my bride and loosely followed some programming by John Meadows.  Here is the workout…

Superset: Leg Extensions & Lying Leg Curls

I performed about 3 rounds of warm-up sets before doing the following work sets – FYI.

Work Set #1

Leg Extensions x 8 reps with 220lbs

Immediately followed by…

Lying Leg Curls x 8 reps with 110lbs

Work Set #2

Leg Extensions x 8 reps with 220lbs

Immediately followed by…

Lying Leg Curls x 8 reps with 110lbs

Work Set #3

Leg Extensions x 6 reps with 250lbs -> drop to 170lbs x 8 reps -> drop to 100lbs x 10 reps

Immediately followed by…

Lying Leg Curls x 6 reps with 140lbs -> drop to 95lbs x 8 reps -> drop to 50lbs x 10 reps

*I wanted to get my legs fully pumped quickly so I opted for a superset.  As noted previously, be sure to do plenty of warm-ups before performing the working sets.  Your third working set will be a double drop set on each exercise – be prepared!

Glute Bridge/Hip Thrusters

Set 1 x 15 reps with 135lbs

Set 2 x 15 reps with 135lbs

Set 3 x 15 reps with 135lbs

*The key here is to hold and flex at the top (contracted position) for a 2 second count on each of the first 10 reps and then pump out the remaining 5 reps.

Ground Base Squats

I used a landmine such as this here: https://www.elitefts.com/core-blaster-1-1.html.

Set 1 x 10 reps with 45lbs

Set 2 x 10 reps with 90lbs

Set 3 x 10 reps with 90lbs

Set 4 x 10 reps with 90lbs

*I did these because they feel pretty good on my lower back.  Sink deep into your hips with a very controlled tempo.  The slower you go the more difficult this exercise becomes.  No bouncing out of the bottom.  I counted this as 3 working sets.

Ascending/Descending Leg Press

Set 1 x 10 reps with 4 plates/side

Set 2 x 10 reps with 5 plates/side

Set 3 x 10 reps with 6 plates/side

Set 4 (ascending set) as follows…

6 plates/side x 5 reps

6 and 7 plates/side respectively x 5 reps

7 plates/side x 5 reps

7 and 8 plates/side respectively x 5 reps

8 plates/side x 5 reps

Set 5 (descending set) as follows…

8 plates/side x 5 reps

7 and 8 plates/side respectively x 5 reps

7 plates/side x 5 reps

6 and 7 plates/side respectively x 5 reps

6 plates/side x 5 reps

*I worked my way up in weight doing sets of 10 reps until I got to 6 plates/side…then the fun began.  Essentially set 4 was an ascending set of 5 rep bouts.  Every 5 reps, Christina added 1 plate on one side until I reached 8 plates/side for a final 5 reps.  Total reps if you added them all up were 25.  On Set 5 I simply reverse things and stripped 1 plate every 5 reps until I got back down to 6 plates/side.  The descending set was actually much more painful than the ascending.  Enjoy!

Walking Lunges

Set 1 x 12 strides/leg with bodyweight only

Set 2 x 12 strides/leg with bodyweight only

Set 3 x 12 strides/leg with bodyweight only

*I finished off with my favorite exercise for opening up the hips while adding to a massive quad pump – walking lunges.  As always take long strides and pause briefly while gently touching your trailing knee to the ground on each step.

I stretched my quads and hamstrings hard after the walking lunges before heading to my cryotherapy session.  Cryotherapy has a number of benefits which I plan to discuss in a future article.

That concluded this primary leg workout.

Train hard!

Mark