Lower Body
I went to the gym with knees feeling great but kinda short on time, so the plan was to pick three exercises: one to emphasize quads, one to emphasize hams, and one to emphasize glutes. So I just made the most of my current faves.
Leg Press
• 100 controlled reps - no weight
• EMO2M: 4 sets of 6 slow reps with 45 lbs on each side
I’ve been thinking about an article Coach Thibaudeau wrote a while back: The 100-Rep Method For Big Legs and decided to give it a shot this morning. I actually had to pause every 25 reps at the top. I didn’t re-rack or anything but just took about 5-10 seconds to let the burning ease up. Hopefully with time my legs will tolerate it better.
The thing is, I got mixed up and had the impression that you do these 100 reps just on leg days. NO SIR. You do it at the beginning of every workout. This sounds like the perfect dose of masochism for me right now.
So I’m all in now! 100 reps of the leg press at the beginning of every workout! 
The 4 sets of 6 afterward actually felt fine! But instead of adding more weight than the 45 on each side, I chose to just slow down the reps in case my knees started acting up again. Maybe next time I’ll use more weight.
Abductor Machine
• 3 Burning, searing drop sets: 15 reps of the first weight, 10 reps of the second weight, 5 reps on the third weight, then partials if possible. Repeat two more times!
Swiss Ball Ham Curl
• 4 sets of 10 reps (with an isometric hold at the end of each set)
When I discovered how powerful this exercise is, I never went back to the lying ham curl machine.
From an outsider’s perspective, it looks like you’re not doing anything hard. But your upper hammies will beg to differ. Your legs will even shake if you’re contracting hard enough and going slow enough.
If you can’t feel it working, tweak your form a bit. I try to push my hips toward the ceiling because they start wanting to dip as fatigue hits. Though there is a version where you keep your hips low on purpose.
Make it harder by using one leg on the eccentric, or slowing each rep down significantly, or pausing at the hardest part and squeezing those leg muscles as hard as possible. Bradford Cooke demonstrated the coolest variations here: The Toughest Bodyweight Leg Exercise EVER
Anyone want to try the 100 leg press reps (every workout) with me?