How Many Exercises on Leg Day?

Hello

How many exercises do you usually do on a leg day?

There are SO many variables that could affect the answer to this, considering you can have an effective leg workout with one exercise and a useless one with ten exercises, but I would say, on average, I land around 4-5 - a squat variation, a hinge variation, a quad isolation exercise, a ham isolation exercise, and maybe a lunge variation or leg press.

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Number of sets?
Quad and ham splitted?
Proximity to failure?
Possibility to really be to failure?
Etc etc

Or the good old… it depends :man_shrugging:t3:

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If I’m working out at home - 3.
Front squat- 531 loading scheme. Or if it’s a one off work up to a 5-8 rep max.
Back squat - same weight. Go for broke. Its wholly possible to get to 15-20 reps.
Lunges - go light you wint have much left. 2-4 sets of 10/leg. I managed to get to 26kg.

If I have access to a whole gym - 4 maybe 5.
Same workout - but I’d drop the lunges and super set RDL and leg extensions.
After that I “might” try some leg press.

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Two or three. Sometimes 4.

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How would you do a good workout with just one exercise? Would it be just with squats. I have been thinking about doing a whole squat workout

I was thinking what like you avarage workout how many different ones you have.

I am usually doing 4-5 as well and it seems to be enough.

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Breathing squats.
20 reps with your 10 rep max.

Or just insane drop sets. Work to failure, take 10/15% off. Do that 4 or 5 times.

5x5 squats / front squats with 85% 1rm

Not pretty but all 1 exercise leg days that would be effective.

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I don’t consider it to be necessarily the best way to go about it, but given nothing but a barbell and a squat rack, @carlbm laid out several useful and miserable ways to get it done. Conversely, you could do 3 different types of leg curl, leg extensions, 3 squat variations, leg press, and lunges, but do them all really low intensity while talking on your phone to someone the whole time and barely breaking a sweat, so the amount of exercises is useless without context.

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Again I could do 2.
Front squat back squat combo.

Squat ramp is awesome.

Ramp to 5RM Zercher (4-5 sets)
Ramp to 5RM Front Squat (3 sets)
Ramp to 5RM Back Squat (3 sets)

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I do but one. Leg Press with a TUL of exactly 140 seconds or there abouts. Since getting back in the gym I am now, after nine post-Ch19na workouts, adding ten pounds every session which is once a week. The key is that I am able to assure intense loading into this muscle group with the Max Pyramid protocol. The overload is so intense it is practically near 100% as the last steppe will typically result in an inability to stop the weight from falling. When this occurs I need nothing else for legs which involves the entire major muscle chain from calves to glutes and everything in between. With the MP protocol I am assured I am loading without outroading, and with the static element requiring no movement I am able to eliminate all “performance” from the session. I do not believe it can be simpler than this (in 2020).

What?

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Agreed. If I was born with leverages like an Olympic lifter I’d just squat the entire workout and maybe do a couple of sets or either stiff-legged deadlifts or leg curls and call it a day.

People just need to have the guts to experiment and find out what works for them and do it instead of relying on what the majority of people on the internet are saying.

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Dorian Yates had fantastic legs. Stopped doing squats what, his second year or so?

Yes.

I would also say the split one uses is a factor.

If I’m doing a typical BB split or “bro-split” I will use 4 or 5 exercises. If doing a 3 way split (PPL, Arnold Split, etc) or an upper lower I will do less (depending on weekly frequency.

But for bro split I do more or less what @flappinit already said up there.

In a week I do zercher squat, leg curl, power clean, bulg. split squat, rdl, and leg ext.

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Squat, hack squat, 2-3 hamstring movements, calves?

I typically have a separate hamstring day because you simply cannot have big/strong enough hams.

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I do what I know I can recover from between sessions and continue to progress. Typically that’s 4-5 but there’s about a million factors personal to me based on life, stage of my current training, etc that play into it on a week to week basis.