My Leg Routine

Hi all.

I’ve been back in training for about 2 months now after being out from anything serious for nearly 2 years with whiplash.

I cant do back or front squats as I dont have access to a rack so below is my routine. Can you guys let me know if I have all the bases covered.

All tempos are 302

Deadlifts 5x5
Barbell Hacksquats 3x8
Stationary Lunges 2x8

Also can I just check its normal to rips the hell out the back of your legs with the hacksquats??

Cheers all

Andy

I’d mix things up by adding to my repetoire:

Single leg squats
Single leg squats with back foot on bench.
Single leg deadlifts
Stiff-legged deadlifts (both flat and rounded back (different weeks))
Goodmornings (standing or seated or single legged)
Dynamic Lunges
Single leg hyperextensions
and a whole host of other exercises.

I also prefer to split my leg workout into a quad dominant day and a hip dominant day.

Furthermore, are you working calves at all? You seem to be missing those.

I find it hard not to avoid the odd scrap on the back of my legs during Hack Squats (and front of my legs during DLs). But ripping the hell out of them? Not really sure that’s the best technique.

Thanks for the reply ND.

I’ve been thinking about spliting my leg workout into two in the way that you mention. I think I’m gonna stick out it for 6 weeks and then give that a try.

I am doing calves, do 3 sets of single leg donkey raises using a dip belt.

With the hacksquat maybe I exaggerated it with ‘scrape the hell’. What I get though is definately more than the odd scrape, my form may need some more work.

You seem to be preventing yourself from having well developed legs.

6 weeks seems a little long doing just those 3 core leg exercises. I’d shorten that to 3-4 at the most. Than change it up.
And you’re only doing 1 exercise (3 total sets) for calves? Donkey calve raises only work out a limited part of your calves. Much like all other calf exercises work out limited part of your calves. But together you get kickass lower leg development.

Read “Diamonds in the Rough” and “Functional Calves” for a good idea of calve work.

ND had some good advice
just one thing; try using talclong rugby type sox or shin guards if you are doing heavy Hacks or the bar you use has corse knurling. it’ll stop the removal of that hairs and first layer of skin that can occur.
get inventive with those exercises too…

How often do you guys recommend changing workouts then?

If you’re training at home and have no plans to buy a rack, you may want to look into buying a hip belt.

You can also clean the weight up for front squats. If need be its pretty easy to dump the bar from the front squat (so long as you don’t live and train in an apartment building or condo . . .).

Change up your routine every 3-4 weeks.

I keep DLs, and Squats as my core unchanging exercises for much longer, but even those I change up with partials, and altered repetitions and loads.

I work in 3 or 4 of the other exercises from that list and beyond, and change them up every 3-4 weeks. I do this for 2 reasons…

  1. It’s boring as hell to do the same exercises and lift the same weight, for the same number of reps for much longer that 3-4 weeks.

  2. Since your body adapts rather quickly to the stimulus, any major gains are going to occur during those initial weeks, when the system is “shocked”. Much longer, and your body begins to recruit fewer and fewer muscle fibers to carry the same load. So changing often enough will maximize these gains. (Note that if you change every workout this makes it tough to gage progress since you’re shocking your system a little too rapidly).