Training legs is one of those things that just plain sucks. It takes a few years under the bar to learn to love training legs, but once you do it becomes your favorite day in the gym. Until then, it’s a necessary evil that you just happen to put up with because you don’t want to be turned into an Internet meme about skipping leg day.
I get it. We’ve all been there. The love of picking hundreds of pounds off the floor or placing it directly on top of your spinal column is a learned behavior. It makes sense to hate training legs, if you think about.
But still, we do it. We just happen to spin our wheels most of the time. Which is something we’re sick and tired of. We say it’s time we start building big wheels, and we’ve got the plan to make it happen.
We’re starting with the big compound movements and slowly working our way down. The routine is a mix of methods using time under tension, all out strength, hypertrophy rep ranges, and burn out sets. Done right, and you should have trouble sitting down to take a shit and Facebook stalk over the next couple of days.
If you don’t, then you’re just a complete hardass who has probably trained legs plenty in your life and is immune to pain.
Here’s the most brutal leg day routine ever.
Warm up:
- 5 minutes on the stationary bike
- 2 sets of 50 glute bridges
- 2 sets of 10 lunges each leg
- 2 sets of 20 goblet squats
Squat
- 3 sets of 8 reps
- Tempo note: 3 seconds going down, pause at the bottom for 1 second, 2 seconds up.
- Immediately after the last set, drop the weight by half and burn out as many reps as possible.
Deadlift
- 3 sets of 3 reps
- As heavy as possible with good form. Don’t go cat backing on us now.
Leg press
- 4 sets of 10 reps
- Tempo note: 2 seconds down, 2 seconds up
Superset:
- Barbell reverse lunge
- 4 sets of 8 reps per leg
- Dumbbell Romanian deadlift
- 4 sets of 12 reps
Superset:
- Leg extension
- 3 sets of 20 reps
- Leg curl
- 3 sets of 20 reps
- Immediately after the last rep on each exercise, drop the weight by half and burn out for as many reps as possible. Once reaching failure, drop the weight again and go until failure. Continue until you can’t go any lighter.
Each exercise in this routine should be done with perfect form. It doesn’t matter if you can quarter squat 400lbs. Drop the weight and do the reps right, using a full range of motion. If there is a note on tempo, then follow it. Don’t half ass the workout, unless you want half an ass.
If you’re uncomfortable with heavy deadlifting, then work in glute ham raises, Romanian deadlifts, or something similar. The same goes for squats. If you’re uncomfortable squatting, then use leg presses or barbell step-ups as a substitute.
After a few weeks of this leg day routine you should be safe from ever being made immortal thanks to becoming an Internet meme. Unless you go and do some stupid shit in some other area of life. We can’t help you there.