If you want a truly great physique, then training legs has to be a cornerstone of your programme. No ifs, no buts.
I was always one of those guys who skipped leg day – but as I revealed in my last column, I got majorly found out.
So if you don’t want your chicken legs splashed across the Daily Mail (that actually happened), then you’re going to have to set to work building some leviathan limbs.
That’s what I did – within two years I went from having legs that wouldn’t hold up a sparrow, to packing a pair of pins that would trump an Irish thoroughbred.
To get there it’s a whole lot more than banging out a few squats. Here’s how I did it…
Squats
The king of leg exercises, I always start on squats every time I train. It’s the most important movement. so you need to hit it when you’ve got the most energy.
I always start with three warm-up sets. First one just with the bar, then the next two with 60kg, or another light weight, getting about 25 to 30 reps to warm those legs up.
Then I will start packing on the weight. I do three heavy sets at the weight where I max out at 8 to 10 reps (at the moment I’m hitting 160kg for three sets).
Paused reps
I’ve done the warm up sets, I’ve done the heavy sets so then I will do three paused sets back down at 60kg. They are absolute killers.
I step out, go down right to the bottom and I will stay there and I will count to three and then explode back up fast.
They really activate your glutes. When you pause at the bottom of the rep – ass to grass – you’ll really feel it, your arse will start burning.
It’s all about the time under tension here – your quads and glutes will get a hammering, They are eye-wateringly brutal. I went through hell with them.
Lunges
Sticking in the squat rack with the weight still on 60kg, I will hit some lunges.
After nine hard sets on squats, three solid sets on lunges should give your legs a decent battering.
The key with performing lunges is to work them nice and slow – do steady, methodical reps and you will really start to develop that outer sweep muscle on your quads.
When you do them after your squats you can really feel the muscle stimulation.
Leg press
My technique on this is brutal. But first you need to think about your foot position on the machine. Most people just jump on and rep away, but remember – if your legs are closer together it will work your quads more, but if they’re further apart it’s going to activate your hamstrings.
I keep my feet close together to really focus on my quads and hit five sets in total. The first set is very light – I stack on 80kg and I will do 60 reps, fast with no rest.
I will add more weight on and do 50 reps, add more and do 40 reps, then 30 reps and 20 reps, so by the time I get down to 10 reps, there’s a serious amount of weight on there.
I will get up to 240kg and finish with 10 killer strength reps. But because I’ve been through the intense burn sets, my legs are in absolute bits.
Make sure you take two minutes between each legs – you do want to walk again one day.
Hamstrings
I find the hamstrings a difficult muscle group to train. Quads are slow twitch muscles so you can hammer them with reps, while hamstrings are fast twitch fibres so they should respond to heavy, explosive reps.
But I don’t agree. I actually prefer higher reps because they’re quite an awkward muscle and the movement isn’t as straight forward as doing a leg extension.
You need to really slow it down and get the technique perfect to get that stimulation otherwise other muscles will get involved. I prefer to use lower weights and higher reps, but keep the reps nice and slow.
When you get to that point of tension, really slow it down there because that’s where (in the words of Ron Burgundy) you’re going to get the deep burn.
Leg curls
If you want to really work your hamstrings, then hit the leg curls hard. I will do seated, standing and lying leg curl variations to work the muscle from different angles.
I like using the seated leg curl first. Then I will move on to the lying leg curl. A tip on this movement is to point your toes down which effectively takes your calves out of the movement, so it hits your hamstrings on their own.
If you keep your legs closer together or further apart you will feel different muscle stimulation. I prefer to keep them closer together so there’s only a small gap between the heels.
Just keep it nice and slow and you will feel the burn, especially if you slow it down right at the tension point.
You will get that burn in all of them – especially the standing leg curl. If you keep your back straight, you will feel it hitting your hamstring higher up and if you perform the move bent over it will work the lower portion of the muscle.
As long as you feel the muscle stimulation it’s all good.
Romanian deadlifts
RDLs, or stiff-leg deadlifts, put a different stress on your hamstring muscles. I will go very light on this exercise to make sure I get the technique perfect so I get the right stimulation on the muscle.
If your form isn’t perfect, other muscles will be recruited and you won’t be hitting those hamstrings properly.
A lot of people say RDLs hurt their back – they shouldn’t. The tension should be all on the hamstrings. It probably means the weight is too heavy or the form is wrong.
I never have a defined amount of reps or sets on any hamstring movement. I will go until that point where I feel I can’t take any more.
Glutes
So many guys don’t train their glutes, but I will concentrate on them. It’s important to hit them. Since doing them (and it sounds silly) you feel you’ve got a solid base in the glute area. Nothing beats a good arse.
If there’s a glute extension machine at your gym – use it, it’s a killer. If not, you can get down on all fours and push the Smith machine bar up with the sole of your foot. This emulates the glute extension movement.
I really saw improvements in my physique doing this exercise (and if you’re going on stage in swinwear, you have to think about your arse).
Calves
They’re the most stubborn muscle in the whole human body (anyone who trains will know they’re a nightmare to grow).
I will do a full 30 minutes’ training my calves.
To really make them grow you have to hammer them. I train calves as an extension to all my other training sessions – so one day I do extra calves, the next I do extra abs and just rotate them.
I have four different exercises and I will just go between them all in a huge super-set. You have to go hard and burn them out because they’re so stubborn. I will just superset them – calf raises, donkey kicks, calf extensions and seated calf raises for 30 minutes straight.
Always do high reps to feel the stimulation – you won’t feel anything with heavy weights and low reps. Then if you add pauses to the movement, it will take you to another level.
When you do a calf raise, just pause at the very top of the movement, squeeze hard and focus on the contraction and it will give you next-level gains.
Focus on that point of tension – I go for a full three-second hold at the top right up on my toes.
Is it working?
First of all make sure your form is 100% correct and you’re really stimulating the muscle. If your legs are not growing, you need to do more volume. That means more overall reps and sets.
If you hit a plateau, start adding a bit of variation of rep ranges and motions in your exercises and they will break through that.
Incorporating techniques like the pauses and the high reps with low weights, pyramiding to the higher weights with lower reps will blow you away.
Training legs is tough – there’s no easy way around it. You’re going to get that horrible DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) in your beanpoles the day after.
But if you’re crawling out of bed tomorrow, be happy. You’ve nailed it.
Photography by: Christopher Bailey
