Four days on, one day off. First Day – legs. Last two posts covered a sample leg workout. Leg workout first exercise will be regular squats, front squats or box squats. Alternate them.
Get your pre-wo on, stretch and then lots of warm up sets. When you’re ready do three to five working sets. Keep it in the 8-12 range. Go heavy. If you’re feeling it and want to go heavier than usual, you can drop down to five reps, but keep that form tight. Ego sets are usually a bad idea and where the injuries happen. But, we all do them, anyway. Let’s keep it carpaccio – rare.
Don’t rush. This is more of a Picasso-type thing than splash art. If you are looking to strip off weight, you will want to go a little faster. But take at least a full minute between sets. If you are looking to put on weight and mass, take more time between sets and make sure to go heavy. I usually take two to four minutes between sets, but when squatting and deadlifting, it’s not unheard of to take up to five minutes.
Second exercise will be another multi-joint move – barbell/machine hacksquat, V-squat (big leg machine), Jeffs, or even what I call humpers (that exercise where you see people typically on the Smith Machine with the bar across their upper thigh/groin area thrusting their pelvis toward the ceiling. Again, alternate these. Three sets. Same rep and time rules as above.
Third exercise can be leg extensions or ham curls (I prefer the one-leg ham curl machine you see in certain gyms (really nails the hams)), seated is next most effective and then lying), or superset them if you’re feeling extra special. Do three sets. Up your reps on this exercise to 12-20. Take less time between sets – 90 seconds to two minutes – no more.
Finish up with calf raises. Three working sets. 12-20 reps. This should hurt. Standing on the Smith Machine, on a standing calf raise machine, seated calf raise machine, or even lying on your back pushing your toes up on a smith or on a leg press. I don’t do leg press for lower body other than calves because I have been told by people I put faith in that it is brutal on the back. Case in point is Ronnie Coleman who now has trouble walking and used to do leg press reps with a ton plus on the machine. Plenty of other ways to work your lower body.
Next day is push, then CABS, then pull, then a day off. Tomorrow, I’ll run through a sample push wo.
Cocktail of the day is the Old-Fashioned. Classic and a great bar at the Jersey Shore called the Arlington does a variation on it that they call the Old AF! How could I not give it a shout out, being Old AF myself?! Use a good bourbon, and I don’t use sugar – substitute monkfruit sweetener or something like that.
Exercise song of the day is Patience by Guns ‘N Roses, because great things in life take time, can’t be rushed. It’s a Picasso, not splash art. Stretch to it, can’t say it’s highly motivational.