Thread: Leg days: How does this look?

seems you really love being in the gym! deff work on spending less time in the gym. if your going to work your whole body 2x a week you should be in and out in 30-45min tops. other than that the leg routine looks good. although you may find it hard to work your legs to their fullest with that much cardio throughout the week

Yeah I deffinatly LOVE spending time in the gym. Actually it is like my safe heaven. There is no where else in the world I would rather be. Also, it takes my mind off food haha. I love to eat and when I am not in the gym I get bored and hungry and I don't want to allow myself to eat too much!

Usually my lifting is only about 45 minutes. The cardio is about 30 minutes on HIIT days. I have read that HIIT is in itself is a pretty good leg workout since I get about 20 full out 20 second sprints in.

DO you think I am going to inhibit muscle growth because I am spending too much time in the gym? I want to gain LBM but I am also afraid of gaining fat if I cut down my cardio too much

I would advise against 10 minutes of static stretching before working legs, but if you do a brief dynamic warmup/stretch, you may well find that beneficial - that's what I do before legs. Got Built? » High Intensity Interval Foreplay

You may also find it helpful to vary your rep ranges, perhaps splitting your leg work and upper body work into two workouts - for example, you could do heavy quad work (5x5 squats), higher rep hams (SHELC) and vertical pushing and pulling (delts and lats), and on another workout, heavy ham work (say, 5x5 RDLs), higher rep quad work (3x8 front squats?), and horizontal pushing and pulling (pecs and rows). That way, every day is a "full body" workout, but with varying emphasis.

(For the upper body work, pick a heavy compound for 5x5 work, and a unilateral/dumbbell exercise for 3x8-12 work. Something like this for example: horizontal pushing and pullling: 5x5 barbell press, 3x8 incline dumbbell press, 5x5 Pendlay rows, 3x8 one-arm dumbbell rows. )

You could opt to do this workout three times a week instead of four (alternate workouts so one week it's 121, the next it's 212), doing perhaps 20 minutes of fast incline walking at the end of the workout. On the fourth day, perhaps toss in the "odds and ends" - calf work, bis and tris, abs, and do your HIIT then. Or do the "full body" twice a week, and do odds and ends + interval work twice a week.

Just a thought.

Thanks for the info built. I don't have time right now but tomorrow sometime I will write out a detailed schedule based on what you have said and post it here. Hope you will let me know what you think of it then! Thanks again!

You're welcome. Another option of course is to do the split I use: Got Built? » Baby Got Back

Two upper days, two lower days - and if you want to build the cardio in:
Got Built? » How to do Cardio if you MUST!

Exercise selection isn't too bad, except I think that leg extensions are essentially worthless. I don't know what SHELC is; I'm thinking the LC might be some kind of leg curl?

Anyway, I would drop the leg extensions and replace them with some kind of unilateral lower body movement (Stepups, lunges, split squats, etc.). I might also do glute ham raises in place of the leg curls (If that's what they are) if you can find a way to ghetto rig doing those in your gym. I usually can.

Varying your rep range sounds like a good idea to me, as built suggested. You can either do different rep ranges on different days, or you could change the whole thing over time. Refer to my writings in the stickies on periodization if you need ideas.

Supine hip extension leg curl = SHELC. They're great for a pumping movement at the end of a leg workout - I use it for higher-rep work after heavy hams from time to time. You can make 'em harder by doing them one leg at a time. As an added perk, you hit up core with 'em.

Leg extensions I use in the same way - for higher-rep pumping movements at the end of a workout - but for quads. The top of the movement gives a good pump after something eccentric like the sissy squats, and unlike a full ROM leg extension, it's not hard on the knee. I wouldn't recommend leg extensions, particularly not full-ROM leg extensions, for anything but this type of light pumping work.

I personally love GHRs. I do them on a bosu ball in front of the leg extension rig. Set the pin at the heaviest setting on the stack, and set the bosu ball up in front of the ankle pad. Stuff your feet under the pad and you've got yourself a really great exercise. (If you're too heavy for the leg extension rig to hold you, stack a couple of 45s on the seat, or get a buddy to sit on it for you.)

One leg at a time hypers are good too - I just did those last night.

Ah, yeah I know SHELC. I have just never used that acronym before. Those are great, and I use them with clients a lot. For my clients, often times they are difficult enough to trigger a growth stimulus by themselves. The one-leg variation is pretty brutal too.