What do you do for your leg workout?

For the past couple of years I've started off with squats and finished with calf raises (holding a dumbbell for extra weight). Just those 2 exercises, no leg presses or leg curls or anything.

Today I added in straight leg deadlifts between the squats and calf raises because I want to build up the hamstrings a bit more. Is this a good exercise for that? I can feel the stretch for sure I just don't know if its a good hamstring mass builder yet.

On another note I beat my personal record for bodyweight pull ups today. Previous best was 16 and I beat it by 1

Eternal_water said:

For the past couple of years I've started off with squats and finished with calf raises (holding a dumbbell for extra weight). Just those 2 exercises, no leg presses or leg curls or anything.

Today I added in straight leg deadlifts between the squats and calf raises because I want to build up the hamstrings a bit more. Is this a good exercise for that? I can feel the stretch for sure I just don't know if its a good hamstring mass builder yet.

On another note I beat my personal record for bodyweight pull ups today. Previous best was 16 and I beat it by 1

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If you can do 17 body-weight pullups, you are doing something right, so you may not need any advice regarding strength.

My 2 cents, only do heavy lifts that are functional for your legs (or anything else): squats, lunges, deadlifts, calve raises. No secret sauce. When will you ever need to do a leg extension/curl? I don't mess with that. For areas like that, I do dynamic stretches by bending over and touching the ground walking backwards, straight leg kicks, and similar. No weight involved. College football teams do that sort of thing.

Hamstrings don't get hurt because they are weak....most of the time it's because they are tight.

Thanks for the replies guys. When you are squatting to failure what rep range are you looking at for maximum muscle growth?

I can feel yesterdays leg work pretty strong right now so those straight leg deadlifts will remain in my leg days. I have that muscle soreness (DOMS is it??) in the glutes, quads, hams, and calves.

Bradd80 unfortunaltely I can't train each body part twice a week due to long working hours I only get 4 days in the gym a week.

Lunges are good. They gave me the worst doms I've had in my life.

Here is how I lay it out. After I Squat, I pick a compund pound movement that I believe will help build my Squat. I pick a moderate weight and do a few sets of 6-10 reps. Then I follow up with a few muscle building exercises to train the muscles that support the main lift...

Examples..

Squat
-Lunges
-Back Raises / Abs / Calves

OR

Squat
-Glutes/Hamstrings
-Low Back
-Abs
-Quads

I'm in "retirement" training; years of heavy powerlifting have taken their toll on my lower back and knees so I have to keep my weights light to moderate and my frequency no more than once per week. My staples are Olympic barbell squats, straight-leg deadlifts, Leg press, and leg curl variations.

But, for just about everyone on the planet, doing some squat variation for 6-8 sets in 3 week cycles, plus a hamstring exercise, is all that's needed to add mass to your legs. Leg pressing is good as an adjunct; i.e. after your squats, and same goes for leg curls and leg extensions. The great thing about leg training is that they respond to both high-volume, lighter weights and to heavy low reps.

Agree with Brad on the calves; they really have to be hammered to grow. They are by far the slowest-growing and hardest to stimulate. I do rest-pause style training for high volume, 2-3 x per week.

Colossus said:

Agree with Brad on the calves; they really have to be hammered to grow. They are by far the slowest-growing and hardest to stimulate. I do rest-pause style training for high volume, 2-3 x per week.

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I was lucky to have 16" calves naturally, and I'm only 180 at 5'9". I feel bad for the guys with tiny calves. They seem to be hard to grow.

I swear by squats and leg curls. If you hit them consistently, they will grow. 6-10 reps.

It seems to be amazing

What do you do for your leg wor

Im using Reason for making music but fairly speaking I havent yet written anything on my own. Id suggest you a very easy programme to use Dance/Techno eJay. Work with it a little and then decide whether to use it or not.

Where are you from?