Training legs twice a week.

[jerseyboy]

My legs need serious work to bring them up with my upper body. I have just started being able to go heavy due to some new knee wraps. My max used to be 315 but now with the wraps I was able to push out 415 for 4 in my fourth set. Can I start doing legs on a second day or should I add another exercise to each workout. I split up quads and hams now on different days but maybe if I start doing them together I can make room in the week.

Right now my quad routine looks like this:
Pre-exhaust with 4 sets of leg extensions.
4 sets of squats
4 sets of leg presses

Then for hams:
Straight leg deads
Seated leg curls
Standing leg curls
*Reverse hamstring curl

* I saw these in last months Muscle and Fitness and man they are hard. really work the hams hard.

[TR'05]

That's a serioud jump with the wraps bro! impressive.

I would say that both the quad and ham routine on the same day would be overkill. Tough leg workouts put a lot of strain on the CNS. I would say play around with things you've got now.

Toss in front squats, perhaps, on quad days. Hack squats could be put in somewhere also. Sumo squats.

Keep given'er tits on the squats, ATG between 5-8 reps...maybe the increased weight with the wraps will make a difference worth waiting for?

Anyways, these are just some suggestions I had off the top of my head. Good luck bro.

[jerseyboy]

I've thrown in walking lunges and front squats now and then but hack squats kill my knees unless I do em on the smith machine. I really want to build up the vastus medialis (the inner head). My knees look so small sticking out the bottom of my shorts. Don't leg raises work that muscle? The lateralis seems to be growing somewhat.

[dwaynewade]

I've thrown in walking lunges and front squats now and then but hack squats kill my knees unless I do em on the smith machine. I really want to build up the vastus medialis (the inner head). My knees look so small sticking out the bottom of my shorts. Don't leg raises work that muscle? The lateralis seems to be growing somewhat.

as far as the medialis... feet angles on leg extensions play a role

as far as squeezing more leg work in to your week I suggest starting any of your normal workouts with one set to failure 10-15 reps on any big compound leg exercise

ex. chest day- 1 big, intense (to failure) set of leg press/squat then start chest

besides the extra leg work you'll have blood circulating for your workout

[MFT81]

Here is my .02cents.

1. Keep your quad ham days seperate. At the most when ever you do quads, pick only one exercise for hams and do 3-4 intense sets. Then finish up your ham work later in the week (after about 4-5 days) pref by doing hams and back together and doing rack pulls or deads.

2. Keep either leg press or squats as your Bread/Butter. Im glad to see you increasin your poundage to 405 from wraps, I hope it isnt at the cost of form though, im a big beliver in ass to grass or at least below parrallel.

3. Walking lunges will pay off, stick to them.

4. For Medialus (tear drop) work, angle your feet outward on leg ext.

here is an exp of a current fav quad routine.

1. Squat 5x5-7 (strength emp)

2. Leg Press 3-4x8-20 reps
1xFaliure with 50% less weight after last set (drop set)

3. walking lunge 3x up and back (60ft total) light weight/deep stretch, step.

4. Leg ext 2x8-14
1xF/F/F (double drop set)

1. Lying leg curl. 4x 8-14

Calves: up to you, I know you've been trying to do them 3 times a week or more so its up to you.

Then like I said, I do back about 5 days later and will do 2 other ham exercises after back and maybe something for calves.

[sonnygll]

I would drop leg curls and that sort of thing. If you trying for raw mass, that isn't going to help. I do legs 3 times a week. 100% natural at the moment. Keep in mind there is LOTS of overlap in compound lower body lifts. This is what I am doing right now.
Load everything at 90% of 1 rep max. I do 3 reps well short of failure on everything but calves, those I end up with 5 or 6, just short of failure. I do the exercise in pairs. One major lift, and calf press. You do exercise A which is a compound lift, rest 30 seconds, do exercise B which will be a gastroc exercise, rest 90 seconds and go back to A. You do 8 sets of each. One of the days I change it up a it though.
So day 1
A squat
B calf press
16 total sets

day 2
A Romanian deadlift
B calf press again, if you are like me a need a machine you can stack a barbell on. Otherwise maybe the standing calf has enough on the stack for you.
16 total sets again

day 3
A hack squats 3 sets, standard deadlift 3 sets, sumo deadlift 25 lbs. plates 2 sets
B another exercise involving ankle extension with straight knees
16 total sets

Now while you are on cycle you will probably need more sessions. You can do a morning session and an evening session. Also the length of time per session is going to be like 30 minutes tops, so dividing your upper body split up to work with this should be easy.

So say you have these 6 sessions over 3 days with 30 minutes of legs each, maybe day 1 you do lower chest in the AM, back/traps rowing type stuff with the PM. Then day 2 upper chest AM and a mostly lat oriented back workout in the PM. Then the 3rd day shoulders in the AM and arms in the PM. Or whatever kind of split suits your fancy.

For more exercises leg press is ok, glute ham raise if you have the bench, maybe some goodmornings. But mostly stick with squat and deadlift variations of which there are many.

[ergo]

I herniated 3 disk over ten years ago. Broke my left knee in 2 places 3 years ago. Plus I am 45 years old. You can build great leg's from leg pressing. Muscle only responds to stress created. Muscle does not know what exercise your doing. It takes me 1 hour to an 1.5 hours to train quads. 20-30 minutes warm up (leg press). then 5-8 working sets leg pressing once a week. My stats. 6'0", 220lb, body fat, well really low. An example of my workout for quad's would be, warm up 1 plate per side 20 rep per set increasing 1 plate each set. 8 plates 30-40 reps, 9 plates 20-30, 10 plates 17-25, 11 pltes sets of 12-15. Back down to 8 plate 2 sets of 20. There are different variance's to my workout this is just one example were I choose to use 8 plates a side for my first set. A may choose 9 plates a side for my first set, in this case 8 would be in the warm up range and my rep range at 9 plus plates would be extended probably in the 4-8 range per set. I may choose 7 plates as my first set and try to push for 50 reps! then 8 for 20-30 and so forth on. Either way the intensity level of this training forces quad development. Oh and I'm a classic ectomorph. My nutrition and supplementation are spot on.

[jerseyboy]

Wow thanks ergo. Good info. Impressive wheels too! I was actually talking to a buddy of mine the other day about doing high reps in the 12-20 range. I'll continue to do squats but on those days where my knees aren't cooperating it's nice to know that I can still get a workout with presses.

[Sir Lifts-a-lot]

I herniated 3 disk over ten years ago. Broke my left knee in 2 places 3 years ago. Plus I am 45 years old. You can build great leg's from leg pressing. Muscle only responds to stress created. Muscle does not know what exercise your doing. It takes me 1 hour to an 1.5 hours to train quads. 20-30 minutes warm up (leg press). then 5-8 working sets leg pressing once a week. My stats. 6'0", 220lb, body fat, well really low. An example of my workout for quad's would be, warm up 1 plate per side 20 rep per set increasing 1 plate each set. 8 plates 30-40 reps, 9 plates 20-30, 10 plates 17-25, 11 pltes sets of 12-15. Back down to 8 plate 2 sets of 20. There are different variance's to my workout this is just one example were I choose to use 8 plates a side for my first set. A may choose 9 plates a side for my first set, in this case 8 would be in the warm up range and my rep range at 9 plus plates would be extended probably in the 4-8 range per set. I may choose 7 plates as my first set and try to push for 50 reps! then 8 for 20-30 and so forth on. Either way the intensity level of this training forces quad development. Oh and I'm a classic ectomorph. My nutrition and supplementation are spot on.

jesus!!

nice wheels bro!