Legs

[crazyray™]

Damn, nothing fucks you up like a monster leg workout. I almost ate it walking out to my car.

Does anyone else have a sick passion for leg workouts?

Its amazing how 95% of my gym doesn't even bother training legs. Nice test release and overall improvement from working the legs.

:yipee

[gp1]

i love legs. my favorite day. i almost always puke though when doing them. last week was a pretty big scare. i had to half sprint to the bathroom but it passed. i'd die if i ever threw up in the gym.

[crazyray™]

My little brother (also a crazy gym rat) has this up as his away message on AIM right now, I guess a great way to start my post: ""As I got older and life got harder, the gym became my outlet. Regardless of what happened on any given day, that 1 to 2 hours that I'd spend in the gym was my time and no one could take that away from me. If something was heavy on my mind and I couldn't sleep, you might have found me in a gym somewhere with the music cranked up and me banging away. The gym has never let me down. You get out of it, what you put into it."

When I started hardcore training around Thanksgiving of 05, it was for alot of reasons. First and foremost, I needed a release from all of the horrible shit that had happened in my life. Early in the year a bout with mono had left me in the worst health of my life... I had an awful breakup with an ex-girlfriend that destroyed my self-esteem and happiness... and worst and most influential - my best friend died of cancer on 9/14/05. I was just sitting around for the most part feeling sorry for myself. I was 6'2, 155 pounds, and I felt 100x worse then I looked.

My little brother constantly joked with me about how I looked like shit, and I knew that he cared about me enough to get me into the gym. So I started. I was self concious as hell rolling into a gym where I was one of the weakest people there... but I knew I had to start somewhere. I was sick of waking up in the morning and running into the shower without looking in the mirror because of how GOD DAMN AWFUL my body looked. It literally made me disgusted. After going through all I did, I knew the only way to rise up was to hard on myself.

I mainly did free-weights to build my strength. In 4 months with the help of a ton of eating, sleeping, and going heavy I was up 30 pounds to 185. A few weeks later I hit my all-time high of 193 (which is actually where im pretty close to now... maybe .5 pounds off). Either way, over the course of those 4 months, my life changed.

Every day I knew no matter what kind of stuff pissed me off, I could go to the gym and just rip for 2 hours. My self-esteem went through the roof, I finally got over my ex-girlfriend, and I was no longer afraid of looking at myself in the mirror. I started going out again, and my life fell back into place shortly. Its amazing how just pounding the weights can change a life, but I am the prime example. Right now, I am one of the happiest people I know, but I do need those 5-6 days in the gym to feel complete. If I miss a day, i'm usually perturbed and my confidence drops a little.

In my current state, the gym is all about me continuing sustaining a great life for me, because its more then looks, it keeps me in balance, focused, and is the GREATEST release.

Simply stated, the gym IS A NECESSITY

[DEEPER KEMICAL]

legs are my top 1 body parts to train. I train them twice a week. 1 heavy day and 1 light day. gotta get them wheels to grow!

its all about squats, stiff-leg deads, conventional deads and bb lunges. everything else is secondary!

[FDB]

legs are my top 1 body parts to train. I train them twice a week. 1 heavy day and 1 light day. gotta get them wheels to grow!

its all about squats, stiff-leg deads, conventional deads and bb lunges. everything else is secondary!

Did legs last night!! wow.. got a lil crazy with squats.. tried soemthing dif. my last 2 sets i was like fuck it.. i dropped to 135 on it.. i said to my friend dont let me stop till i hit 50 reps. when i tell u my legs had such a pump.. thought that shit was gonna burst.. gotta love legs!!

do u feel that 1 heavy day then 1 light day helps?? i tried that but lately i also do legs twice a week.. i go heavy for both but do diff exercises.. what is ur take??

[DEEPER KEMICAL]

i cant go heavy because i feel very much overworked. i cant give the same effort on the second heavy day because i went balls to wall on the first heavy day. i guess maybe having 2 moderate days would be ok? but is till like the feel of doing 85% 1RM on heavy and then doing like lets say 70% for reps on the light day. On heavy day (for squats) ill hit up like 5-6 sets of 4-6 reps, then on light day i do 3 sets of 12-15

[DEEPER KEMICAL]

Excellent article for legs by the DragonSlayer himself Rich Gaspari

DRAGONSLAYER RIPPED THICK LEGS

I did so many varying forms of squats and so many sets you could not count them on an Abacus. In fact, as a 19 year old, I actually squatted to depth with 780 lbs. I was about 218 pounds and someone told me at that time it was close to a 220-pound class world record.

I could give a sh*t. I just liked the way it felt to load the weights on a squat bar and see and feel the bar bounce up and down. Later on, when I was in California, I did work out in the same gym as Dr. Squat Hatfield as he was moving in on the 1,000-pound squat and with Cory Everson, along with my partner Lee Haney. I mention Cory because she was one tough cookie, too, and one day on her double split, she actually did 87 sets of legs!

At any rate while still in N.J., my gym owner had to buy special bars because I bent so many of them. Tom Platz was famous for 315 pounds for 50 reps. Well, I did 30 reps once with 495 pounds. I remember fantasizing that I was a Barbarian warrior and that if I could not finish my workout my family and I would be executed.

A guy named David Sinott was my training partner. Today he trains celebrities like Demi Moore. (Now you know who keeps that 40-year-old, Charlie’s Angel babe seducing 25 year olds.) I had one goal on leg day and that was to make David lose his stomach contents.

We started the workout with pre-exhaust, direct, thigh leg extensions. I warmed up my quads with 200 lbs. and continuously increased the weights until I got the stack of 350 lbs. with jacked-intensity drop sets, the last two sets.

I would do three drop sets (also called extended sets) and on the last drop set I would go beyond sanity into the world of negatives. When I got to the top of the extension I would hold the weight up and Dave would push on my shins to get the weight down. I would hold it as hard as I could and he would push with all his strength to the bottom. By the end of this, my legs were on fire and severely pumped (and so were his triceps).

Then I went to the 45-degree angle leg press. This was one of my favorites because I could really load on the weights. I did a light set of five, 45-lb. plates on each side for 15 reps. I moved along for sets of 15 reps. On the last set I had 15, 45-lb. plates on EACH side (lots of sets) and Dave was sitting on top of the machine (another 200 pounds). That was 30 x 45 lbs. plus 200 lbs., or 15 reps with 1750 lbs. counting the carriage. After the 15 reps, Dave got off, stripped two plates, and I did another 12 reps. He took two more plates off each time and I’d crank out 12 or more reps.

I couldn’t even count the sets. I actually popped blood vessels in my eyes. They were bright, rose red. Dave would try to follow with somewhat less intensity and he would die a dozen deaths and lose his potassium in the garbage can, but at least his blood pressure was not 300/110.

By this time I was solo. I went to Smith machine squats. With this exercise I moved my feet forward to give my quads even more play. Since I was plenty warm I started with three, 45-lb. plates on each side, 15 reps. I increased the weight 45 pounds on each side until I got to six plates each side for 15 reps.

My next exercise was the reverse Smith machine lunge supersetted with sissy squats. I did three sets of 15 reps on each exercise and I made it as high as two, 45-lb. plates on the lunges. I would hold a 45-lb. plate on my chest for the sissies. My eyes and thighs were even redder and my thighs were like Mount St, Helens, (not the big-breasted girl doing lap dances, but that Volcano in Washington State).

I took a breather for 10 minutes and drank a half gallon of water. I wore skimpy tight Hotskin shorts so I could see my thighs get huge, veiny and ripped to the femur. I was almost capillary comatose!

Now, Dave had regained some cell equilibrium and came back to join me for hamstring hell. I started with lying leg curls. We did five sets and on the last set I used the stack and did three drop sets. From there we did negatives. I would hold my legs straight out and Dave would pull my ankles downward while I tried to prevent him from doing it.

I was about done. At the end, I did stiff-leg deadlifts, super strict and slow four sets of 15 reps with 225 lbs. God that was it. I was totally cooked and felt my legs throbbing.

Those leg days bring back chills. Those leg workouts pushed me to be the second best male bodybuilder in the IFFB pro ranks at the time. I was Lee Haney’s training partner, but I never beat him. You can talk to anyone from those days. Relative to those before and his then contemporaries, Lee was the greatest who ever lived. Did I have Lee’s genetic size, bone structure and shape? No way, not even close. This guy was an athlete (and gentleman).

But I can say this and Lee would agree – no one, not anyone, ever out-trained me. No one had more gut-busting intensity than I did, especially on legs! I was, after all, the Dragonslayer (Jeff Everson named me that in 1987) and this is the kind of leg workout you must do! Now go get it on!

[FDB]

i cant go heavy because i feel very much overworked. i cant give the same effort on the second heavy day because i went balls to wall on the first heavy day. i guess maybe having 2 moderate days would be ok? but is till like the feel of doing 85% 1RM on heavy and then doing like lets say 70% for reps on the light day. On heavy day (for squats) ill hit up like 5-6 sets of 4-6 reps, then on light day i do 3 sets of 12-15

Gotcha.. but for me my recovery is so damn quick.. i actually feel stronger on my sec day.. but thats only with legs.. i dont over train anything else.. unless i do my scare to my system where are change shit up for 2 weeks and go light and super set each day.. otherwise i only train 1 part a day as off late..

O great acrticle!!

[DEEPER KEMICAL]

yea i interval train too. im doing a program called POWER/REP RANGE/SHOCK. its a great routine if you wanna bust thru a plateu.

here is an example breakdown

http://www.extremefitness.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-28914.html

[MashkaNYC]

i love/hate doing legs.. but im a girl lol