Hey peeps, it's your guy Harrison here with a post on LEG DAY WORKOUTS!!!! I know you've all been waiting for this, especially after the last post, so let's get cracking.
Your legs are the biggest muscle in your body, so when you work them out you've got to do it right.
When working out, your leg muscles are being used by numerous exercises. They're involved when you're doing a bench press, shoulder press, bent over rows, lat pull downs...
I can go on and on and on with exercises where the leg muscles are being utalised. It helps when you power through various exercises and it helps to balance the body during workouts.
This makes working out your legs very important. I've seen people in the gym only working out their upper body and hardly working out their legs and it looks odd. Leave those chicken legs at KFC.
In saying this, it's vital to know what your fitness goals are. Whether you're working out to be ripped, build muscle mass or both.
Different leg exercises have different effects on different parts of your legs and the rest of your body. Darron, a Personal Trainer at Energie Fitness Club says,
"The leg is such a big muscle, the same way you break your upper body down into chest, back, shoulders and arm, you need to break down your legs into quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes and calves"
I like to focus more on building muscle mass but incorporate toning also. For shaping the leg muscle the main exercises I use are leg extensions, leg curls and lunges.
I was pretty skeptical with leg extensions and leg curls as I initially thought it was an exercise for beginners who just wanted a feel of a leg workout, but then I realised it was more about reaching the peak of the burn in these leg workouts.
Reaching the peak of the burn literally means more repetitions. 3 sets, 15-25 repetitions should make you feel that burn.
Leg extensions work on the quadriceps and Leg curls work on your hamstrings. These exercises will allow you to focus on the particular muscle group you are intending to work; In other words it will allow you to isolate the muscle.
Lunges are a top exercise, right up there with squats. They're perfect for shaping your quadriceps and hamstrings and there are many variations to them.
It might leave you with the "I need to lie down" feeling but hey, that's how you know it's working.
Leg press is another solid leg workout for mass building. Some people use it as an alternative to squats because it safe guards their back.
Gyms have different types of leg press machines. Jonathan who is a Personal trainer at Energie Fitness Club says,
"The best type of leg press is the machine that allows you to push up at an angle because the gravitation pull makes it harder, hence adding more stress on the leg muscle"
In addition, with leg press your more able to target your lower body muscle as it eliminates the upper body. A cool trick is to change up your foot positioning.
In doing so, you can target specific muscles within the quadriceps and hamstrings. (I like to include both squats and leg press in my workouts). Beast mode!!!!
Calf raises are great for building and shaping the calf muscles. Either grab some heavy dumbbells or slap on some heavy weight on the barbell and then place it behind you neck and just tip toe as much as you can.
No need to count your reps, just keep going to you feel the burn. This will give you the diamond shape calves you've always wanted.
Now for the number one workout!!! The daddy of all exercises!!! If you're not doing this then you're not really working out!! SQUATS!!!
Squats are the king of leg workouts. It incorporates the whole body and so your whole body gets stronger and you lose more fat because it burns more calories than any other leg workout.
It also releases muscle building hormones such as testosterone which then makes your whole body gain size. In the midst of Squats your core is being utilized and strengthened as your body is maintaining posture during the exercise.
So there you have it. Some of the main exercise I do for leg day.
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