Working Out Your Legs
April 2, 2009 by Kris Jones
Filed under Weight Lifting
The great thing about your legs is they can handle a lot of work on little rest. If you stop and think about the reason why, it does make sense. Your legs hold up your weight every day, wherever you walk so they’ve built up a great base of strength. This explains why when you have a leg day and follow it up by running 3 miles the next day, your legs are able to recover and perform.
Now I’m not advocating that your leg muscles don’t need rest, but what I am saying is that you shouldn’t be afraid to challenge them. For example, headed into a weight training leg workout, I usually run treadmill for 20 minutes to warm up and burn fat before starting. This may detract from your workout level as far as the numbers you can put up but you will engage in fat burning and then switch gears to muscle buildings which will give you a more dynamic workout. To add an extra level, I sometimes will add plyometric exercises like verticle leaps and quick tap-steps to build explosions.
SXC.hu
Next blog I will be detailing 25 different exercises you can use to tone, build, and super charge your legs.
Legs are my weak point. I don’t do them enough and they are slightly not proportionate to my body. When I do leg workout, specifically squats it takes a lot out of me for a few days and I’ll be sore as all hell. The only way I keep from being too sore is to do bodyweight squats to keep my muscles loose. Legs for me take longer to recover than any other muscle in my body. Perhaps I’m going too heavy in my squats and I should start a lot lower and work my way up instead of throwing a heavy bar on my shoulders and going for broke. I usually will do 3×8, sometimes 3×12 if I go a little lower than my norm. Is there any secret besides keeping loose to keep from getting sore and wore out?