Body And Fitness Blog

Thursday - legs

I’ve had a twinge in my legs for the last few weeks, around the groin area. I worked through it last week and this week its feeling much better. As such I decided I would go for a normal leg workout, get some good working sets in and try and stack out the leg press machine. Before I started doing any weights I went for a ten minute jog on the treadmill, only 9.5kmh which is a really comfortable speed. Thankfully my groin was feeling ok during the run and I figured it was ready for a good session on the weights!

Leg press

I start off my leg press workout with some stretches followed by three warmup sets, of 80kg, 100kg then finally 120kg for 12 reps each. This is just to get the legs accustomed to the movement and the weight. After these warmup sets, I did a few more stretches then went into my working sets. Today I decided I would do a five set pyramid:

• 150kg x 10 reps
• 170kg x 10 reps
• 190kg x 8 reps (this is the max the machine will go to)
• 170kg x 9 reps
• 150kg x 10 reps

That was it for my leg press workout, my thighs were feeling pretty pumped after that. I eventually aim to be able to do three sets of twelve on the top weight (190kg), though I think this will take a few weeks more to achieve, most likely by the middle/end of April. After this, I will need to find somewhere else to do my leg workouts.

Hamstring curls

I don’t really enjoy doing hamstring curls but I do them nonetheless to ensure that my legs don’t end up being unbalanced. As I do them after leg press, I assume my legs are properly warmed up and stretched so I go straight into three working sets:

• 60kg x 10 reps
• 60kg x 10 reps
• 60kg x 10 reps

Quad extensions

I enjoy doing quad extensions much more than hamstring curls, which probably explains why I can lift a bit heavier on this exercise. Again I go straight into three working sets:

• 70kg x 10 reps
• 70kg x 10 reps
• 70kg x 7 reps

After I had finished my leg workout, I decided to try and do some calve raises on the leg press machine. It’s a bit finicky doing this, not ideal, but one has to make the best of a bad situation. Unfortunately I think I went a bit too heavy on this and struggled to do 10 reps at 180kg. Next time I’ll do 150kg for three sets.