Leg Workout Thursday 30th April 2009
My first leg workout in my new gym today, I was really looking forward to it as it meant I could do squats and heavy leg press! My old gym had a rubbish leg press machine, one of those cable machine that attaches to the weight stack with a cable. The new gym has a proper leg press machine whereby the weight stack is attached to a footplate that you sit under and push up the guard rails. The mechanism and footplate are all made out of solid looking steal girders and must weigh a good 30-40kg by themselves!
The first exercise that I did was squats, which I hadn’t done for a good six weeks or so since I’d had a leg workout with my brother at his gym. I did actually watch a really good instruction video for squats yesterday, done by a guy who coaches the USA Olympic power lifting team. The technique employed was quite different to what I’ve used in the past, the main differences being that he recommends that you point your toes out about 30 degrees, and rather than balancing the bar across the traps, he recommends that you put it lower down your back, and wedge it in between the traps and the rear deltoids. This stance did feel odd at first, and I’m not sure how confident I will be with lots of weight on my back, so I opted to start off with a fairly low weight for today’s workout.
- Olympic bar (20kg) x 8 reps (warmup)
- 55kg x 8 reps (2nd warmup)
- 75kg x 8 reps
- 75kg x 8 reps
- 75kg x 8 reps
After doing three working sets with this new technique I felt that I’d done enough. Clearly I could have done more, but I want to have a few weeks where I can add a bit of weight each week while I’m getting used to the exercise.
Next leg exercise was the leg press, which done in a proper leg press machine, can be a really good exercise for lifting some serious weight. I was chatting about this with a client of mine (who is also into weights) and he was telling me that he does over 400kg on the leg press - that’s a pretty impressive leg press, but I can see that within six months or so I could be doing up near that weight.
As I said earlier, I’m not sure how much the leg press footplate and mechanism weighs, but it’s probably a good 30kg or 40kg, however as I don’t know, I’m not including this weight in my journal, just the weight that I load onto the machine.
- 100kg x 10 reps (warmup)
- 140kg x 10 reps (2nd warmup)
- 180kg x 10 reps (felt light so decided to go heavier)
- 220kg x 10 reps
- 220kg x 10 reps
- 220kg x 10 reps
After doing this lot, my legs were feeling quite pumped, but I did still feel like there was more to come. I can quite easily see that over the next few months I’ll get this up over 300kg, especially as I wasn’t even training to failure…
Last exercise for legs today was the hamstring curls, which was a different machine than I’d be used to using. It was one where you lie on your front and curl the bar that way, rather than a seated machine like I had been using in my old gym. Unfortunately, I was able to max out the weight stack in my first workout, so I think I will have to find another exercise to work the hamstrings while I am at this gym.
- 55kg x 10 reps
- 55kg x 10 reps
- 55kg x 10 reps
That was it for my leg workout, next week is a week off as it’s the end of my eight week exercise period tomorrow, which means I’ll be taking a week off creatine as well, and no doubt planning a different exercise routine for the coming eight weeks.
One Response to “Leg Workout Thursday 30th April 2009”
May 6th, 2009 saat: 2:54 am
[...] Leg Workout Thursday 30th April 2009Tristan says: [...]
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