LEGS: The Only Two Exercises You Need For Growth

Today is LEG DAY and if you are the kind of person who skips legs…I think I know why. You see, I think most people skip leg day because their workouts are too overwhelming. Most leg workouts I see have about 6 – 8 exercises of 4 – 5 sets each and for the average person, that’s a daunting task. So today, we’re going to greatly simplify things and go over the ONLY TWO exercises you need to grow your legs!

If you’ve missed any of the previous videos in this series, I will link to the entire playlist HERE. But before we jump into the exercises, I want to make it clear that in this video we’re focusing on quads and hamstrings.  Like many of you and my friend Omar, I’m a part of #TEAMNOCALVES and the training I had to do to see calves growth was intense.

Exercise #1: Barbell Front Squat (4 Sets: 20 Reps & 4 Sets: 8 Reps)

This is going to be a QUAD focused movement.  But in order to maximize this exercise, here are a few key components you need to focus on.

Understand The Rep & Set Scheme – What prevents most people from building impressive legs is that most lifters do not mix volume with intensity. Every set is heavy weight and low reps. That’s why I want you to start with 4 sets of 20 reps which will DRASTICALLY increase the squatting volume and then proceed straight into another 4 sets of 8 reps where you’ll be boosting the intensity through lifting heavier weights.

Assist Yourself If Needed – the front squat is a very demanding exercise and the intensity is greatly increased if you have poor flexibility. So here are a few tips to help you get better with the movement…

• If ankle flexibility is limiting your DEPTH, you can stand on a few plates to help you not only go deeper, but also keep your torso upright. You can also wear Lifting Shoes if you’ve got them!

• But if HOLDING onto the barbell is what’s preventing you from having proper form, you can either use a CROSS GRIP or stick with the traditional grip, but work on your flexibility. If you have WRIST PAIN, it’s not your wrist flexibilit, it is your LATS. They’re tight and are pulling your elbows DOWN. So before and in-between all your sets I want you to stretch each lat REALLY good for about 15 to 20 seconds. If you do this, you’ll see a HUGE leap in your flexibility and ability to front squat comfortably.

Keep Your Spine Neutral – That means do not look down or up. Look straight ahead!  Also, don’t let your upper back round over. Keep your chest up and feel your mid back burning! You want everything to stay in line and remember that the more upright your torso is, the more quad-focused the squat will be.  The more you start leaning forward, the more your glutes will be engaged and that is not the goal of this exercise.

Remember you are only resting 60 – 90 seconds between these sets!

Exercise #2: Romanian Deadlift (5 - 7 Sets: 10 - 15 Reps)

This exercise is going to primarily target your HAMSTRINGS with some GLUTES activation as well. But once again, to maximize the benefits of this exercise, here are some key components to keep in mind.

Sit BACK, Don’t BEND Over – This is not a lower back exercise. So if your lower back is fatiguing faster than your hamstrings, here is why. To perform this movement you do not “bend over”, you SIT-BACK and let the barbell slide down your legs until it gets to about mid shin. Then you pause for a moment to FEEL THE STRETCH and return to the starting position and repeat. Almost pretend like you have to take a gigantic dump, your feet are stuck, and the toilet is about 3 feet behind you…and GO!  It’s all about the visuals!

There Is NO CONCENTRIC PORTION To This Movement – The entire focus here is the negative and you need to go SLOW!  Remember that your goal is to STRETCH the hamstrings and if you don’t use at least a 2 second tempo, you’ll never benefit from this movement. Then once you finish a slight pause at the bottom, explode back to the starting position and I highly recommend a hard glute flex at the top as well.  Your glutes and hamstrings work in tandem, so don’t ignore them on this exercise!

Use Wrist Straps – This is not the time to train your grip strength! This is the time to challenge your hamstrings and glutes to grow and you won’t be able to maximize how much weight you can lift if your grip gives out before the set is over. Like we just discussed, you need to STRETCH the hamstrings with a controlled negative and that’s a lot of grip fatigue over 10 – 15 reps! So grab a pair of wrist straps and take your grip strength completely out of the exercise.

Remember you are only resting 30 – 60 seconds between these sets!

Conclusion

Workouts like these are geared toward getting results. It’s not “minimalistic” training, it’s “simple” training and if you’re not seeing growth right now and are doing 10 times as much work, well…that’s probably the reason. More isn’t always better!

So no bullshit here. My goal is to get you focused on the right exercises that are proven to drive results and again, if you missed any of the other “ONLY TWO” videos in this series, just click on the hyperlink to the entire playlist at the beginning of this article!