The Ultimate Science-Based Leg Day For Muscle Growth (2023)
Summary
TLDRThis video script introduces a leg-focused workout routine as part of the 'ultimate push-pull leg series.' It begins with a general warm-up, followed by six exercises targeting quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves, and abs. The workout emphasizes a minimalistic strength approach and an optimization for hypertrophy, featuring heavy sets, paused squats, and variations like hack squats and Bulgarian split squats. The script also provides tips on technique, muscle emphasis, and progressive overloading for effective muscle growth.
Takeaways
- 🏋️♂️ The workout is part of the 'ultimate push-pull leg series' focusing on leg muscles including quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves, and abs.
- 🔥 The routine starts with a general warm-up, emphasizing the importance of warming up before leg exercises due to the large muscle group involved.
- 📈 A minimalistic approach to strength and an optimization approach to hypertrophy is used, with one heavy set of squats and variations for back offsets.
- 💪 Squats are performed with a weight at 85-90% of one's one-rep max for 2-4 reps, aiming for an RPE of 8 or 9, ensuring a challenging yet manageable set.
- 🔄 Squat alternatives include hack squats or Bulgarian split squats, with a suggestion to increase rep range for a hypertrophy focus.
- 🧘♂️ The paused squat exercise is highlighted for its benefits in emphasizing quads and glutes, and for reinforcing proper technique.
- 🇷🇴 Romanian deadlifts are included with tips to focus on hamstrings or glutes, and to avoid lower back strain.
- 🚶♂️ Dumbbell walking lunges are advised with caution against cutting depth, free-falling on the negative, and grip strength limiting load.
- 🦵 Seated leg curls are recommended over lying leg curls for better hamstring growth, with tips on seat positioning and toe rotation.
- 🦶 The leg press toe press is used for calves, with variations in toe position to target different calf regions.
- 🏋️♀️ Decline plate crunches are used to finish the workout, targeting the abs and emphasizing the importance of progressive overload for development.
- 📚 The full 12-week program is available, offering an ebook, spreadsheet, exercise demos, and coaching cues for a comprehensive training system.
Q & A
What is the focus of the 'ultimate push-pull leg series' workout?
-The focus of the 'ultimate push-pull leg series' workout is to target the lower body, specifically the quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves, and to finish with an exercise for the abs.
Why is a general warm-up important, especially on leg day?
-A general warm-up is important on leg day because the legs constitute about half of the body, and warming up helps to prepare the muscles for the intense workout ahead.
What is the minimalistic approach to strength mentioned in the script?
-The minimalistic approach to strength mentioned in the script involves performing only one heavy set per week for exercises like the squat, bench press, and deadlift, aiming for 85 to 90 percent of one's one-rep max for two to four reps.
What are the two substitution options for the squat exercise if someone cannot or does not want to perform it?
-The two substitution options for the squat exercise are hack squats as the first option and Bulgarian split squats as the second option.
How does pausing during the paused squat exercise affect the muscles being worked?
-Pausing during the paused squat forces the quads and glutes to overcome the load from a dead stop, which is harder than normal reps and can lead to a more hypertrophic stimulus with lighter loads and less overall joint and body stress.
What is the recommended warm-up routine before starting the heavy set of the squat?
-The recommended warm-up routine is a pyramid warm-up with weight across four or five warm-up sets until reaching the working weight, which is 85 to 90 percent of one's one-rep max for two to four reps.
How can one shift the emphasis of the Romanian deadlift (RDL) from the lower back to the hamstrings?
-To shift the emphasis from the lower back to the hamstrings in RDLs, one should ensure the barbell does not drift forward away from the legs and consider wearing a belt to help direct more attention to the hamstrings.
What are some common mistakes to avoid when performing walking lunges?
-Common mistakes to avoid in walking lunges include cutting depth short, free-falling on the negative, and letting grip strength limit the load used.
Why are seated leg curls considered more effective for muscle growth than lying leg curls?
-Seated leg curls are considered more effective for muscle growth because they challenge the hamstrings in a more lengthened position, allowing for more stretch and load on the hamstrings compared to lying leg curls.
How can toe position during the leg press toe press affect the emphasis on different calf muscles?
-Pointing toes out emphasizes the medial or inside part of the calves, pointing toes in emphasizes the lateral or outside part of the calves, and pointing toes straight ahead grows both the inside and the outside evenly.
What is the recommended approach to progressively overload the abs during the decline plate crunch exercise?
-The recommended approach is to hold a plate to the chest and focus on squeezing the abs together, allowing the lower back to round. Over time, one should aim to add either some weight or a rep from session to session to ensure progressive overload.
Where can the full 12-week 'ultimate push-pull legs hypertrophy system' be found?
-The full 12-week 'ultimate push-pull legs hypertrophy system' can be found on jeffnipper.com, where it comes with an ebook, Excel spreadsheet, exercise demos, coaching cues, and is available in four, five, and six-day per week versions.
Outlines
🏋️♂️ Leg Day Warm-Up and Heavy Squat Set
The video script begins with an introduction to the ultimate push-pull leg series, focusing on the first leg day workout. The emphasis is on a comprehensive warm-up to prepare the body for the intense leg exercises ahead. The warm-up includes 5-10 minutes on cardio machines like the treadmill or StairMaster, followed by dynamic stretches. The main workout starts with a heavy set of squats, using a minimalistic strength approach and an optimization for hypertrophy. Viewers are advised to perform a pyramid warm-up leading to a working weight of 85-90% of their one-rep max for 2-4 reps, aiming for an RPE of 8 or 9. Squat alternatives like hack squats or Bulgarian split squats are suggested for those unable or uninterested in traditional squats, with a recommendation to adjust rep ranges for a hypertrophy focus.
🏋️♀️ Advanced Leg Exercises and Technique Tips
This paragraph delves into the specifics of performing advanced leg exercises with a focus on proper technique and maximizing muscle engagement. It covers the execution of paused squats to enhance quad and glute activation, the Romanian deadlift (RDL) for hamstring emphasis, and tips to avoid common issues like lower back strain. The script also introduces the dumbbell walking lunge, emphasizing depth, control, and avoiding grip strength limitations. Additionally, seated leg curls are discussed, with advice on seat positioning and toe pointing to target different hamstring regions. The leg press toe press is highlighted for calf work, suggesting varied toe positions across sets to target different calf areas effectively.
📊 Progressive Overload for Abs and Conclusion
The final paragraph of the script wraps up the leg day workout with a focus on the decline plate crunch for abs, advocating for direct ab work to complement the leg exercises. It stresses the importance of progressive overload by tracking weights and reps, aiming for incremental increases to stimulate muscle growth. The video concludes with an invitation to access the full 12-week ultimate push-pull legs hypertrophy system on jeffnipper.com, which includes an ebook, Excel spreadsheet, exercise demos, and coaching cues. The program is available in four, five, and six-day per week versions to accommodate different training schedules. The script ends with a call to action for viewers to like, subscribe, and look forward to the next video in the series.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Leg Day
💡Warm-up
💡Push-Pull Legs Routine
💡Hypertrophy
💡Squat
💡One-Rep Max (1RM)
💡Paused Squat
💡Romanian Deadlift (RDL)
💡Walking Lunge
💡Seated Leg Curl
💡Leg Press Toe Press
💡Decline Plate Crunch
💡Progressive Overload
Highlights
Introduction to the first leg day of the ultimate push-pull leg series.
Six lower body exercises targeting quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves, with an additional abs exercise.
Emphasis on a quick general warm-up, crucial for leg day, involving cardio and dynamic stretches.
Minimalistic approach to strength and optimization for hypertrophy in the push-pull legs routine.
One heavy set of squats with a pyramid warm-up and weight across warm-up sets, targeting 85-90% of one-rep max.
Squat alternatives for those who cannot or prefer not to perform traditional squats, like hack squats or Bulgarian split squats.
Technique for paused squats, emphasizing a breath hold and explosive movement from the bottom of the squat.
Benefits of paused squats for hypertrophy, including increased difficulty and technique reinforcement.
Three sets of barbell Romanian deadlifts with a focus on proper technique and avoiding lower back strain.
Tips for targeting hamstrings more effectively in Romanian deadlifts by adjusting the range of motion and focus.
Two sets of dumbbell walking lunges with advice on maintaining depth, controlling the negative, and grip strength considerations.
Three sets of seated leg curls with a study reference on its effectiveness over lying leg curls.
Technique tips for seated leg curls, including seat positioning and toe rotation for targeting specific hamstring regions.
Four sets of leg press toe press for calves, with variations in toe position to target different calf regions.
Research findings on the impact of toe position during calf training on muscle growth distribution.
Three sets of decline plate crunches for abs, focusing on proper form and progressive overload for muscle development.
Information on the full 12-week ultimate push-pull legs hypertrophy system available for purchase.
Details on the program's components, including an ebook, Excel spreadsheet, exercise demos, and coaching cues.
Availability of the program in different versions to accommodate various weekly training schedules.
Closing remarks with a call to action for likes, subscriptions, and anticipation for upcoming videos.
Transcripts
foreign
okay what's going on guys and Welcome to
our first leg day of the ultimate
push-pull leg Series in this video we're
doing six lower body exercises that
Target the quads hamstrings glutes and
calves and then we're finishing things
off with one exercise for the ABS
alright so as usual we're starting with
a quick General warm-up this is
especially important on leg day because
it's literally half your body so I'll do
a solid five to ten minutes on the
treadmiller StairMaster and then go
through a quick series of dynamic
stretches that I'll put up here on the
screen it looks like more than it is
usually only takes me about two minutes
tops from there we're jumping into just
one heavy set of two to four reps on the
squat remember in this push-pull legs
routine we're using a minimalistic
approach to strength and an optimization
approach to hypertrophy so for the squat
bench press and deadlift we're just
doing one hard set per week that's it
and then we'll do two back offsets with
some variation for each lift so here
I'll do a pyramid warm-up and weight
across four or five warm-up sets as you
can see here on the screen until I get
to my working weight which will be
something range of 85 to 90 percent of
my one rep max for two to four reps so
let's say your one rep max is 405 pounds
you'd want to choose a weight around 345
pounds to 365 pounds for your top set of
two to four reps this shouldn't be an
rpe 10 Max effort set but it should be
something around an rpe of eight or nine
so you don't want to be leaving more
than one or two reps in the tank and
remember we're only doing one set so it
does need to be challenging now if
you're someone who only cares about
building muscle and couldn't care less
about strength or if you can't squat or
simply don't want to squat you can
replace the squat work with hack squats
as a first substitution option or
Bulgarian split squats as a second
option in either case to make it a bit
more hypertrophy focused you can just
boost the rep range to four to six reps
instead of two to four reps and keep
everything else the same after the heavy
top set we're doing two back offsets for
five reps on the paused squat where
we'll be pausing for about one to two
seconds in the hole on each rep for
these you'll want to drop the weight
back to about 75 of what you did for
your heavy top set so let's say you did
365 pounds for your top set you do
around 275 pounds for your pod squats
for five Reps for these you want to take
in a big breath at the top and then sit
back and down between your legs keeping
your breath held as you pause for one to
two seconds and then explode up out of
the hole with as much explosive force as
possible as you explode up try to keep
in mind that the bar should travel in as
close to a straight line as possible
centered over the middle of your foot
and in general I like pod squats because
doing five paused reps is a lot harder
than doing five normal reps that's
because when you pause you lose any
stored elastic energy in your tendons
which forces your quads and glutes to
overcome the load from a dead stop and
because they're so much harder this
means you're forced to use lighter
weights which means you can get the same
hypertrophic stimulus with lighter loads
and less overall joint and body stress
pausing also helps ensure that you're
reaching proper depth on each and every
rep and can help ingrain good technique
habits for any heavier sets you do as
well okay after squads we're moving on
to three sets of 8 to 10 wraps on the
barbell Romanian deadlift just a quick
technique recap here you want to lift
the barbell off the rack take two or
three steps back push your hips back as
the weight drops down and then reverse
the motion once the bar gets somewhere
between just below knee level and mid
Shin level or at least before your lower
back starts to round then you should
reverse the motion by lifting your chest
up and thrusting your hips forward a
little knee Bend is fine but you should
try to keep a more or less vertical Shin
angle keeping the bar in tight and
centered over the middle of your foot
now there are two common concerns I hear
about rdls the first is that some people
say they only feel it in their lower
back not in their hamstrings and if this
applies to you the first thing I do is
make sure that you're not letting the
barbell drift forward away from your
legs this can cause the low back to take
over in order to pull the bar back in
remember that the bar should be moving
straight up and straight down I also
find that wearing a belt can help with
this issue even though EMG data shows
that overall wearing a belt shouldn't
substantially reduce lower back muscle
activity I do find it helps me to direct
more attention to my hamstrings and
reduces that uncomfortable lower back
pump that you can sometimes feel with
rdls now obviously the spinal Erectors
have to contract on rdls to prevent you
from just curling over so it's
impossible to completely take the lower
back out but you can shift the emphasis
to the hamstrings a bit more with those
two tips another common question I get
is how to Target the hamstrings more
versus the glutes more with rdls this
one's pretty simple if you want to
Target your glutes more think about
squeezing your glutes to move the weight
and then you can optionally squeeze your
glutes together at the top of the lift
that glute squeeze honestly probably
isn't doing a whole lot on its own but
can help some people sort of find the
muscle better with this cue you can
almost think of the lift more like a
vertical hip thrust on the other hand if
you want to make it more hamstring
dominant I would just completely cut out
the top 10 to 25 percent of the lift
this will keep more of the emphasis on
the hamstring stretch and the bottom
half and you can even add a little pause
at the bottom to accentuate the stretch
further alright so after that we're
moving on to two sets of 10 reps per leg
on the dumbbell walking lunge so that's
20 total strides per set for this one I
figured I'd highlight three things that
you should avoid when doing walking
lunges first avoid cutting your depth
short notice that on each and every rep
my knee softly makes contact with the
floor it's very common for people to
start limiting their depth toward the
end of the set once the wraps start
getting really hard but it's a lot
better to be more consistent with your
reps rather than just aiming for an
arbitrary rep count while cutting many
of those reps short now if you're afraid
of hurting your knees on the floor you
may be making the second mistake on my
list which is Free Falling on the
negative a lot of people try to rush
through their lunges because they are a
fairly gruesome exercise but despite
that you should think of them like you
should any other hypertrophy focused
movement where you're actively
controlling and resisting the negative
if you're letting gravity take over on
the negative then you're missing out on
the most important aspect of the lift so
take your time and be intentional with
every rep you do and the third thing to
avoid is letting your grip strength
limit the load that you can use a lot of
people go way too light on walking
lunges they end their set once they feel
fatigued but don't actually approach
muscular failure one of the main reasons
for this is that they just pick up some
relatively light dumbbells that they can
grip easily but we're not trying to
train our forearms here so if your grip
is a limiting factor I definitely
recommend strapping in and using some
dumbbells that'll actually get your legs
close to failure by the end of the set
okay after that we're moving on to three
sets of 10 to 12 reps on the seated leg
curl another couple quick tips here
first remember that there was a study
published in 2021 which found that
seated leg curls led to about 56 percent
more muscle growth than lying leg curls
across a 12-week training study and the
most likely reason for this is that the
seated leg curl was challenging the
hamstrings in a more lengthened position
than the line leg curl in other words
you can load the hamstrings with more
stretch when you're seated than when
you're lying however if you set the seat
too far back you actually lose a lot of
that stretch so you want to make sure
that your torso is positioned far enough
forward on the machine that you feel a
solid stretch in your hamstrings before
you start the set if you don't feel any
stretching or hamstrings in the starting
position you may not have the seat up
far enough or you may want to lean
forward over the machine a bit until you
feel that tug of passive tension in your
hamstrings also remember that the
hamstrings cross both the hip joint and
the knee joint so pointing the toes in
or out rotating the legs at the hip does
seem to impact which area of the
hamstrings is emphasized at least EMG
evidence shows that the inner hamstrings
activate more when the toes are pointed
in and the outer hamstrings activate
more when the toes are pointed out so
for this one you can think of pointing
your toes in the direction of the region
you're trying to emphasize Point them
out for the outer hamstrings and point
them in for the inner hamstrings of
course because EMG readings have never
been formally validated as being
predictive of long-term hypertrophy
outcomes you should think of this
suggestion as just something to play
around with rather than a proven fact
but since we're doing three sets here
anyway why not point the toes slightly
out for the first set slightly in for
the second set and then straight ahead
for the third set of course if you feel
your hamstrings working much better with
one toe position over the others I'd
simply roll with that one and if either
position feels awkward or uncomfortable
for you there's no reason that you have
to do it but assuming they all feel fine
to you why not switch it up from set to
set for some variety okay up next we're
doing four sets of 10 to 12 reps on the
leg press toe press and I like doing
this movement for the calves because
after a high volume leg day like this
one you can just sit down and give your
back and your hips a little break while
you focus entirely on the calves now
similar to the leg curl pointing your
toes in different directions can impact
which region of the calves are
emphasized except unlike with the leg
curl we can say this with much more
confidence for the calves because we
actually have a long-term training study
that measured muscle growth directly
this is a figure from a 2020 study that
had 22 subjects trained their calves for
nine weeks with either their feet
pointed out feet pointed in or feet
pointed straight ahead and as you can
see in the figure pointing the toes out
through the medial or inside part of the
calves better while pointing the toes in
glue the lateral or outside part of the
calves better and pointing them straight
ahead grew both the inside and the outer
side pretty evenly so this tells us that
if you're trying to grow the outer
calves a bit more you should consider
pointing your toes in if you're trying
to grow the inner calves a bit more
maybe so they're more visible from the
front you should try pointing your toes
out and since we're doing four sets here
we might as well experiment with the
different positions so I'd suggest
pointing them out for set one pointing
them in for set two and then pointing
them straight ahead for set three and
four or again similar to the leg curl if
either position feels particularly
awkward for you or significantly limits
the amount of load you can use I just go
with the position that you feel
strongest and most comfortable with and
then to finish off the workout we're
doing three sets of 10 to 12 reps on the
decline plate crunch I find that direct
ab work doesn't fit perfectly into
either the push pull or leg day but I
tend to put ab work on my leg days just
because most ab work will also work the
hip flexors which will be nice and
warmed up after all that leg work so for
this one you want to hold a plate to
your chest and focus on squeezing your
abs together don't just hinge at your
hips that'll mostly target the hip
flexors instead allow your lower back to
round as you squeeze your six-pack
together over time you should be keeping
track of the weights you're using and
the number of reps you're hitting while
aiming to add either some weight or a
rep from session to session this will
ensure that you're actually
progressively overloading your abs and
triggering their development just a few
overloading sets like this will do a
whole lot more for increasing that pop
Factor on your midsection than pretty
much any amount of cardio style AB
circuits will and in a fraction of the
time okay so after this leg day we've
got the first half of the full week of
training completed and I'll be covering
the remaining three workouts in three
upcoming videos here on the channel but
if you'd like to have the full 12 weeks
of training all in one place right away
you can pick up the full ultimate
push-pull legs hypertrophy system over
on jeffnipper.com the program comes with
a full ebook explaining all the methods
used in the program and Excel
spreadsheet a library full of exercise
demos from me coaching cues for every
exercise and plenty more it also comes
in a four day five day and six day per
week version so you can still run the
program even if you don't have six days
per week available to train so I'll
leave a little more info about that in
the description box down below and
that's it for this one guys thank you so
much for watching don't forget to leave
me a thumbs up if you enjoyed the video
subscribe if you haven't already and
I'll see you guys all here in the next
one
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