No bells. No whistles. You need a no-nonsense leg workout, one that’ll destroy your pins and leave your balance wobbly—all in an hour. If that describes your current predicament, you’ve come to the right place.
You’ll start by warming up with leg extensions for a couple of sets, driving a lot of blood around the knee joints. Next, you’ll go directly to a heavy weight, about your six-rep max. Hit a set of six, then immediately lighten the weight by a few plates and keep going. When you fail again, drop the weight again. Continue until you’ve failed a total of four times, including your first set of six.
The key is to make sure you’re failing on every drop; don’t just stop because you’ve hit a certain number. A full set may look like this: six reps, then seven, then nine, and finally 12 on the last drop. Do that entire sequence twice.
From there, move to the Smith machine for squats. After squats, turn your attention to hamstrings with Smith Romanian deadlifts, again with drop sets. Continue the workout with a leg curl sequence that mirrors the leg extension, starting with two sets of 20, and wrap things up with hack squat calf raises to blast your lower legs.
That’s it—18 sets and you’re done. Of course, you won’t need to let your legs know that, because they’ll be telling you, loud and clear. We’ll see you down the road.
The Workout
Exercise
Sets
Reps
Leg Extension
2
20
2
6*
Smith Machine Squat
3
8*
Smith Machine Romanian Deadlift
3
8*
Leg Curl
2
20
2
6*
Hack Squat Calf Raise
4
30
*Use a weight that causes you to fail at the rep listed. Immediately drop the weight upon failure by 20 percent–30 percent and continue until you reach failure again. Repeat three more times without rest. Rest at least two minutes, then repeat as indicated.
