French-Canadian competitor Regan Grimes is readying himself for the upcoming IFBB Texas Pro Olympia qualifier with a detailed leg workout that utilizes a simple strategy. Here’s how to try it for yourself.
“Two working sets for each exercise!” wrote Grimes, as he shared the method behind his current muscle building progress. No doubt, with enormous legs like his, we could easily be convinced to lean into his plan. Still, while this workout is easy to comprehend, it’s an epic challenge to master, with Grimes cycling through seven serious movements.
Here’s the exact workout shared by the IFBB Pro and two-time Olympia finalist.
Regan Grimes’ 2 Working Set Leg Workout
Grimes even prescribed the specific order of exercises for following his session:
Grimes gets to work on the seated adductor machine to get things started, targeting the inner thigh as he drives his legs together. Next up is the opposing movement of the abductor machine, where the knees are pushed outward, taxing the outer hips. The strategy here is that adding isolation movements at the start of the session means that the thighs and hips are engaged through isolation before they are recruited by compound exercises that will further require their use, exhausting the muscles as the session progresses but making sure they have been fully engaged right from the get-go.
Grimes brings the same grind to lying hamstring curls, another isolation exercise, before continuing with compound moves, beginning with the leg press. Of course, the leg press machine is a major mass builder, because it works the quads, glutes, and those already warm thighs, hamstring, and glutes. And those quads are in for a major crushing because next up is the pendulum squat, a movement that allows for a deeper squat, activating the quads through the enhanced range of motion while relying on the hamstrings, hips, and glutes for support
By now, you would be forgiven for thinking that Grimes has saved the easier exercises until the end, but there are competitions to be won, so he adds some unilateral work and busts out some Bulgarian split squats instead, to fix any imbalances in those quads, glutes, hamstrings, hips, and calves. Speaking of the calves, they are going to get one final blast with the calf raise, bookending his lower body workout with an isolation exercise that builds deeper and wider calves.
The take home message? By going all out and repping two working sets towards failure, you’ll be able to concentrate on form while constructing the ultimate lower body. Start with a weight that you feel comfortable with, in the 8 to 12 rep range, in order to hit hypertrophy, and up the intensity from there. “This is a proper leg day,” wrote one of Grimes’ impressed Instagram followers. Just be careful when climbing the stairs for the next couple of days!
The IFBB Texas Pro takes place on August 14-15, 2026.
