Yesterday was one of those glorious days in the gym. You know the ones that you’ll always remember.
I met up with good friend and fellow trainer Cris Edmonds for a BRUTAL Mountain Dog Leg Day.
Cris is a bodybuilder. He is 1 month out from his first show in 2 years and his progress has been AMAZING over those 2 years. Hard training, meticulous eating, and consistency are his secrets – not genetics, luck or some other lame-ass excuse for why you don’t look like this.
Here’s what we Cris’s Leg Days look like for the last 2 years and what we did yesterday:
- Lying Leg Curls
- Squats
- Leg Press
- Lunges
- Barbell RDL’s
SQUATS
We used a spider bar – a bar with a large camber and yoke handles. The giant camber offsets the load, and according to EliteFTS, the makers of this bar “The Cambered Squat Bar is superior for developing stability in the hole and great mid section strength. Bar weights approx 80lbs.”
We made these squats more interesting by using some of our favorite toys – CHAINS. Chain allow for accomodating resistance. At the bottom of the movement, more of the chain are on the ground, deloading the weight. As you progress through the range of motion, the chains leave the floor adding weight to the bar. This does 2 things – 1) Matches your strength curve, as you are stronger at the top of the squat than at the bottom. 2) Teaches you to accelerate and explode out of the bottom in order to “beat the chains”.
Here’s what we did for squats:
- Bar x 6
- Bar + 25/side x 6
- Bar + plate/side x 6
- Bar + plate & 25/side x 6
- Bar +2 plates/side x 3
- 1 chain per side x 3
- 3 chains per side x 3
- 4 chains per side x 3
- 5 chains per side x 3
- CHALLENGE SET:
- Same as last set x 3 reps, then added 1 chain/side x 3 reps, then added 1 chain/side x 3, then added 1 chain/side x 3, strip ALL chains x 3, then strip 1 plate x 10 reps
- Think of it as a reverse strip set – we added weight and went again with as little rest as possible…BRUTAL but AWESOME
