Garage Gym Chronicles: 02/02/2025 Workout of the Day
Legs
Warm up: 2 sets of any ab exercise
Ex 1: Bulgarian split squats-2x6-12
Ex 2: single leg RDL-2x6-12
Ex 3: split squats-2x12-20
Ex 4: hamstring curls-2x10-15
Ex 5: calf raises-2x15-20
Remember:
You CAN effectively challenge (and, therefore, grow) your legs, whether you're using machines, barbells, kettlebells, dumbbells, or just body weight exercise variations.
However, if you're using dumbbells, kettlebells, or body weight exercises, you'll eventually need to make one or all of the following adjustments to continue to grow your legs:
1. Invest in HEAVY dumbbells/kettlebells
2. Increase volume (more reps per set to ensure sets are being taken fairly close to failure)
3. Emphasize more challenging exercise variations. I think simply switching from doing mostly bilateral (2 leg, square stance) exercises to doing mostly unilateral (single leg) or offset stance exercises is a good choice. By going from 2 legs to 1 leg, you double the difficulty which makes relatively lighter overall weights feel much heavier, forcing strength and hypertrophy adaptations.
I also believe that most people – regardless of training style or equipment preferences – would benefit from doing more single leg work. It'll fix imbalances, strengthen stabilizers which can prevent problems down the line, and, in my experience, it has proven to be a superior method for muscle growth.
I used to do mostly bilateral leg exercises and I eventually ran into issues. Adapting a routine that emphasizes unilateral exercises helped resolve my pain, improved the health of my hips and knees, and – whether it's causation or correlation – my legs have grown in size since doing mostly unilateral lower body work.
Unilateral training has also opened up more exercise freedom for me. I no longer need to rely on lots of available plates, a rack, barbells, or specific machines to get a great leg workout done. I can challenge my legs with any equipment – including no equipment at all – by doing intense single leg progressions/regressions along with doing high rep variations where needed. This means I can train anywhere, any time, regardless of what I have available to me. This, my friends, is a truly freeing feeling. This is what I call, "fitness independence."
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