Your legs plateaued? Just won't grow? You all upper body? Well, as long as one of these is your problem, not just being too lazy to exhaust your lower body, I have the solution. This is THE program to build leg mass AND superhuman strength at the same time. Given, it will not happen overnight, patience must be employed so that you do not hurt yourself. Also, you must be willing to learn something new about how your body reacts to performing the two main exercises here, squat and deadlift, in every workout. Deadlift is a very hard lift to master, probably the hardest to perform correctly, discluding the Olympic lifts. Squat you should already know how to do, because it's either not getting you gains anymore or you just can't seem to gain.

This program calls for two alternating routines, once a week, so that the legs are stressed differently each time. Week one you will start with squats, three sets of eight, decreasing the weight by 10 or fifteen pounds so that you can continue to get eight. Then You will do leg extensions, 15-12-10-10, staying higher reps for a really good burn and to bring out the definition in the muscles around the knee. After that you do hamstring leg presses, where you put your feet fairly high and wide, with toes pointed outwards. Perform these slowly at first, so you can concentrate on making your hamstrings work. It's not a common exercise in many bodybuilder's leg workouts, like the regular leg press is; so usually when you go from regular leg pressing to this you still try to use your quads. You must minimize that, and feel your hamstrings stretch, and contract at the top. Do not lock out your knees, and do not go so high and wide that it is uncomfortable.

The hamstring leg press will be performed for three sets of eight. After that you will do a hamstring isolation exercise, the leg curl, for 15-12-10-10. Again, your staying higher for a good burn. On the leg curl you should emphasize the negative more than normal, I heard this advice from Greg Turner (the natural bodybuilder at my gym who has literally dozens of trophies) and it really works. For some reason hamstrings respond more to eccentric work than other body parts. I couldn't figure out why, then the theory was reconfirmed by an article I read in Muscle and Fitness where a study was performed that tested individual's increase in the leg curl. It was found that the individuals who did more eccentric work grew faster and increased strength faster. For whatever reason, it works, so go down slow and really hammer those leg biceps.

So week one looks like this:

Squat: 3 sets of eight taken to failure (3-5 minute breaks)
Leg Extension: 4 sets of 15, 12, 10, 10 (1-2 minute breaks)
Hamstring Leg Press: 3 sets of eight to failure (2-3 minute breaks)
Leg Curls: 4 sets of 15, 12, 10, 10 (1-2 minute breaks)

Now the next week is slightly different. You will begin with deadlifts, an awesome compound movement for the whole body that will secrete just as many if not more androgens and growth hormone as squats. Deadlifts have to be the true measure of ones strength, since their is really no way to cheat that will get you more weight. Some guys may say they bench 350 or 400, but they may bury it in their rib cage then use their whole body to fling the weight up. Some guys say they squat 500+, but do they REALLY go parallel or below? You can't tell unless your there. With deadlift, your pulling a weight off the ground, there's no momentum and no question about the required start and end point. In fact, if you do it wrong, you will actually do less weight and incur an injury. So, I am here to give you proper form. You should, however, try to find someone to show you in person and to troubleshoot your form right there, since deadlift form is highly variable between individuals. These are general guidelines, and there's probably exceptions to all of them that I don't know about:

- First starting out, a good grip is about your bench press grip, with your shins coming in contact with the line that changes the bar from smooth to knurled in the middle. After a month or two you may want to experiment if you feel this isn't optimal for you.

- Your hips and butt should be down, your back flat, and you should be looking slightly upward. Exception that I know of are tall people. They often benefit more by keeping their hips a little higher, don't know why but my best friend Derek is 6-1 and he tried deadlift my way and couldn't. He deadlifts with his hips a little higher, but still manages to keep his lower back from being exposed.

- Many young deadlifters make the mistake of "exploding" off the ground when pulling a heavy weight. Experienced deadlifters can do this without hurting themselves, but you should pull the weight slowly until your force exerted on the bar exceeds the downward force of gravity, and it comes off the ground. From there you should continue a slow, controlled ascent. I wish I'd known that when I was deadlifting, I yanked the weight off the ground so hard I had to see a chiropractor bc several discs were out of alignment... it's ok now though.

- I benefit from angling my toes outwards, because it keeps my knees out of the way. I have long upper thighs, so they tend to extend over the bar and obstruct it from going up in a straight line. The conventional stance is the same but with your toes pointed forward. If your knees get in the way too much try angling your toes out. They still get in the way but with practice you can get it right.

Follow these guidelines and you will be fine until you can find your own personal groove. For week one you'll do deadlifts for three sets of five. If you haven't deadlifted before, none of these should be to failure, or even near it. They should be just enough so you feel like you did something, and for you to find your optimal lifting pattern. After that, you will do conventional leg presses, but with the feet close together to focus on the outer quads. Deadlifts stress the hamstrings more than squats, so you don't need to do hamstring leg presses. Do leg presses for three sets of eight, all to failure. Leg press is one of those ego exercises, people pile on plates and show off. Big mistake, nothing is better to really stress your quads directly than slow, burning, strict leg presses with your feet in. I know several guys on here with 1000+ leg presses. I use 540 plus the mechanism for my heavy sets, and I have 26 inch legs, on a 5-8 guy. Who you gonna listen to? Exactly.

After leg presses is a super-intense superset of leg extensions and leg curls, staying in the 10-15 rep range, for four sets, to really burn each individual fiber of your thighs, and to leave you walking with your knees locked.

For week three change the reps for squat to 10-8-6-4, a good pyramid scheme for strength. For week four change the deadlift reps to 5-5-3-1. The last one shouldn't be an all out max, but it should be hard. If your an experienced deadlifter feel free to test yourself on that last rep. It's a good indicator from workout to workout of your strength increases. Each time you come around to doing a single, do five pounds more, it'll really add up.

Week five squat reps go back higher, because I've found legs respond to the occasional session of "breathing squats" where you'll be gasping for air. Do 15, 15, 12, and 10 and you'll be hurtin'. Week six do 5-4-3-2-1 for deadlifts. I know it looks a little complicated, so here's the rundown:

Every other week do:

Squat: 3 sets of eight taken to failure (3-5 minute breaks); 4 sets of 10-8-6-4; 4 sets of 15-15-12-10
Leg Extension: 4 sets of 15, 12, 10, 10 (1-2 minute breaks)
Hamstring Leg Press: 3 sets of eight to failure (2-3 minute breaks)
Leg Curls: 4 sets of 15, 12, 10, 10 (1-2 minute breaks)

And on the other weeks do:

Deadlift: 3 sets of five to failure (3-5 minute breaks); 4 sets of 5-5-3-1; 5 sets of 5-4-3-2-1
Leg Press w/ feet close: three sets of eight to failure (2-3 minute breaks)
Superset Leg Extension and Leg Curl for 10-15 reps

Write it down and remind yourself of what you gotta do before each workout, so you don't forget. Keep a record of your progress on the big lifts: squat, deadlift, and leg press. Keeping up with all the other weights is a bit of a hassle, so I only worry about the ones that really matter. Keep your head up, it takes time, but it'll happen as long as you consistent. Consistency is the key at first, then you build intensity when you've got a consistent program down, then when your intensity is way up you can look for ways to make your program more efficient. Train smart everyone.

- Alton

beautifuldisaster420@yahoo.com