Muscle Growth Tips - Squat Routines And Exercises
Muscle Growth Tips - Squat Routines And Exercises
Power-Rack Training
The power-rack can be a very useful piece of equipment for the purpose of increasing your squatting power. Maximum poundages can be utilised in the top portion of the movement, over the last six to twelve inches of motion before standing erect, at which the pins on the power-rack may be set on which to rest the bar.
Extremely heavy poundages, compared to what can be used over a full-range of motion, can be used in this way. The great stress of the heavy weight over the short range of motion will lead to big strength increases in the full-range movement, if used wisely i.e. worked hard and infrequently.
Squat Routines
Beginning trainees often train legs along with the rest of the body in two or three workout sessions per week. However, as you progress, you may find that because of the size of the poundages that you are using and the increased training intensity that you will develop over time, you will not be able to give all your body parts enough training stress in one workout due to exhaustion.
Therefore, many people opt to train different parts of the body on different days, and often reserve a day just for leg training, because it is so physically and psychologically demanding.
In addition to the squat in a typical leg routine, exercises such as stiff-leg deadlifts and leg curls for the hamstrings, and various types of calf-raise are included. The exercises primarily involving the quadriceps are often done first in a workout, due to the fact that movements such as squats and leg presses are more demanding than hamstring and calf work, and are therefore best tackled first in the workout when you are fresh.
However, if you find that your hamstrings or calves are lacking in development behind your quadriceps, it would make sense to then prioritise them first in your workout, rather than your quads.
Set out below are a couple of examples of basic leg routines:
Workout A:
Barbell squat - warm-up, then 2-3 all-out sets of 6-10 reps (2-3 x 6-10)
Leg curl (standing or lying) - one or two light sets, then 2-3 x 6-10
Leg extensions - warm-up, then 2-3 x 6-10
Calf raise (standing or seated) - warm up, then 2-3 x 10-12
Workout B:
Leg press - warm up, then 2-3 x 6-10
Stiff-leg deadlift - warm-up, then 2-3 x 6-10
Leg-curl (standing or lying) - warm up, then 2 x 6-10
Leg extensions - warm-up, then 2-3 x 6-10
Calf raise (standing or seated) - warm up, then 2-3 x 10-12
Notes:
It is important in moving between exercises to do at least one light set of the new exercise before your work sets begin. This is important, because even though your muscles may be fully warmed up from the previous exercise, this is now a different movement involving different patterns of contraction; in other words, do a light set first or risk an injury!
It is important not to do too many sets - remember, in order to build muscle, you can't train as if you're trying to break a world endurance record; your workouts should be of short duration, not too many sets, but you must train with great intensity and effort, which is a learned skill that takes time. Keep this in mind; the leg workout of the current Mr. Olympia, Dorian Yates, does not last more than an hour, and is completed in no more than around ten to twelve work sets total. If this is all that Mr. Olympia needs to build legs of those proportions, do you really need to do any more sets than that?
It is also important to include the conventional deadlift in your program at some stage; many of the muscles involved in squatting are involved in the deadlift, and this is another very important exercise. However, it is probably not advisable to perform the squat on the same day that you deadlift, and vice versa.
Workout A and B above represent basic leg routines, and can be altered in many hundreds of ways to suit you - this is something that you will need to figure out for yourself. Exercises may be removed or substituted, rep ranges changed (higher or lower reps), super sets and trisets etc included, pre-exhaustion, descending sets - the list is endless.
If you decide to include the barbell squat and stiff-leg deadlift together in a workout, remember that these both heavily involve the lower back, so if you squat first, you may not be able to stiff-leg deadlift optimally due to lumbar fatigue, and vice versa.
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