The Perfect 5 Exercises for your Leg Day

Last Updated on June 10, 2020 by

An Introduction to the Perfect Leg Day

A perfect leg day. “Is there such a thing?” you may ask. Well, although an unpopular part of the body to train, it must not be forgotten unless you’re going for the chicken legs look. Which I’m sure is desirable to some.

A good leg day is vital for a well put together physique. It will contribute to the X frame that we all seek.

I’ll be listing compound movements and isolation exercises. Just as usual, it’s important to focus on progressive overload (lifting heavier than last time). This is especially important with the legs.

You should be able to progress fairly fast with leg compound movements. So don’t be surprised if your squat variant goes up by 20 kg in a matter of weeks!

So, let’s jump right into the first leg day exercise.

The Perfect Leg Day

1. Squat Variant

• Approach the machine and find a suitable weight that will put you in the 8-12 rep range.
• Lay down face first with your chest supported by the torso cushions and place your hands on the hand grips. With your feet underneath the ankle lever that you are going to perform the movement with.
• Pull the weight lever with your legs inwards towards your back and then slowly bring your legs back out again, and so forth.

The machine leg curl or hamstring curl, is a necessary exercise for the posterior chain (rear side of your body). As it strengthens the back of your legs.

Not only is this movement great for aesthetic reasons. But it is also a wonderful leg day exercise for your overall long term knee joint health.

2. Leg Curl (machine)

• Approach the machine and find a suitable weight that will put you in the 8-12 rep range.
• Lay down face first with your chest supported by the torso cushions and place your hands on the hand grips. With your feet underneath the ankle lever that you are going to perform the movement with.
• Pull the weight lever with your legs inwards towards your back and then slowly bring your legs back out again, and so forth.

The machine leg curl or hamstring curl, is a necessary exercise for the posterior chain (rear side of your body). As it strengthens the back of your legs.

Not only is this movement great for aesthetic reasons. But it is also a wonderful leg day exercise for your overall long term knee joint health.

3. Calf Raises

• Approach the dumbbell section of the gym and find a 2 dumbbell of weight that you can comfortably hold for 1+ minutes. Start with 10 kg in each hand as a starting base.
• With your feet side-by side, your chest forward and your shoulders rolled back. Hold the dumbbell by your sides.
• Now, in one motion go up on your tip-toes in a controlled manner. Back and forth until you reach failure.

Many people (including me) struggle with the calf muscles in terms of muscle gains. So it’s important to employ frequency with this exercise.

Try to perform the calf raises at least 2x per week at sets of 3-4 per workout.

4. Leg Press

• Set the machine with a responsible amount of weight, if it’s too light you can also increase it later. Then approach the seat and sit down. Place your feet shoulder-width apart in the center on the foot platform.
• Hold the hand grips on your side, now push the weight platform away from your body until your legs nearly straighten out. But do not lockout your legs!
• Now slowly bring your legs in with the weight platform and repeat.

The leg press is a great leg day exercise as it solely focuses on the quads unlike the squat. It may be easier to gain a mind-muscle connection.

Be careful to not use too much weight. As I said use a responsible amount of weight first.

See Also

Dynamic and Static Stretching: What’s the Difference and Why It Matters?

5. Leg extension

• Sit in the chair and choose a suitable weight by placing the peg in the corresponding weight.
• Hold the hand stabilizers and place your feet underneath the lever you will push from. So that it’s just above your ankles.
• Now push up using your quad muscles and focus on the contraction. Now slowly bring the lever back down and repeat.

The Leg Extension is one of the best Quad muscle isolating movements out there. It’s going to hit all 4 heads of the muscle.

However, it is going to be hard to utilize progressive overload to the maximum degree as it’s not a free-weights movement.

Tips for the Perfect Leg Day

• Always perform the Compound movements first. So you can use the best of your energy to better your PR’s.
• Remember to breath! You’ll be able to lift much more effectively if your corporate effective breathing into your lifting.
• Do better than last time! Every session try to do better than last session. Whether that’s by more reps or more weight.
• If it hurts do a variant of the same exercise. There are plenty of variants to these exercises. They’re all fine as long as they use the same ROM (range of motion).
• Do the exercises that you enjoy. Leg day is not everyone’s cup of tea for the reason that it’s difficult. So choose the ones that you enjoy as long as they are building muscle.

Summary of the Perfect Leg Day

This Leg Day article has gone through (in my opinion) the best and only exercises you need to build the lower part of the X frame physique.

You must train your legs! Do not be one of these people that undervalues training your lower body. You’ll look over-developed in the upper body, and under built in the lower body.

You can perform this leg day routine 2x per week at 4x sets per exercise for the fastest results. This is, depending on your experience. If you are a beginner, performing this leg day 1x per week and 3x sets per exercise will suffice.

Remember to log your results every workout.

Now, use this information and have a perfect leg day. See you in the next addition to fit piit.