Hello everyone,
I’m wondering if might be over doing it and prohibiting growth.
I started two months ago.
Here is my leg day. Only once per week.
- Jog or bike 10mins. Basically warm up until sweat.
- squats: 4x10
- dead lifts: 5x5
- leg curls and or leg press 4x10. I skip when these are unavailable.
- bike ~30mins. I’m not sure if I should remove this one. It’s interval training with the purpose of recovery improvement / fitness. So, by interval I mean one minute hard spin (higher resistance) and one minute lowish-medium resistance. I start with 5 min spring. Then 5 sets of this interval. Then, 4 minutes spin at same low-medium resistance, then another 5 sets or less. I’m usually beat after this.
Since you are starting with the cardio I’d increase that by 5 to 10 mins, then drop the biking at the end replacing it with some dumbbell lunges and calve raises. Also leg press and squats work very similar muscles, so you might want to change one of those for another leg exercise or core exercise.
I would consider reducing squat rep count, but it also depends on your goals. I recommend against doing a “if its available” mentality, as it made me often skip. But the other person had a good point, probably shouldn’t press and squat
I don’t think it’s too much. I don’t really consider deadlifts that much of a leg and instead a back exercise. I also go 1 rep max on deadlifts, where my 2nd to last set is nearly max and last rep is max.
I’d recommend doing romanian deadlifts instead of leg curls or leg press. I added them in the past year and really feel them. I do them elevated so i can really get low with barbell.
Interesting. So, are you saying 5x1 and increasing weight?
Oh right, I can’t do max. My arms aren’t strong enough. I can only go heavy if I use wrist straps.
I assume you mean grip strength instead of arm strength. I go overhand grip for my first two sets at 135 and 225, but then use switch grip on my higher sets. It allows me to not use wrist wraps. Try out switch grip and see how much you can do. Deadlifts will increase your grip strength.
My deadlift day goes: 10 reps at 135, 10 reps at 225, 1 or 2 less than max effort at 315 (usually around 5), 1 rep at 405, and 1 rep at 405 + some change to try to go for max or more. I sometimes fail the last rep. The first two sets I try to really concentrate on my form.
