Leg Workouts
Article by Stefan Burns - Updated November 2021. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!
The majority of your training in the gym should be centered around full body workouts, followed by push and pull workouts (as covered in parts 1 and 2). To optimally train the body, the limbs (legs and arms) need direct attention and training. The legs especially are very important for overall health and wellness.
WFO Workout Routines
Part 3 - Leg Workouts ✅
To build on parts 1 and 2, we add leg workouts into the routine and adjust the rest of the routine to compensate for the increased leg volume and intensity. If you want a stronger squat, deadlift, and hip thrust, have a dedicated leg day 2x a week. If you want bigger quadriceps, front squat frequently.
Below we’ll cover the main movements used to train the legs, add a new recovery method, provide the leg workouts to be used moving forward, and will show how to flexibly incorporate leg days into a training schedule
Importance of Leg Training and Calves
The legs can be split into three main sections, the calves, thighs, and glutes. Both the calves and thighs have different muscles front and back, and the glutes are situated behind the hips. The legs are unique in that they contain a huge amount of muscle mass compared to other parts of the body. Upper leg muscles encircle the femur, the largest and strongest bone of the body, but there are no organs in the legs like with the torso. Because the legs comprise such a large percentage of the total body mass of the body, they are very important to develop for overall health and wellness.
Strong well-developed legs are critical for many of the movement patterns we rarely reflect on like walking and standing. Legs that have more muscle will have a greater metabolic impact on the body, burning more calories and helping to stabilize blood sugar and hormone levels. Nimble legs and the inner ears determine your balance, and there is excellent data showing how easily you can get off the ground using only your legs predicts lower all-cause mortality (death from any reason). For these reasons and more it is incredibly important to be mindful of your legs and to train them frequently and intelligently.
Balancing the development of the legs is also very important. Exercises like the barbell squat activate all of the musculature of the legs, but the calves are only minimally activated. Hip hinging exercises like the deadlift are similar. The reason the calves develop sub-optimally is because the calves are best strengthened when the foot and ankle are the primary joint loaded with force during a movement, like a calf raise. With weight-training routines it is common for calves and forearms to be neglected at the expense of the upper arms, upper legs, midsection, and torso. But as we know with the connection between balance and risk of injury, equal attention needs to be given to all the muscles of the legs, no matter their relative size or aesthetic features.
Because time at the gym is limited, it’s a tough pill to swallow to train calves heavy at the expense of exercises like squats, and many people end up ignoring their calves completely as a result. To solve this, train calves at the beginning of every leg workout and use them to warm up all the muscles of the lower body. For blood to reach the calves much of it will travel past and through the upper leg, activating everything along the way. With pre-activated calf muscles, risk of injury during heavy lower body compounds like squats and deadlifts decreases, and those exercises then serve to activate and stress the calves to a greater degree.
Muscles of the Legs
Calves
Gastrocnemius
Soleus
Tibialis Anterior
Quadriceps
Rectus Femoris
Vastus Lateralis
Vastus Intermedius
Vastus Medialis
Hamstrings
Biceps Femoris, Long Head
Biceps Femoris, Short Head
Semitendinosus
Semimembranosus
Glutes
Gluteus Maximus
Gluteus Medius
Gluteus Minimus
Main movements for the Legs
Gastrocnemius
Standing Calf Raise
Soleus
Seated Calf Raise
Tibialis Anterior
Reverse Calf Raise
Quadriceps
Squat (front, back)
One Legged Squat (pistol, shrimp)
Cossack Squat
Sissy Squat
Lunge (forward, side, reverse)
Step-Up
Leg Press
Hamstrings
Deadlift
Single Leg Deadlifts
Stiff Legged Deadlift
Glute-Ham Raise
Leg Curl
Good Morning
Squat
Glutes
Hip Thrust
Hip Bridge
Squat
Deadlift
Lunge (wide)
Leg Press
Note - Various implements can be used for the above exercises, such as the barbell, dumbbells, kettlebells, cables, machines, and more.
Unique Considerations for Legs
In general, leg workouts using the movements above will train the smaller stabilizer muscles of the legs (i.e hip abductors, tiny thigh muscles) which were not covered in this article. Training the body, but especially the legs, in both the sagittal and frontal planes of motion is very important in developing a strong, healthy, and limber lower body. Moving forward and back would be sagittal, and side to side frontal.
Legs are interesting in the fact that the primary joints of the legs are very robust compared to the joints of the torso thanks to bipedalism. This allows the legs to be trained daily if desired for extended periods of time, as long as volume and intensity are intelligently managed.
If rapid lower body strength or hypertrophy development is the goal, then high frequency leg training is useful to experiment with. The legs are also special in that they hold a large amount of muscle compactly. There are no organs housed and protected in the legs. Once well developed, with movement as simple as walking, the legs are metabolically activated and can burn a tremendous amount of calories with less effort than for the torso. Even at rest the muscle mass of the legs has a large influence on ones Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). As such, strong healthy legs are a key factor in overall body composition, and increasing muscle mass in the legs can be very useful for fat loss.
For the months of full body workouts and push/pull workouts, we learned and put into practice a lot of wellness habits that exist outside the gym. Sleep, diet, water, and gut health were on the agenda. For this month, heat therapy and post workout nutrition are the new lifestyle add-ons to keep recovery high and nutritional demands met.
Heat Therapy and Post-Workout Nutrition
Heat therapy, like using the sauna or taking a very hot bath, is one of the most powerful recovery tools you have available to you. Heat therapy activates heat shock proteins which heal cellular damage, increases metabolic rate and has cardiovascular benefits, and dramatically boosts growth hormone levels for a short while afterwards. All these effects and more aid greatly in your ability to recover from a hard training session, and if done 1-3x per week for 15-30 minutes each time, the same rate of progressive overload growth that this program has created can be maintained. Heat therapy is a stressor itself, so make sure the rest of your lifestyle is as low-stress as possible, that’s why laying the foundation in months 1 and 2 was so important. Leg training is one of the most stressful types of training out there, and if you’re not careful it is really easy to become injured.
8 oz coconut milk, 30 grams protein, 6 raw egg yolks, 3 g creatine, and cinnamon to taste.
To aid in the recovery from the increasing demands of this workout routine, post workout nutrition becomes more important. More protein will be needed by the body, as well as cellular and hormonal building blocks like cholesterol.
Drink this muscle building shake after every leg and full body workout to ensure you’re getting the macro and micronutrients your body needs to build muscle and synthesize steroidal hormones.
Leg Workouts
Below are the leg workouts to be used for month three and beyond of the WFO workout routine.
Leg Workout (A)
3x20 Seated Calf Raises
5x5 Squats
4x8 Hip Thrusts
5x10 Glute Ham Raise
Leg Workout (B)
3x20 Standing Calf Raises
5x5 Deadlifts
4x8 Front Squats
5x10 Cossack Squats
525 lb Deadlift by Stefan Burns
While the exercises for each workout above are best suited for the rep ranges given (5x5, 4x8, 5x10), cycling the rep ranges in-between exercises will stimulate new adaptations with the same three exercises per workout. Exercises can be adapted or changed too, there is nothing wrong with that.
Be very thoughtful when changing exercises though, and don’t change exercises often, because it’s easy to begin altering all the variables for fun rather than stick to the plan that will ensure progress and the achievement of goals set. The gym is a place to train your discipline. Forget what you want to do or what’s fun, do what you need to do, and find a way to enjoy that process.
Leg Workout C below is designed for a more athletic focus, and Leg Workout D for more aesthetic driven goals:
Leg Workout (C)
3x20 Reverse Calf Raises
Hip Thrusts 5x5
Lunges 4x8
Cossack Squats 5x10
Prowler Sprints 5x30 yards
Athletic Focus
Leg Workout (D)
3x20 Reverse Calf Raises
3x30 Standing Calf Raises
5x5 Front Squats
4x12 Glute Ham Raise
5x15 Lunges (wide)
Aesthetic Focus
Combined with full body and push & pull workouts, you can start to see how adaptable these routines are. For legs, the rep and set schemes are always given lower rep range strength priority on the dedicated leg day (for example the 5x5 compound movement), with the full body workouts using the other reps ranges more typical for hypertrophy. Because of this, the full body and push + pull workouts need to be slightly altered from months 1 and 2. This isn’t a problem because the overall strategy employed here is program flexibility. After part six, you’ll have the know-how and experience to be able to dynamically build your workout routine every week from the different types of workouts presented, while still following a clear path towards progressive overload.
The two weeks of programming below are to be repeated twice over the course of part 3, which like the other parts is a month in duration. As with part 2, weights for the first week of this month will be the same as the last week of month 2. Increase weights by 5% for week 2, and by another 5% for week 4. This is the cadence that will be established, 5% increases every two weeks. When stress is low and recovery is high, this is very manageable for a long time, especially when the starting weights were in the 40-50% 1 rep max range.
Month 3 Workout Routine
Week 1
Monday - Full Body
5x5 Hip Thrusts
4x8 Pull-Ups
5x10 Pec Deck
3x15 Hanging Leg Raises
Tuesday - Pull
One-Arm Lat Pulldowns 3x20
Barbell Rows 4x6
Chin-Ups 3x10
Facepulls 3x15
DB Curls 3x10
Wednesday - Legs
5x10 Ab Wheel Rollouts
3x20 Seated Calf Raises
5x5 Squats
4x8 Hip Thrusts
5x10 Glute Ham Raise
Thursday - Push
5x5 Incline Press
4x8 Dumbbell Incline Press
5x10 Pec Deck
3x12 Skullcrushers
Friday - Full Body
5x5 Deadlifts
4x8 DB Press
5x10 Leg Press
3x30 Reverse Crunches
Saturday & Sunday - Rest
Week 2
Monday - Full Body
5x5 Squats
4x8 Pull-Ups
5x10 Pec Deck
3x15 Hanging Leg Raises
Tuesday - Push
Dumbbell Front Raises 3x20
Bench Press 4x6
Kettlebell Press 3x10
Lateral Raises 3x15
Tricep Cable Extensions 3x10
Wednesday - Legs
5x10 Ab Wheel Rollouts
3x20 Standing Calf Raises
5x5 Deadlifts
4x8 Front Squats
5x10 Cossack Squats
Thursday - Pull
5x5 Barbell Rows
4x8 Behind-the-Neck Lat Pull Downs
5x10 One-Arm Seated Cable Rows
3x12 Hammer Curls
Friday - Full Body
5x5 Incline Press
4x8 Lunges
5x10 Pull-Ups
3x20 Cable Woodchops
Saturday & Sunday - Rest
Follow Progressive Overload
With the routines used for month 3 of the WFO workout plan, legs are trained 3x a week, upper body 4x a week, and core 3x a week. The rest day on Wednesday was eliminated, in effect only increasing leg frequency, volume, and intensity compared to part 2. Training legs twice a week, as was done in part 2, is effective, but training legs 3x a week is where the real magic happens. Recovery practices are extra important now though. Heat therapy is introduced in part 3 because leg training is very stressful and metabolically demanding; heat therapy simply wasn’t needed until now, and the extra endogenous growth hormone production will benefit recovery and overall growth.
For part 4 we discuss arm & forearm training, how much arm size you can realistically add in a month with an arm focused routine, and how experience with this training philosophy lays the foundation for intuitive training.