As I mentioned at the beginning of the week, I really love to train legs. And I also believe it’s one of the best ways to use your weight training to sculpt your body AND burn stored fat. You burn more fat when you train larger muscles with intensity. In addition, your body continues to burn fat for a few hours after your workouts.
While you’ll train legs three days a week, I’ve built the training schedule so each of these workouts has a different emphasis. On Monday, you targeted quads primarily; on Wednesday, you targeted glutes and hamstrings primarily; today, you’ll work all muscle groups of the lower body fairly equally. It’s important to keep these emphases clear in your mind as you perform every set and rep. My notes in the text and in the videos help provide reminders on the goal of each exercise for each of these different days.
And remember that you’ll be performing this workout four times during Phase One of my 8-Week Fat-loss Figure Trainer. Each of these workouts will fall on Friday or the fifth day of your weekly training cycle if you choose to arrange things a little differently based on what works best for your life.
This workout begins with Smith machine front squats. You’ll start fairly light and work up as you’re able. Remember that the quality of the reps matters far more than the amount of weight you’re using. Don’t overemphasize weight at the expense of form as you’ll increase the risk of injury if you’re training with too much weight at the beginning of a workout.
Next up are barbell squats, which are a lifting staple. Start with a light weight and make sure your form is right before you add weight. If you find yourself breaking form – twisting or cheating — then you should use less weight. I want you to get in all your reps rather than reaching failure with heavy weights.
Follow that with hack squats—check out my video to see how I perform this move. Foot and body position are critical, and highly individual.
You’ll finish up this legs workout with two moves that really work your full legs. The first of these is walking lunges. For walking lunges I want you to choose a weight that allows you to perform the entire set without taking any breaks between sets. You’ll complete a total of 30 steps (15 per leg). The second of my faves is pop squats, which you can perform with or without weight. Start without weight to make sure your form is correct. Check out my video to see how I perform this exercise, spreading my feet as I land with my butt lowered. You want to land softly and without any awkward movements to prevent injury, and then you want to “pop” back up bringing your feet together directly underneath you.
Today, you’ll finish up your workout with abs and cardio. Remember that you can perform both abs and cardio with your legs workout, or you can split either or both off and train them at a different time of day. I especially think it’s a good idea to perform cardio at a different time of day to keep revving your metabolism. You can perform cardio upon waking or before bedtime. You can also perform it before or after your workouts if you prefer.
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Smith Machine front squats
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4 SETS / 25 REPS
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Barbell squats
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4 SETS / 20 REPS
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Hack squats
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4 SETS / 15 REPS
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Walking lunges
15 Steps per Leg
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4 SETS / 15 REPS
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Pop squats
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4 SETS / 20 REPS
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| Wheel roll outs |
3 SETS / 15 REPS
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Twisting ball crunches
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3 SETS / 15 REPS
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Cardio
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20 MINUTES
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CYDNEY SAYS:
Even at this point in the program, you may be feeling a little sapped or zapped from my training program. I get in a serving of Pre-Kaged before every workout, but it becomes even more critical as you begin to feel fatigued from the cumulative training you’ve performed for five days in a row.
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AMINO SYNERGY™
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CYDNEY SAYS: Amino Synergy provides a full-spectrum of EAAs that are fermented and vegan friendly. I like to get in 1-2 doses of this product per day, emphasizing taking them right when I wake up and just before my training.
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