Leg Day You Say...?

Leg day, probably one of the most frightening but satisfying days, it's always bittersweet. Personally, I love leg day and I actually get excited to go to the gym and lift heavy!!

A warm up is so important, yet so many people don't bother, warming up the body gets your heart rate up and helps to prevent injury. I walk to the gym everyday (15mins walk), so that is my main warm-up, I also perform glute activation exercises (exercises used to engage the glutes in preparation for the compound exercises). I also perform a warm up set of 12 reps on the squat rack with no weight, I then perform another warm up set with a light weight, this prepares my body for the type of movement I am going to be performing. I always use my resistance bands during leg days, they fire up my glutes and ensure they remain engaged throughout the workout.

My leg sessions always start with compound exercises, such as, the squat, deadlifts etc, then I tend to move onto the isolation exercises to ensure that burn. This arrangement of exercises helps me to lift heavy, ensuring my muscles aren't exhausted by the time I get to the compound exercises.

I normally use supersets, although I have used 6-12-25 in the past when short on time and it nearly killed me!! Serious DOMS!!! I tend to stick to 8-12 rep ranges, 3-4 sets, 6 exercises, with a variety of compound and isolation exercises. I always go heavy, sometimes very very heavy, now and again I will go a little lighter but with an increase in reps if I'm still feeling sore from last leg day. When going to the gym to do a leg session, I am normally super pumped because I know I'm going to push myself, get a sweat on and leave feeling like I've had a good workout. Everytime I step foot in the gym I am attempting to increase the volume of weights I'm lifting (it's like some kind of competition with myself), it gets me motivated and determined. My lower body has gotten incredibly strong now, I train it 3 times a week and sometimes I will include intervals on the prowler (which burns your quads like no other) at the end of my leg sessions as a finisher.

Cool down's are just as important as warm-up's, it allows our heart rate to return to a normal rate safely, avoiding the dizzy or faint feeling that some people feel after suddenly stopping exercising. I normally just jump on the treadmill slowly decreasing the speed for 5 mins.

Stretching is the very last thing I do, I NEVER finish any session without stretching, it helps with recovery and often reduces my DOMS and prevents injury. I ensure I stretch my upper body as well as my lower body because as I mentioned it helps to reduce DOMS from my upper body workout the day before. Please ensure you include stretches at the end of every workout, you will really notice a difference with your recovery.