Here’s an email I got on this video the other day. First here’s the vid.

Some Of The Best Leg Exercises For Building Mass

Great exercises for overal leg strength man loved the video… BTW do you split legs? anterior and posterior chain? one other thing is what exercises should one follow to hit the hamstrings for strength and how often to avoid overtraining? Thanks for the great post..

I don’t split up legs. In the past I’ve trained quads and hamstrings on different days when I followed more of a body building style. Now I either train with full body workouts or split up upper and lower body. Which one I do is dependent on a few things. How often I train jujitsu, how much time I can commit to training, and what I’m training for (conditioning, strength, or size). If I’m training for conditioning I use full body workouts. If I’m not and I can train at least three times a week, I split up the upper and lower, which I’ve seen far better results with than splitting up a bunch of muscle groups bodybuilding style.

All the hamstring exercises shown in this video can build hamstring strength. Some are more assistance exercises than anything. The hamstrings are predominantly fast twitch muscles, so anything to high in reps won’t really get them stronger, especially when training knee flexion exercises (I see the best results with rep ranges from 4 to 8). With hip extension exercises you can take the reps a little higher and still see strength gains. I generally don’t take these higher than 12.

My leg training is based around the squat and dead lift and all their variations. Assistance exercises are pretty much all the rest shown in the video. I use them to help bring up weaknesses that would affect the squat and dead lift. Here’s a few of my favorites.

  • Forward Lunge onto Step: Really hits the glutes hard and inner hamstring and adductor muscles.
  • Bulgarian Split Squat: Great quad dominant exercise. Also a good active hip flexor stretch on the back leg if the knee is behind the hip.
  • Standing and Seated Good Mornings: Great hamstring exercise that can really bring up the squat.
  • Glute Ham Raise (GHR): Trains both hip extension and knee flexion concurrently. Also a closed chain exercise unlike the lying leg curl.
  • Backwards Sled Drag: This is the best exercise I’ve found for strengthening the VMO (Vastus Medialis Oblique).

The prowler with a ton of weight on is another favorite of mine for gaining strength/building muscle. And for conditioning if pushed with short rest intervals and/or over a longer distance (120 yard prowler push with the high handles for speed is a killer).

Those are just a few of many that I use. Some of the exercises shown in the video I no longer can do since I don’t have the equipment. I really miss reverse hypers.

That is what I do for myself. Here’s a workout me and my training partner did for legs just the other day.

1. Back Squats: 2 Waves of 5/3/1

2A. GHR: 4 Sets of AMRAP (As Many Reps As Possible)

2B. One Legged Calf Raise: 4 Sets of 10-12 (for vanity reasons)

3. Back Extensions: 3 Sets of 10-12 (used a med ball for an external load)

For my athletes, it all depends what they need. For instance, If someone has a lot of structural imbalances in the lower body and can’t squat, I might use a lot of unilateral exercises to correct this coupled with mobility exercises. Lots of which are shown in the video. These are performed with rep ranges ranging from six to as high as twenty. I never train them as max lifts (reps that are between 1 and 5) because form usually suffers and starts to resemble a circus act. Getting anyone to squat and dead lift correctly should be a priority though. If you want strong legs nothing works better.

Overtraining is relevant to so many things such as

  1. Volume and Intensity: How many sets and reps you take. If you overtrain with volume you feel like you could sleep forever. With intensity you feel like you can’t sleep enough. And intensity isn’t based on how hard you think you trained or how good of a pump you got. It’s determined by your percentages to your 1 repetition maximum.
  2. Nutrition: Your nutritional needs must match your training. So if you’re training with high volume or high intensity you’ll need to eat more than your regular Joe.
  3. Sleep quality: 8 quality hours of uninterrupted sleep is what most people need. How good is your sleep quality?
  4. Genetics: Some people can just tolerate harder and/or more training more often than others. Dr. Peter D’adamo claims this is blood type related. The O blood types can tolerate more stress than the B types. I’ve heard others say it’s neurotransmitter related. Dopamine dominant people can ride the nerve a lot longer and harder than the gaba dominant. Some also relate this to the chinese elements, earth, water, wood, fire, and metal. I’ve noticed that as I’ve gotten older I can’t train as hard and as long as when I was in my early twenties. Taking a ton of glutamine can really help though.

Here’s three signs that you’re over training.

  1. You lack the desire to train when normally you have it.
  2. Your appetite is no longer there.
  3. Your numbers are dropping. The numbers I’m referring to are your reps and poundages. You are measuring these right?