This heavy/light thing appears to actually WORK (thank you, W6)

[SteelWeaver]

I've been focussing for several weeks on trying to go light on alternate weeks for each muscle group, and strangely, this seems to be helping my strength gains - I've gone up on either reps or weight on everything in the past couple of weeks, whereas it usually takes a FEW weeks to go up on anything significantly. I'm also able to go really really hard on heavy days, because I know, mentally, that I won't have to kill myself like this again for 2 weeks.

Thank you, W6, and yeah, this board ROCKS.

 

[rez]

can u explain how u do that for legs?

 

[NubianBeauty]

I am using that workout from W6 also It is working for me too..... woohooo

 

[SteelWeaver]

can u explain how u do that for legs?

Mmm, well, I'm doing well on the leg press, but still struggling a bit with squats - I'm starting to think that maybe one or other part which is crucial to squats, but not so crucial to leg press (stabilisers??) is holding me back a bit on squats.

Anyway, I have gone up in reps on squats. Have you looked at W6's workout? I'm not doing exactly the same thing, a variation, but on both heavy and light days I do 12 sets for quads, then 8 for hams, then I do the Poliquin calf workout that MS posted in spatterson's "Hard-gainer calves" thread a while back.

On heavy days (heavy quads, light hams, then switch the following week) I go as heavy as I possibly can for 6-10 reps on parallel squats, (to the point where my spotter usually has to catch me) then drop the weight a bit and do up to 20 reps for several sets of full, deep squats then breathing reps if I can squeeze them out. Then hit the leg press for 12-15 reps (did 4 plates each side recently - very happy), THEN ... drop the weight slightly and do 50 reps like W6 outlined (25, 15, 10 with 20 sec rests). Crawl off leg press ...

Then drop sets on the leg extension machine.

Straight sets for hams.

Light days - same basic set/rep scheme, but lighter weights, not going to failure. If I feel like I'm not expending enough effort, I shorten the rest between sets, or doing super/tri/giant sets (hard to lift a lot of weight on these, but hard work).

Problem with heavy days is using an Asian style toilet the in the next few days - we're talking full squat needed here!

 

[rez]

ok..i hope i worked hard enough on legs today...cos ill be so pissed off if im not sore tomorrow.

started heavy w leg press 4 sets pyramid, then lighter until failure.

leg ext..same thing

then tried to do d/b lunges and could only get 10 reps out! my legs just felt like jelly...and i train by myself, so i dont have ne1 to spot me or give me extra push.

i then did light hammies, using a swiss ball..and did three sets until failure.

Whenu do legs are u sore for the rest of the day? or do you feel it more the day after?