Ok boys and girls today I am going to introduce you to the worst, but necessary, day of the week. It’s legs day people, or as my brother likes to call it, his off day. Now your leg muscles compose the largest percentage of your body. Your legs are also the muscles that obviously allow you to sustain your weight for movement. With all of that being said, it only makes sense too exercise your leg muscles the same amount as any other muscle in the body. However, always expect to have a rough morning for the next few days.
The first exercise I am going to introduce is the king of leg workouts, aka Squats. When performing a squat its important to always have perfect form when it comes to this workout. Whether you are using the barbell or your body weight, your form still matters. Perfect form for is especially important when squatting with weights. Using incorrect form can result in serious back injuries and or hernias.
Proper form for a squat involves having your legs shoulder width apart with your body fully erect. Make sure to keep your back completely straight during this whole process. From the erect position, sit into your squat by bending your legs but not too much; your kneecaps should be behind the tip of your toes. A way to check this is by looking down in your squat position, if you cant see your toes you need to lean back (or sit into your squat position) until you see your toes again. Also once you’re in your squat position squeeze your thighs inward, this makes the exercise harder, but it focuses more weight on your legs.
The second work out I’m going to talk about only focuses on two muscle groups. Dead lifts are a prime exercise to work on your hamstrings and lower back region. This is my personal favorite workout, this exercise is great to do when working contradicting muscles as I discussed in my earlier post.
To perform a dead lift you can either use a barbell and or dumbbells. To get into dead lift position, stand should width apart like you do in a squat. You then get into squat position keeping your back completely straight. When picking up the weight stand up until your body is completely erect, after go back down into squat position still keeping your back fully erect. After doing this work out your hamstrings and lower back will be burning. However, while doing this work out its important to lift with your legs and not your back. Even though you will be feeling a burning sensation in your lower back, it is important not to lift with your back. A buddy of mine slipped a disk that way; even I have screwed my back up doing this exercise. To make sure no one makes the same mistake as us I’m going to include a video further explaining how to preform this exercise.
Try both of these work out next time in the gym, try aiming to do 4-5 sets each per exercise and aim to do 10-12 plus reps on each. If you really want to a challenging work out, after every set add 10 more pounds to increase the intensity after every set.
Lastly, I want to cover an important topic I received from a comment that I have not yet touched upon. Sleep… A concept everyone in college either looks forward to every day, or is unfamiliar with nowadays. I know everyone has work to do. Whether you’re a college student or you have a high maintenance job, sleep is still very important for the body. Sleep is especially important for recovery after a hard workout. As you sleep, your body regenerates any broken down muscle after working out. Between maintaining a healthy diet, and keeping up with your daily gym sessions, it is imperative to also get 7-8 hours of sleep minimum per day. Anyway boys and girls its best I get on my way to getting some sleep myself. Try out these new workouts next time your in the gym and make sure you all eat healthy and get plenty of rest. Till next time keep pushing yourselves guys.
Heres a link for proper Dead lift form
Heres a link for terrible form…. enjoy..
