Gym Leg Routine For 40 Something Bloke.

A snowHead

Last night at gym-
Leg press machine (squats) 3 sets of 12 reps. (Fully loaded on set 3)
Leg curl machine 3 sets of 12
Leg extension 3 sets of 12

Lunges with dumbells 3 sets of 20 (10 per leg)

Session also included arms, chest, abs and 25mins fairly hard CV work.

Dynamic enough? Cool

A snowHead

Or you could just, y'know, squat. Don't use machines. Isolation is pointless and builds muscles that know how to work in isolation. You could just do 3x5 back squats or low bar back squats and save a ton of time too.

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Mollerski, my own view is that if you're doing legs, chest, arms & CV in the same workout you'd be better off doing them individually on 4 different days and trying to up the intensity.

You may not wish to go to the gym so regularly, but I'd certainly split the leg stuff from the hard CV.

Also tend to agree with DaveC but with the proviso that squats done badly are the fastest way to the physio's table. Legs curls and extensions do zip for me, I just do lunges and squats with a heavy kettlebell

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I would say not dynamic enough and you could do , like the others say, non-machine exercises that would be better. The lunges are fine but I would do more other stuff, like free weights, squats, kettlebell swings, bulgarian split squats etc etc

My trainer told me that you should do cv after resitance work if you want to lose weight.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

gryphea, agreed.

Stay off the weight machines. Squat standing on a BOSU, squat with weights, do one legged squats, vary the stance too between narrow and wide. Use the stepper machine, the rower, the bike and the running machines.

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There's not much evidence that instability type training (ie BOSU) does anything but risks hurting yourself, and I'd recommend just getting good at moving heavier weights rather than variation for the sake of it. People tend to stop lifting weights when it gets hard, which is where form and diet make a big difference, and is where you actually get stronger. Overcooking volume or trying to be "dynamic" for the sake of it happens a lot. You can be dynamic with back squats, deadlift, bench and overhead press as all you do (two eccentric, two concentric compound lifts for upper/lower).

As for CV vs resistance, aiming to get stronger and lighter at the same time is impossible - if you get stronger your body will recompose to a higher % of muscle vs fat, and if you want to just lose fat and get lighter then you're burning excess stored mass, which isn't a state where you can get stronger. A lot of people spend their time in the gym spinning their wheels, it's worth reading around it a little bit.

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DaveC, I didn't mean for him to use weights with the BOSU. But I still think they help balance.

After all it is free

Mosha Marc, oh okay, some absolute mentalists advocate actual weights on instable surfaces. I don't know much about plyo/balance type stuff, besides it's not my strong point Smile

DaveC,

Isn't there two types of strength though? I'm way more intrested in endurance and preventing injury that I am building large muscles. I do pretty much all my resistance work (which is mostly body weight stuff) in order to ski better, manage tough hikes etc and be less likely to injure myself generally. This is increasingly important as you get older. Its also fairly important for females my age to do weight bearing excercise to prevent bone loss. And high weight small reps doesn't do this i don't think? Plus I still think the cardio is good for cv health and for feeling better. So what I am saying is that if you want to build large muscle quickly your approach is best; but that's not everyones goal.

SO a lot of what you say comes from the minimal do as much as you need to build big muscle approach (you say very simialr stuff to Tim Ferris in his 4 hr body book, but then he's spent years as a body builder).

I think that's where the BOSU comes in ; it does improve balance which can help prevent injury; it can train your brain to adapt quicker and make injury less likely

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Kettle bell routines , upto 24kg work really well for legs and core

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DaveC, I must be a mentalist as I do quite a lot of work using weights on a BOSU! I find it works really well for my sailing which is by it's nature exercise on an unstable surface!

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glp9, yep. If you can find any research that justifies precarious weirdness to strain stablizing muscles instead of just straining them safely with more work effort I'd be interested, but that's the gist of why it's weird.

gryphea, muscle gain is directly related to calorific intake - you're pretty much talking about cardio with weights. You can do high (relative to your current strength) weight small rep lifts to maintain body mass as long as you're eating equal to your calorific requirements (or less). Working on balance is fine, do yoga or plyo or something, learn to slackline. Doing it in resistance training is like jogging for leg power.

Proprioception- its about develoing neuromuscular to prevent injury. lots of scholalry articles.

PS. Should state trainer told me the stuff about cv. it doesn't reflect what I do.

Anyway I continue to do what physio has told me and I see untold benefits. Here they do kinesiology degrees before their phsio degree.

You know it makes sense.

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Gym Leg Routine For 40 Something Bloke.

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