How I start my workouts: Full leg routine

Much like anybody else, I do have a preference as to what I do in the gym and how I go about my training. A large portion of it consists of obviously what I like to do, but also what has worked for me over the years of trying many different methods and styles. 

My training, in all honesty is really quite simple in comparison to many other styles. I firmly believe in focusing on main functional/compound exercises such as bench press, deadlift, squat, overhead press and barbell row. These exercises are essentially my bread and butter sort of speak.

The main reason why I believe in them so much and use them as the focus of my training is because they allow me or anyone for that matter to put their body under the most significant amount of stress creating the best environment for both muscle growth and fat loss. 

That being said, each and every workout of mine(majority of the time)begins with a compound exercise where I try to progress the exercise Im performing through either weight, volume or intensity. 

So.. about todays workout. I trained legs earlier this morning, today was my hamstring/glute dominate day for legs. For the past 5 years or so I've broken up my leg training into two separate days to allow me to focus more heavily on one part of my legs over the other. On my quad dominate day, I'll perform four exercises for quads with 1 or 2 hamstring exercises, and on a day like today for example I simply just reverse it. 

I started things off with a little superset to open up my hips snd get some blood flowing to my legs. This consisted of a seated leg curl super setted with a thigh abductor machine. In total I performed four sets of each and kept my reps between 12-15 focusing on the contraction of each rep. 

Once I finished this I moved onto my compound exercise for the day which was Romanian or "stiff leg" deadlifts. For this exercise today I performed four exercises of 12-15 reps and my sets went as followed. 135lbs(warm up) 225lbsx2 for 15 275x2 for 12. My back was a little sore from conventional deadlifts earlier in the weeks so I decided stop there although normally I would have performed another 2-3 sets. 

After this I moved to a lying leg curl where I really wanted to focus on controlling each and every rep, as well as upping the intensity now that I was well awake after the previous exercise. For these, I utilized a 2 second pause at the top of each rep as well as a 2-3 second count on the negative or downward portion of each rep. I performed them in this fashion for four sets of 12-15 reps and after my fourth set I dropped the weight and hit 10 reps, dropped the weight again and hit another 10 reps. Also known as a "double drop set" which is a great way to sky rocket the intensity of any exercise ! 

After this my lower back was just about fried, so I went over to the glute bridge or hip thrust machine and performed a quick but powerful 3 sets of 10-12 reps. Once I finished this I decided I would end the workout with a super set for quads to really finish things off intensely. 

For my finishing superset I performed a vertical leg press for four sets of 12-15 reps. If you never used this machine before start lighter because it is a bit of an awkward feeling the first time you lay on your back and press weight over the top of you. Immediately following each working set I walked over to the quad extension machine and performed 10-12 reps on each set. Make sure on this you keep the weigh heavy but not too heavy to the point that you can't control it. You want to make sure you can hold and squeeze each rep at the top for a brief 2-3 seconds before lowering it ! 

Upon finishing this I did perform a quick 3 sets of seated calve raises using higher reps(sets of 30) I train calves almost every other day in a higher rep fashion.. I did also hit some cardio after for about 30 minutes since I didn't hit fasted cardio this morning. All in all It was a great session ! 

If you guys reading this happen to have any questions feel free to reach out to me at confessoreconditioning@gmail.com I would be more than happy to talk to you about your routines and help you in anyway I can. Much love 

-Anthony Confessore 

Owner: Confessore Conditioning 

"Create The Best You"