At one stage or another, almost everybody who uses the gym has gone online in a bid to search out the workout program of their favorite celebrities. After all, if you're trying to learn how to build muscle you'll probably find it easier if your favorite movie star is teaching you, right? That's the theory many fitness enthusiasts have and one of the public figures who is usually at the forefront of this trend is wrestler and actor Dwayne Johnson.
This trend has grown in popularity over the last ten years and, naturally, many celebrities have caught onto the fact that there is a good business opportunity here. This is why you'll often find personalities regularly releasing fitness dvd's which cash in on the 'next big thing' in fitness. As you'll discover, however, the superior workouts tend to come from those who purely train because they enjoy training.
The Rock leg workout is something which is particularly eye catching.
Over the course of the last fifteen months, Dwayne Johnson has undergone a complete body transformation, packing on a lot of muscle and shedding a considerable amount of fat in the process. This is largely thanks to a diet which sticks to the proven principles of hypertrophy and fat loss.
As with most things in life, the best results are achieved when things are kept simple. This applies here, too. While many gym members get caught up in looking for the next big secret exercise to emerge, those who stick to the old proven principles tend to experience superior results overall. Exercises such as Calf Raise and Squat remain unchallenged despite the many advances we've made in sports science over the years. Likewise, adjusting something simple like intensity can yield excellent improvements from a fat loss perspective.
Today's plan consists of just five exercises, which are as follows.
* Box Squats - 5 sets of 25 repetitions.
* Leg Press - Pyramid training with four sets of twenty five, twenty, eighteen and sixteen reps. Any remaining energy is then mopped up with a burnout set of twenty five repetitions.
* Smith Machine Lunges - Four sets of sixteen reps. That's eight on each leg.
* The Lying Leg Curl machine gets four sets of pyramid training with reps of 12, 10, 8 and 6. Again, this is immediately followed up with a burnout set of a further twelve.
* Standing Calf Raise - 6 sets of 16 repetitions with a burnout set of 20 to finish.
You may be looking at the routine and thinking it's a fairly standard workout and in truth you would be correct. The trick is to monitor your intensity level during the session, keeping rest times down to as little as 30 seconds in between each set and 60 seconds as you switch between exercises.
As well as the fat loss benefits of keeping down your rest periods, you will also notice two old principles of hypertrophy are at play here. Those are the pyramid technique and burnout sets.
The pyramid principle allows you to consistently increase the resistance level on every set performed by slightly lowering the target number of repetitions involved as your progress with an exercise.
Burnout sets are designed to mop up any remaining energy left in the targeted body part following the last round. By placing a light weight on the bar and pushing out up to twenty more repetitions immediately after your last set of a particular exercise you will be able to stimulate further growth.
While it sticks to the basics, The Rock leg workout is by no means basic in it's execution. It shows that the trick to building the body your trying to achieve lies not in the exercises you perform but in the way you perform them. If most men are honest with the gym they'll admit that they don't hit their lower body with the same intensity they show when training the 'ego muscles', such as chest and biceps. Losing that bad habit is key to making the most of your potential on lower body workouts like this.
This trend has grown in popularity over the last ten years and, naturally, many celebrities have caught onto the fact that there is a good business opportunity here. This is why you'll often find personalities regularly releasing fitness dvd's which cash in on the 'next big thing' in fitness. As you'll discover, however, the superior workouts tend to come from those who purely train because they enjoy training.
The Rock leg workout is something which is particularly eye catching.
Over the course of the last fifteen months, Dwayne Johnson has undergone a complete body transformation, packing on a lot of muscle and shedding a considerable amount of fat in the process. This is largely thanks to a diet which sticks to the proven principles of hypertrophy and fat loss.
As with most things in life, the best results are achieved when things are kept simple. This applies here, too. While many gym members get caught up in looking for the next big secret exercise to emerge, those who stick to the old proven principles tend to experience superior results overall. Exercises such as Calf Raise and Squat remain unchallenged despite the many advances we've made in sports science over the years. Likewise, adjusting something simple like intensity can yield excellent improvements from a fat loss perspective.
Today's plan consists of just five exercises, which are as follows.
* Box Squats - 5 sets of 25 repetitions.
* Leg Press - Pyramid training with four sets of twenty five, twenty, eighteen and sixteen reps. Any remaining energy is then mopped up with a burnout set of twenty five repetitions.
* Smith Machine Lunges - Four sets of sixteen reps. That's eight on each leg.
* The Lying Leg Curl machine gets four sets of pyramid training with reps of 12, 10, 8 and 6. Again, this is immediately followed up with a burnout set of a further twelve.
* Standing Calf Raise - 6 sets of 16 repetitions with a burnout set of 20 to finish.
You may be looking at the routine and thinking it's a fairly standard workout and in truth you would be correct. The trick is to monitor your intensity level during the session, keeping rest times down to as little as 30 seconds in between each set and 60 seconds as you switch between exercises.
As well as the fat loss benefits of keeping down your rest periods, you will also notice two old principles of hypertrophy are at play here. Those are the pyramid technique and burnout sets.
The pyramid principle allows you to consistently increase the resistance level on every set performed by slightly lowering the target number of repetitions involved as your progress with an exercise.
Burnout sets are designed to mop up any remaining energy left in the targeted body part following the last round. By placing a light weight on the bar and pushing out up to twenty more repetitions immediately after your last set of a particular exercise you will be able to stimulate further growth.
While it sticks to the basics, The Rock leg workout is by no means basic in it's execution. It shows that the trick to building the body your trying to achieve lies not in the exercises you perform but in the way you perform them. If most men are honest with the gym they'll admit that they don't hit their lower body with the same intensity they show when training the 'ego muscles', such as chest and biceps. Losing that bad habit is key to making the most of your potential on lower body workouts like this.
About the Author:
What to do next: Learn how to build muscle with top personal trainer Russ Howe PTI. Today's workout, the rock leg workout, is just one of tons ready on his free fitness site.
No comments:
Post a Comment