TRUE Workouts: Leg Burnout
Working your legs is an essential part of any workout routine. It helps keep your body symmetrical and improves your balance, ability to walk or run, enables you to tire less quickly, and helps burn more calories.
And like every other exercise, it keeps your bones and muscles strong and pain-free while helping to get you the lean lower body look so many are after.
Exercise Goals
This workout will focus mainly on the lower body. The first three movements performed will help you gain strength and mobility, while the second two movements will help you target any weak areas that the beginning of the workout may have missed.
Tips Before the Workout
First of all, make sure you complete a proper warm up before diving into this workout. That may consist of some cardio, and/or stretching, and/or foam rolling. On each machine you will need to hit 2-3 warm up sets to find the appropriate working set weight.
To adjust this workout for your skill level, there are a few things to consider.
- For a Beginner: Use a weight that is moderately challenging but enables you to keep perfect form with every rep.
- For an Intermediate: Use a weight that is challenging to complete all your sets.
- For an Advanced: Use a weight that is very challenging to complete the first set. Rest around 3-4 minutes and complete it again at the same weight. This will help maximize strength adaptations.
Proper Forms To Remember For This Workout
- Air Squats
- Start with your feet about shoulder width apart with your toes pointing outward about 30 degrees. Keep even pressure from heel to toe, you should feel the weight mid foot. Bend at your knees and hips at the same time, while pushing your knees out. Keep going down until you are below the height of a chair (lower than you want to go). When standing back up try to push your hips to the ceiling, then stand up straight.
- XFW-7800 Leg Press
- Start with your feet in the middle of the platform and about shoulder width apart with your toes pointing outward about 30 degrees. Your knees should be bent a little past 90 degrees. To be sure you are starting at the right depth, simply adjust the back pad forward or backward to achieve desired bend in knee. Once set up properly, keep even pressure from heel to toe – you should feel the weight mid foot. Keep your knees pushed out and push into the platform until your legs reach almost full extension, do not lock out “hyperextend” your knees. Return back to the starting position slowly until the weight stack is just above resting position and press again.
- Pushups
- Start by lying flat on the ground. Put your hands slightly behind your shoulders with your upper arm angling back slightly toward your side. Your forearm should be vertical to the floor. Before you push your hands into the floor, think three things: Flex your legs, flex your butt, flex your abs. This will ensure your body leaves the floor as one unit. No worm/saggy hip pushups here. Now push into the floor and keep pushing your chest as far away from the floor as you can. Once at the top, lower yourself to lying on the floor again and repeat. If you are not strong enough to do the pushups from your feet, simply leave your knees in contact with the floor and follow the same procedure.
- FUSE-0400 Inner/Outer Thigh (Inner Thigh)
- Place the knee pads on the inside of your leg, then adjust your feet on the pegs that allow the knee pad to hit the upper inside area of your knee. Pull up on the yellow handle and pull your legs out to the side, feel a stretch and release the handle. To start the movement, pull your legs together till the bumpers on the pads touch and pause. Let your legs move back out to the side and stop the movement before the weight stack hits and repeat.
- FUSE-0400 Inner/Outer Thigh (Outer Thigh)
- Place the knee pads on the outside of your leg, then adjust your feet on the pegs that allow the knee pad to hit the upper outside area of your knee. Pull up on the yellow handle and be sure your knees are close together, release the handle here. To start the movement, push your knees apart as far as you can and pause at the out position. Let your legs move back together and stop the movement before the weight stack hits and repeat.
The Exercise
Final Thoughts
Always focus on the form with each movement and rep. This is very important on lower body movements because lack of proper form could lead to knee or back injuries, especially on the leg press and squats. Make each set somewhat challenging but not to the point where your form begins to fail. Log your weights used and simply repeat this workout in a week or so to see how much better you have gotten. The inner and outer thigh machine can tend to make your legs sore, so make sure you stay active, eat enough food, and rest enough. All these factors will help you recover faster.