Her Active Life

Click here for the Lead Stories

Ask Shannon: Fitness and Nutrition Q & A

Posted June 17, 2008 at 02:00 PM by Shannon Clark

Section: Her Fitness, Training Programs, Special Features, Q & A

With years of training under her belt, resident fitness and nutrition expert Shannon Clark is ready to help you on your way to a healthy, informed lifestyle. Got a question? her your inquiries, and be sure to check back every week for the latest Q&A.

Q: I’m trying to improve the strength in my legs and have been doing fairly heavy leg workouts. Lately though my legs feel like they are always tired. I’m starting to wonder if maybe I am just doing too much or if this is just a normal thing that happens when you’re training hard.

Here is my routine:

Squats – 4 sets of 8 reps
Stiff Leg Deadlifts – 4 sets of 8 reps
Lunges – 4 sets of 12 reps
Leg Extensions – 3 sets of 15 reps
Hamstring Curl – 3 sets of 15 reps
Leg Press – 2 sets of 10 reps
Calf Raises – 4 sets of 20 reps

A: Thanks for the question! It’s great to hear you are focusing on the leg muscles because as these get stronger, they will really help to boost your metabolism, thus making weight maintenance a great deal easier.

Now, with your issue of fatigue, I think the first thing you need to look at is what else you are doing during the week. How many leg workouts are you doing? Are you performing any high intensity cardio sessions (which can theoretically count as a leg workout as well), and how many days of complete rest are you taking?

We need to remember to look at the complete picture here to get a real assessment of what’s going on with your situation.

To address your actual workout, yes, I do feel that you’re doing a little too much.

All you really need is two or three major compound exercises for legs, than the others can be dropped. As long as you are lifting heavy weights and with intensity, you should see good progress without risking overtraining.

The squats and stiff-legged deadlifts are both terrific movements and should definitely stay in there. Four sets is a lot, but if you’re eating well and getting at least one to two days off a week, you should be able to handle this.

After that, I would choose one of the lunges or leg extensions, not both. Lunges are typically slightly more beneficial, so that would be my top choice.

The leg press as well can be thrown out because you’ll already be doing a similar movement with the squat, so instead just focus on maxing out that squat lift, working as hard as you can.

The calf raises look good though; that is a good range to use and four sets should be doable since these muscles are actually fairly resistant to fatigue.

So, to sum up, this is how I would change your workout:

Squats – 4 sets of 8 reps
Stiff-Leg Deadlifts – 4 sets of 8 reps
Lunges – 3 sets of 10 reps
Hamstring Curls – 3 sets of 10 reps (I’d lower the rep range here)
Calf Raises – 4 sets of 20 reps (could go lower to 15 while bumping up the weight if you’d like)