Legs Once Or Twice Per Week?

L

luvmydane

0
Hi.
I'm female, 5'5'', 122 lbs, good muscle tone, weight training consistently for over 2 years now. Do not know body fat but I'm starting to see my abs pretty well if that helps..
Would it benefit me more to do legs once or twice a week? I always feel like leg day needs its own day cuz I give it all I got. I usually dont even do cardio on that day but on the rest of the days I run 4 miles and do HIIT two/three times a week plus
Here is what I my week usually looks like

Monday -run four miles , push upper , abs

Tuesday- LEGS
(consists of 4 sets of 8-10 reps on ALL of squats, leg press, deadlifts, weighted donkey kicks, lunges, hamstring curls, and usually some other leg exercise, such as backward lunges, step ups, OR sumo squats with weights..i like this day, it takes all out of me,, takes about an hour, but i feel great afterwards and my legs have decent muscle tone. I just want to make more muscle!! And I am making gains doing this. Would I make more gains with lower volume twice a week? Please help here.

Wed-abs, HIIT

Thurs-pull upper

Friday- HIIt, abs

Saturday- run four miles or off

Sunday rest

Thanks in advance!
Emily
 
I have two suggestions:

1) Change up your leg workout. You may like it, but it's really intense. I can see why it "takes it all out of you". Try and cut down to about 3 or 4 exercises. I'd suggest squats, leg extensions, lunges, and a calf raise of some sort.

2) You work abs too much for your own good. If you can almost "see" your abs, that means you have them and you can relax on being an ab freak and change up your routine a bit. I mean you have 3 days of abs in the week. You workout your abs from running....4 miles enough. Alot of other exercises workout your abs as well.

3) I'd say you COULD factor in another leg workout, but make sure you cut down the exercises to 3 or 4 per session.
 
Emily, here is my thought ... you say you want to build more muscle, are you eating enough to do that ? How is your protein intake ?? If you could list a typical day's diet, maybe we can find something there.
 
JPC1085:

My diet is pretty good...I consume 1800-1900 cals a day,, (hoping thats not to much is my only concern) and I get at least 120-150 grams protein a day from egg whites, cottage cheese, lean meats, etc. Weight is 122 and 5'5'' tall.

I stay away from flour and sugar all week except for maybe dinner/dessert on Saturday night. And I eat lots of fruit/veggies. So my diet is pretty in check, eating 5/6 times a day every 3 or 4 hours at most.

I just want to get really cut.. I have good muscle tone so far, but I always say that i would love to have the body of that dark haired trainer Jillian Michaels on the Biggest Loser! She is my role model!

Emily
 
It sounds like you have yourself in check. I'd say you are probably doing too much legs though. You to a LOT of sets, and with as much running as you are doing, you could cut it down some to throw in another leg day.

People talk about overtraining a lot, but the body adapts to what you do...stress, food, exercise. If you body handles it and you don't have any pain...then it sounds to me like you just live a very healty life style. Kudos
 
luvmydane said:
Hi.
I'm female, 5'5'', 122 lbs, good muscle tone, weight training consistently for over 2 years now. Do not know body fat but I'm starting to see my abs pretty well if that helps..
Would it benefit me more to do legs once or twice a week? I always feel like leg day needs its own day cuz I give it all I got. I usually dont even do cardio on that day but on the rest of the days I run 4 miles and do HIIT two/three times a week plus
Here is what I my week usually looks like

Monday -run four miles , push upper , abs

Tuesday- LEGS
(consists of 4 sets of 8-10 reps on ALL of squats, leg press, deadlifts, weighted donkey kicks, lunges, hamstring curls, and usually some other leg exercise, such as backward lunges, step ups, OR sumo squats with weights..i like this day, it takes all out of me,, takes about an hour, but i feel great afterwards and my legs have decent muscle tone. I just want to make more muscle!! And I am making gains doing this. Would I make more gains with lower volume twice a week? Please help here.

Wed-abs, HIIT

Thurs-pull upper

Friday- HIIt, abs

Saturday- run four miles or off

Sunday rest

Thanks in advance!
Emily
Click to expand...

Are you increasing your loads consisently?

Here's some ideas:

Squats and all the squat varations(includes stepups and lunges) are quad domaint you want to balance that out with some hip doimaint excercises like deadlifts, stiff legged deadlifts, good mornings, pull throughs, leg curls etc

Personally i'm a high frequency guy - i train my legs 3x per usually.

Change your set/rep schemes up every 2-4 weeks.
eg
5x5, 6x4, 10x3, 4x6 etc

If using 10x3 you can just do squat and leg curls for instance and use excercise pairings in one workout session.
eg,
A1: Back squat
A2: Leg curls

A1, rest 90sec, A2, rest 90sec, A1, rest 90sec, A2, rest 90 etc Until you perform 10sets for each excercise.

You could finish that off with 2x12 with lunges and good mornings or calf work if your training your legs once a week.
 
least 2 times for me
 
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