Leg routine for Mass/ Strength

Hey Guys I am doing F1 from a powerlifting/crossfit back groud that is primarily hip dominant.  Now I am in a primarily shoulder dominant training which is gymnastics.  Do you have any tips on Structering a two day a week leg routine

How is your SLS, SLS>iM's, MN>iM's, and sPL>iM progress going? Coming from a powerlifting/CF background I would assume your lower body strength is probably decent, but an important point that Coach has made on several occasions is that continuing to develop greater levels of strength/mass without maintaining an equal amount of mobility is a recipe for stagnation at best and injury at worst.

So if you do not have an equal level of mobility and strength (your strength and mobility elements are not tracking equally), you should hold off on adding in additional lower body strength work as it will only continue to widen the gap/exacerbate your strength to mobility deficit.

If you are in balance AND making good progress with your Foundation work, then personally I would start with a few "money" exercises (if you want more quads then things like front squats or high bar/Olympic ATG squats are good options) added at the end of your F workouts after you've finished your main work for the day and see how that goes.

Keegan said:

How is your SLS, SLS>iM's, MN>iM's, and sPL>iM progress going? Coming from a powerlifting/CF background I would assume your lower body strength is probably decent, but an important point that Coach has made on several occasions is that continuing to develop greater levels of strength/mass without maintaining an equal amount of mobility is a recipe for stagnation at best and injury at worst.

So if you do not have an equal level of mobility and strength (your strength and mobility elements are not tracking equally), you should hold off on adding in additional lower body strength work as it will only continue to widen the gap/exacerbate your strength to mobility deficit.

If you are in balance AND making good progress with your Foundation work, then personally I would start with a few "money" exercises (if you want more quads then things like front squats or high bar/Olympic ATG squats are good options) added at the end of your F workouts after you've finished your main work for the day and see how that goes.

I am moving along nicely mobility was diffenatly a weakness now becoming a strength.  I am progressing in the SLS and the PL IM.  Mainly I do not want to lose the mass I gained

Then just adding in some maintenance work at the end of your workouts would be my suggestion. You may still lose a little mass at first, but as your F leg work gets more intense you should gain it back, or you can add additional work if your have the energy.

I prefer to only train with bodyweight exercise.  ANy suggestions on those

For quads?

Assuming you are ready/capable of performing them all:

-Pistols

-Sissy Squats/Natural Leg Extensions (Sissy's are easier to get a full ROM at the knee joint)

-Bulgarian Split Squats

-Step-Ups onto a decline (so ankles are in plantar flexion)

-narrow stance (ideally feet together) ATG squats

Honestly though, if you have achieved mastery of the first few SLS progressions, then either you are going to need a lot of volume on most of these or you are going to need to stick to the unilateral ones or even add weight to them.

I will be doing the Mastery on PE3 next week with no problem,  then on to PE4 Mastery

Plyometrics should maintain the mass right?

Depends how you do them. If you are doing high rep deep squatting plyometric leg work it might, but true plyometrics where you are more so rebounding off the ground is mostly about connective tissue strength and generally won't result in the same level of leg mass as controlled tempo full ROM leg work.

Like explosive lunges and jump squats with Broad Jumps and Single Leg Bounds etc...

If you end up doing barbell work, do not do back squats on the days you do SL/PE1 ABH...unless you want to end up like me with a strained back that takes you out of training for a week in all modalities, and sets you waaaaay back in barbell work. (Fortunately I was able to resume GST the next week without backpedaling.)

Broad jumps and single leg bounds, no not unless you are doing them to complete exhaustion; those are mostly rebound work.

Jumping lunges and jump squats yes if you use full ROM and lots of volume.

How about something like this?

2 Sets – 6 Lunges (Each Leg) + 4 Lateral Explosive Bounds + 5 Tuck Jumps

3 Sets – 5 Vertical Jumps + 6 Assisted/Non-Assisted Pistol Squats + 20 Stiff Leg Calf

Raise Jumps

3 Sets – 10 Lateral Lunges (Each Leg) + 6 Vertical Jumps + 5 Knee “Get Ups”

4 Sets – 30 Second Squat Hold + 6 Broad Jumps

3 Sets – 6 Tuck Jumps + 6 Split Jumps (Each Side) + 4 Lateral Lunges (Each Side)

4 Sets – 3 Assisted/Non-Assisted Pistol Squats + 4 Lunges (Each Side)

3 Sets – 5 Single Leg Forward Bounds + 10 Squats + 15 Hip Thrusters

3 Sets – 12 Knee Get Ups

4 Sets – 20 Yard Sprint

You can try it, and obviously you know your body better than anyone else does, but personally I think you would want to raise the reps or increase the load rather than doing all of those short duration explosive movements if your goal is mass. I would also question whether you could recover from the addition of all of that and still make aggressive progress with your F work, but again, only you know your work capacity.

Also, even if your mobility and strength are currently in sync, the addition of such added strength work will require an equal increase in mobility work to maintain that balance. You could of course add this at the end after your strength work, but TBH there is a reason Coach has us doing our mobility work between out sets of strength work and it's because most of us won't actually consistently do it if we save it for the end of our workouts.

So, I would honestly just suggest you do something like:

Pistol (assisted if need be) to technical failure

Lower body mobility exercise

Step ups onto decline to technical failure

Lower body mobility exercise

Jump squats for time (1 minute should fry them)

Lower body mobility exercise

Bodyweight ATG squats to technical failure

Lower body mobility exercise

all done Foundation style where your mobility exercise is the only rest you get between sets of the strength exercises. The strength exercises are more or less structured in a "mechanical drop set" format going from most strength/coordination intensive to least (with a plyometric exercise thrown in since you seem to want to do some explosive work). You could also do different mobility exercises between each strength exercise or do the same one (if you know you need extra attention on a certain area).

Or at least add in a mobility exercise between each one of the strength sets in the workouts that you proposed.

If you only want to maintain strength just do 1x5 of Squat, F. Squat, and Power Clean once a week with your max weight (after warm-ups), ideally after your F1 training or on a different day. Once a week should be enough.

No need to do full metcon as it will affect your recovery. Metcon is needed if you want to maintain muscle endurance but F1 will already do that for you if you train without rest.

Plyometrics will maintain your muscle endurance, stamina and explosiveness but will not maintain strength, i.e. if you squat 300lbs, don't expect to maintain that with just plyometrics.

I dont have a gym membership anymore becasue I have stream lined my life and time to build my company.    Are there any body weight things I can do to maintain because I was squating 400+ and deadlifting the same

COACH SOMMERS can you chime in on this discussion please?!

pcain420 said:

Hey Guys I am doing F1 from a powerlifting/crossfit back groud that is primarily hip dominant.  Now I am in a primarily shoulder dominant training which is gymnastics.  Do you have any tips on Structering a two day a week leg routine

Wushu it's a primarily leg dominant type of training and has strength, mobility and explosive power in the mix (and it's a sport, not a martial art in its contemporary incarnation).

I usually think of it as the optimal complementary practice to gymnastics... just saying

Coach has mentioned on several occasions that it is not uncommon for his athletes to pull 2x bodyweight Deadlifts on their first day in the weight room. During some recent discussions the benefits of building up (SLOWLY over the course of months) Jefferson Curls until the resistance you are using is equal to your bodyweight, and the obvious carryover this would have to things like Deadlifting and squatting (especially "low bar" PL style). So if you have already mastered MN/PE1>iM I would suggest starting to work on Jefferson Curlswith an appropriate weight (even if you haven't yet moved on to PE2 and PE2>iM you could add some JC's in after you've finished your other main work for the day).

Aside from that getting through the SLS series and corresponding mobility elements should build sufficient muscular and connective tissue strength to allow you to squat pretty close to (if not more than) 2x bodyweight as well. It will also greatly decrease the chances of injuring yourself while squatting heavy.

I don't know what you currently weigh though, so 2x BW may or may not satisfy your 400 lb previous lifts.

Keegan said:

Coach has mentioned on several occasions that it is not uncommon for his athletes to pull 2x bodyweight Deadlifts on their first day in the weight room. During some recent discussions the benefits of building up (SLOWLY over the course of months) Jefferson Curls until the resistance you are using is equal to your bodyweight, and the obvious carryover this would have to things like Deadlifting and squatting (especially "low bar" PL style). So if you have already mastered MN/PE1>iM I would suggest starting to work on Jefferson Curlswith an appropriate weight (even if you haven't yet moved on to PE2 and PE2>iM you could add some JC's in after you've finished your other main work for the day).

Aside from that getting through the SLS series and corresponding mobility elements should build sufficient muscular and connective tissue strength to allow you to squat pretty close to (if not more than) 2x bodyweight as well. It will also greatly decrease the chances of injuring yourself while squatting heavy.

I don't know what you currently weigh though, so 2x BW may or may not satisfy your 400 lb previous lifts.

 

 

I curently weigh 190-195 and the last time I squat and deadlift it was closer to 2.5 of bodyweight

Well then it's possible you could potentially lose a little strength then, but also consider that Coaches athletes had never deadlifted or back squatted previous to those lifts, so I'm sure with a little technical refinement and specific work on those lifts they would be able to lift even more. Those lifts were also completely raw to the best of my knowledge (so no knee sleeves/wraps and no belt).

Even if you did lose a little strength, it should not take you long to regain it with some specific training, and the connective tissue strength, mobility, and reduced risk of injury that you will gain by completing the program is well worth it in the long run IMO.

Keegan said:

Well then it's possible you could potentially lose a little strength then, but also consider that Coaches athletes had never deadlifted or back squatted previous to those lifts, so I'm sure with a little technical refinement and specific work on those lifts they would be able to lift even more. Those lifts were also completely raw to the best of my knowledge (so no knee sleeves/wraps and no belt).

Even if you did lose a little strength, it should not take you long to regain it with some specific training, and the connective tissue strength, mobility, and reduced risk of injury that you will gain by completing the program is well worth it in the long run IMO.

Absolutely all the way raw, IMO if yo uhave to add things to your body to help you lift something you shouldnt be lifting it!

Yeah agreed, but since you mentioned Powerlifting I wasn't certain. I know quite a few PL'ers and they range from 100% raw to triple ply denim benching, squat suits, and wraps up the wazoo and everything in between, so you never know.

Keegan said:

Yeah agreed, but since you mentioned Powerlifting I wasn't certain. I know quite a few PL'ers and they range from 100% raw to triple ply denim benching, squat suits, and wraps up the wazoo and everything in between, so you never know.

Yeah I have seen that.   I have been doing calesthenics for a year then decided to buy Foundation series.  Its tuff going back to basics- kinda boring at times