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.
While many celebrity fitness plans are gimmicks designed to sell dvd's, Dwayne Johnson is a figure who simply trains because he enjoys training. In today's article we are going to be paying special attention to the lower body routine he adopts in the gym.
Despite sticking to the proven basics, it would be foolish to assume The Rock leg workout is just going to be another ordinary gym session.
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.
There are two things here which are usually lacking in lower body training sessions. Those are intensity and basic movements. While many people get caught up in looking for the next big development in exercise and science, such as performing split squats while suspended with a resistance band, this routine sticks to the old classic moves such as Squats and Leg Press. Intensity also becomes a huge focal point of the session, with as little as thirty seconds of rest between exercises to boost fat loss.
The workout plan itself looks quite simple on paper.
* 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 - 4 sets of 16 repetitions.
* Leg Curl - 4 sets of 12, 10, 8 and 6 repetitions with a burnout set of 12 at the end.
* Last but not least is the Standing Calf Raise. Six sets of sixteen followed by 20 reps as a burnout set.
To anybody who finds themselves constantly searching for the next big exercise to develop, this workout may look quite simple. This is a common mistake to make. While it certainly does stick to the basic movements, this actually works in your favor because those basics are still the optimal exercises for building a powerful lower body. Intensity is key here, keeping your rest periods as low as 30 seconds between sets will dramatically increase fat loss results.
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.
The burnout principle, on the other hand, is designed to take your target muscle to absolute failure. It involves finishing your final set then immediately placing a lower resistance on the bar and pushing out up to 20 reps.
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.
While many celebrity fitness plans are gimmicks designed to sell dvd's, Dwayne Johnson is a figure who simply trains because he enjoys training. In today's article we are going to be paying special attention to the lower body routine he adopts in the gym.
Despite sticking to the proven basics, it would be foolish to assume The Rock leg workout is just going to be another ordinary gym session.
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.
There are two things here which are usually lacking in lower body training sessions. Those are intensity and basic movements. While many people get caught up in looking for the next big development in exercise and science, such as performing split squats while suspended with a resistance band, this routine sticks to the old classic moves such as Squats and Leg Press. Intensity also becomes a huge focal point of the session, with as little as thirty seconds of rest between exercises to boost fat loss.
The workout plan itself looks quite simple on paper.
* 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 - 4 sets of 16 repetitions.
* Leg Curl - 4 sets of 12, 10, 8 and 6 repetitions with a burnout set of 12 at the end.
* Last but not least is the Standing Calf Raise. Six sets of sixteen followed by 20 reps as a burnout set.
To anybody who finds themselves constantly searching for the next big exercise to develop, this workout may look quite simple. This is a common mistake to make. While it certainly does stick to the basic movements, this actually works in your favor because those basics are still the optimal exercises for building a powerful lower body. Intensity is key here, keeping your rest periods as low as 30 seconds between sets will dramatically increase fat loss results.
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.
The burnout principle, on the other hand, is designed to take your target muscle to absolute failure. It involves finishing your final set then immediately placing a lower resistance on the bar and pushing out up to 20 reps.
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:
Your next move: Discover how to build muscle with top personal trainer Russ Howe PTI. This workout, the rock leg workout, is just one of tons available on his free gym blog.
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