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.
This trend has grown in popularity over the last ten years and, naturally, many celebrities have caught onto the fact that there is a good business opportunity here. This is why you'll often find personalities regularly releasing fitness dvd's which cash in on the 'next big thing' in fitness. As you'll discover, however, the superior workouts tend to come from those who purely train because they enjoy training.
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.
Of course, two of the major factors behind the huge results are the intensity of each session and the nature of the exercises being performed. While sticking to old, proven movements such as Squats and Leg Curls, you will be able to adopt new techniques such as keeping minimal rest periods between sets, therefore increasing your fat loss results and stamina simultaneously.
If you can get the right techniques in place the actual exercises can be kept relatively straight forward, as you can see below.
* Box Squats - 5 sets of 25 repetitions.
* Four sets on the Leg Press machine, with reps of 25, 20, 18 and 16 in a pyramid fashion. This is immediately followed by a burnout set of twenty five reps.
* 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.
* And finally, the Standing Calf Raise rounds out the session with six sets of 16 repetitions followed by a burnout of 20 after the final set.
One of the biggest mistakes to make, of course, is to look at a session on paper and presume it's going to be very easy because it doesn't incorporate any new, ground-breaking techniques. In fact you have probably performed all of the exercises before. The thing most people overlook, however, is the intensity level. With just 30 seconds of rest after each set you will be pushed hard.
Furthermore, there are two proven hypertrophy principles at play here which will ensure you also get sufficient tears in your muscle fibers to stimulate maximum growth in your lower body. They are the pyramid principle and the burnout principle.
A technique which is nowhere near as commonly used as it used to be, the pyramid system is designed to help you hit each different fiber in the targeted muscle. It does this by gradually lowering the repetitions in each set, allowing you to add more resistance every time you finish a set.
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.
The Rock leg workout is a challenging affair because it sticks to the basics and cuts out the two things which often prevent people from training their legs with the same intensity as they train their upper body. Those two things are a lack of intensity and lack of challenge. By utilizing a minimal rest approach and adopting tactics such as burnouts you will find leg day as engaging as any other session.
This trend has grown in popularity over the last ten years and, naturally, many celebrities have caught onto the fact that there is a good business opportunity here. This is why you'll often find personalities regularly releasing fitness dvd's which cash in on the 'next big thing' in fitness. As you'll discover, however, the superior workouts tend to come from those who purely train because they enjoy training.
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.
Of course, two of the major factors behind the huge results are the intensity of each session and the nature of the exercises being performed. While sticking to old, proven movements such as Squats and Leg Curls, you will be able to adopt new techniques such as keeping minimal rest periods between sets, therefore increasing your fat loss results and stamina simultaneously.
If you can get the right techniques in place the actual exercises can be kept relatively straight forward, as you can see below.
* Box Squats - 5 sets of 25 repetitions.
* Four sets on the Leg Press machine, with reps of 25, 20, 18 and 16 in a pyramid fashion. This is immediately followed by a burnout set of twenty five reps.
* 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.
* And finally, the Standing Calf Raise rounds out the session with six sets of 16 repetitions followed by a burnout of 20 after the final set.
One of the biggest mistakes to make, of course, is to look at a session on paper and presume it's going to be very easy because it doesn't incorporate any new, ground-breaking techniques. In fact you have probably performed all of the exercises before. The thing most people overlook, however, is the intensity level. With just 30 seconds of rest after each set you will be pushed hard.
Furthermore, there are two proven hypertrophy principles at play here which will ensure you also get sufficient tears in your muscle fibers to stimulate maximum growth in your lower body. They are the pyramid principle and the burnout principle.
A technique which is nowhere near as commonly used as it used to be, the pyramid system is designed to help you hit each different fiber in the targeted muscle. It does this by gradually lowering the repetitions in each set, allowing you to add more resistance every time you finish a set.
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.
The Rock leg workout is a challenging affair because it sticks to the basics and cuts out the two things which often prevent people from training their legs with the same intensity as they train their upper body. Those two things are a lack of intensity and lack of challenge. By utilizing a minimal rest approach and adopting tactics such as burnouts you will find leg day as engaging as any other session.
About the Author:
Your next move: Learn how to build muscle with expert fitness coach Russ Howe PTI. This session, the rock leg workout, is just one of many ready on his free gym blog.
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