Frequency for a leg prioritization for an experienced lifter?

[fender75]

Training >10yrs. Legs have always been a (genetic) weakpoint partially b/c I have a good upper. Intensity/exercise selection and everything is in check, I just cant truly catch them up in size or strength. Also have above average femur length for my height.

Now Ive trained legs 2x every 8-9 days for many years, same as all major muscles (2x every 7 a lot too but not lately b/c I prefer async splits). Im thinking about increasing that to 2x every 5-6 days. Do you think this is a wise idea? Worried about recovery and it being counter-productive. Also more wear n tear. On one hand I think lower freq splits are good esp b/c I only do 6-8 HARD sets per muscle per week (see better results) but on the other hand I see good support for increasing freq for lagging areas, I see A LOT of females train legs 3x/wk that have crazy lower halves. Currently I train them 2x in 8 days but split one leg sesh into anterior and posteior so my legs are spread across 3 days instead of 2.

Some generic examples:

For legs 2x every 6 days:

-L/U/off/L/U/off

-Lower/Upper/off/Lower/ChestBack/off/Lower/DeltArm/off (upper 2x in 8)

-Lower/DeltArm/off/Lower/ChestBack/off (upper 2x in 12 days, almost bro split freq)

For legs 2x every ~5 days:

-L/U/L/off/U/L/U/off

-Lower/Upper/Lower/off/DeltArm/Lower/ChestBack/off (upper 2x in 8)

 

[dawn16]

@fender75 You shouldn’t worry about added frequency. If your legs are undersized with your current frequency, then adding frequency would be a natural lever to pull (not the only one, but maybe the most efficient). I think either split you’re proposing would work. Personally, I’d just run U/L/off/U/L repeat. When I run a ULUL, I will do a posterior day and a quad focus day, but the only difference is exercise order and selection, I’ll still hit both on both days.

 

[fender75]

@dawn16 Cool, thanks for the input. One of those three 2 on/1 off options are the main ones Im considering, I feel 3 on/1 off can be a lil much on recovery. I was leaning towards the other two though b/c 1) It feels like more of a leg priority if my upper bodys freq was a little lower and my upper bod doesnt 'need' to be hit the same 2x in 6 days 2) I kinda wanna have dedicated delt/arm and chest/back sessions. I would prefer the 3rd option but that 1x in 6 days upper freq feels a little tooo low.

 

[johntristan]

@dawn16 How do you effectively train your entire upper body in one session without it going on for hours?
Do you skip isolation?

 

[dawn16]

@johntristan Supersets, putting some back volume on leg day.

 

[amerikanka]

@fender75 Long femur club here. Out of curiosity, what leg exercises have you landed on? I've found the hamstring exercises can be more vanilla than my squat patterns.

 

[fender75]

@amerikanka Im average height but proportionally speaking my legs are on the longer side. Always been a fast runner. Obviously BB squats and whatnot have never felt great. My fav moves currently:

Quads: Hacks, leg press, leg ext, split squats

Hams: RDL, seated/lying leg curls, back ext

 

[leny]

@fender75 My legs improved a lot if I stay home from the gym for 3 days after a legday.

 

[mm1992]

@fender75 Upper lower is great for focusing on legs I’d go upper lower off upper lower off off with 2 different workouts. Your exercise selection looks great so I’d have someone check your form on your leg exercises. Quads can usually handle quite a bit of volume and leg extension is a low fatigue option so you could hit those 2x

 

[fender75]

@mm1992 Thanks. My plan was UL or something very similar. I have a few minor gripes w/ the set up you listed.

1) I prefer asynchronous splits that don't line up to the 7 day week, so I usually train things twice every 8-9 days, and am now considering twice every 5-6 for legs. Just dont wanna do twice in 7, haha.

2) My upper body is fairly strong w/ how long Ive been lifting and a full upper body sessions zaps the hell out of me. Im not opposed to having a single upper sesh, or 'maybe' multiple if I do them more frequently. But I just couldnt handle 2 of them in a week. Also theres a part of me that wants to have a dedicated delt/arm sesh in my next split.

3) On the same hand dropping down to 4 sessions would mean mean longer and more fatiguing sessions in general. Maybe too long from an efficiency standpoint. I usually train either 6x in 9 days (2 on/1 off), 5x in 8 days (mix of 2 ons and a 1 on), and Ive had a couple spurts of 6x in 8 days (3 on/1 off). When calculated out these three are 4.7 days/wk, 4.4 days/wk, and 5.25 days/wk. Obviously the less sessions the longer theyll be and the more sessions the shorter theyll be. Im not really sure what is better for recovery/progress and whatnot when weekly volumes equated.

 

[mm1992]

@fender75 I know what you mean I did push,pull,legs off repeat for like 5 years. It takes my legs like 4 days to recover so that’s why I would do it. Now I just train legs once a week since they overpower my upperbody. I’d say try Chest/Back, quads/calves, rest, shoulders/arms, glutes/hamstrings/calves,rest. If your upper body is overpowering your legs, you should try dropping upper body volume. I noticed doing legs 2x a week and having huge strong legs, the recovery demand and extreme fatigue I got from doing legs 2x a week was very much so taking away from my upperbody sessions.

 

[berylpricee]

@fender75 Another option could be:

Push, Pull, off

With quads+calves at the beginning of push day and hams+glutes at the beginning of pull day.

This way you could start every workout with legs.

 

[fender75]

@berylpricee That ones on my list! I have a list of my possible next splits. All are asynchronous (dont align to the 7 day week) and all train legs 2x every 5-8 days (my previous split was training everything 2x in 9 days and I felt my legs could benefit from more. I like the idea of anterior/posterior/off since legs are trained 2x in 6 days and I can start all sessions w/ legs BUT theres a couple things I dislike about this one. Lower bod and upper bod are trained every single sesh. Worried about overuse injuries since its a lot on the joints/ligaments/tendons. It might not cause issue tho. Also many lower body moves (for quads AND hams) hit the glutes hard and theres no recovery there. A lot of splits on my list utilize anterior and posterior days though.

Heres a brief list of the top ones Im considering at the current moment broken down by leg freq. I kinda wanna have a dedicated delt/arm sesh again so Im slightlyyy leaning towards one of those:

Legs 2x in 6 days (all here are 2 on/1 off, leaning towards first one in this group)

-Legs/Upper/x/Legs/ChestBack/x/Legs/DeltArm/x

-L/U/x/L/U/x/L/U/x

-Legs/ChestBack/x/Legs/DeltArm/x

Legs 2x in 8 days (all here are either 3 on/1 off or 5 sessions in 8 days)

-Anterior/Pull/x/Legs/Push/x/Posterior/x

-Quads/Push/x/Posterior/Anterior/x/Posterior/x

-Quads/Push/Posterior/x

-Quads/Push/Posterior/x/DA/Legs/CB/x

-Posterior/Anterior/x/DA/Legs/CB/x/x

Legs 2x in 5 days (all here 3 on/1 off)

-L/U/L/x/U/L/U/x

-Lower/DeltArm/Lower/x/ChestBack/Lower/DeltArm/x (this is alternating DeltArm and ChestBack sessions)

-Legs/Upper/Legs/x/DeltArm/Legs/ChestBack/x

And yes! Ive been training my adductors directly for a while. Also want to keep training neck 2x/wk and prioritize calves a little more (in addition to my general leg focus). Trying my best to keep exercises per day capped at 6 but I do 2 sets per compound exercise so some days will probably have to have 7.

 

[berylpricee]

@fender75 I dont really know about the overuse injury part. In my opinion, its more about that if the total volume is too much is what might cause overuse injuries rather than how to volume volume is distributed, i could be wrong tho.

Yeah the glute (and possibly lower back) fatigue is absolutely something to consider. With this kind of split I would try to limit the glute fatigue on the anterior day as much as possible, by being smart with my exercise selection. Doing exercises like: hack squats, pendulum squats, leg presses (feet low on platform) and leg extensions. And less: barbell squats or bulgarian split squats, etc. And then train the glutes on posterior day with full effort.

 

[pamelamarie89]

@fender75 Great topic. So what rotation did you decide to go with?

 

[fender75]

@pamelamarie89 Went with the first option in the comment you replied to which was legs 2x in 6 days. It was my front runner all along as it ticked the most boxes. Got to do my fav number of sessions (2 on/1 off), got to have a dedicated delt/arm sesh, got to take 1 small step up in leg frequency while still getting 2 days rest between their sessions, didnt have to drop upper freq too low, etc.

Legs/Upper/x/Legs/ChestBack/x/Legs/DeltArm/x

Ignore the rest if you want but imma be a lil nitpicky/nerdy for a sec. Im likin it so far BUT my close side gym (5min away versus my main gym 30min away, 50% of sessions at each or slightly more for side gym) just got the holy grail, a cybex hack squat. I wanna prioritize it over everything and do it twice per training week. But no matter how I do it those 2 cybex sessions will only be 2 days rest apart (overuse down the road?) AND the 1 heavy session of those 2 will only occur 1x every 9 days. If I was doing something closer to my old split the cybex sessions would be 3 days rest apart and the 1 heavy sesh would be 1x every 8 days. Better on both fronts. Plus even though my leg freq would be lower, id be spreading leg work more frequently. Old split was legs 2x in 8 days BUT spread across 3 sessions in 8 days. Currently its legs 2x in 6 days and spread across 3 sessions in 9 days. Also I liked separating leg work half the week fatigue-wise, posterior sessions are fun. Also Im sub 10% BF atm and I liked having a full body pump in my hollywood IG esque gym in this state of my physique as dumb as it sounds lol, versus just having a lower bod session. Imma keep doin what Im doin for now but have a 5 sessions in 8 days split on the back of my mind like before, maybe with a delt/arm sesh in it.

 

[pamelamarie89]

@fender75 Wow that’s a great write up! That split looks great. Big fan of no more then two on, one off and not training upper on consecutive days.

I am 46 and just rejoined a gym after a 10 year exit from the commercial gym world. Garage trainer over that span. My lower used to be bigger when I was consistently hitting the hack’s, sled, leg curl variations etc. 6’3 so with my genetic make up for lower body. squat variations never cut it compared to the those machines. Different strokes for different folks when it comes to squat variations for leg size. The new gym is loaded with what I need. Inverse leg curl machine, leg curl, hack squat, sled, pendulum squat etc. trying to regain some size as well but to much frequency might be a bad thing for me at this point, lol. Every 4th-5th day rotating b/w a quad day and a posterior chain day might be my better option here. Trained lower yesterday with leg curls first, deep front squats and ended with Bulgarians. Friday at gym might be snatch grip rdl’s and then the sled. Trying to rediscover the right frequency with the new toys is a process, lol. Do to much I’m crushed for days

 

[berylpricee]

Also: Start using the adductor machine, its very underrated.