Make Your Leg Workouts Better by Kris Gethin

The other day I had 45 minutes to do as much damage as possible to my legs, stimulating every muscle fiber within my quads, hams, and glutes. Within the workout, I utilized some DTP Extreme leg extension sets which are absolutely hideous by anyone's standards, along with some super slow maximal tension split squats.

However, the one thing I did before any of this higher rep, high tension stuff was squat big.

Related: Kris Gethin's 4 Step Guide to Shredded Six Pack Abs

Having warmed up to build the weight, I squatted 170kg for a single. This is by no means a big squat for me, a one rep max would be somewhere north of 225kg. However, what this does is cause enough stress on my central nervous system to excite lots of higher threshold motor units.

These motor units (specifically the high threshold motor units opposed to standard ones) are like magic switches. When you manage to flick them on, you can manage to recruit up to TEN TIMES the amount of muscle fibers within that muscle.

Quite amazing isn't it?

So that squat in isolation isn't much, nor is it that taxing for just one rep. However what it does do is get my legs ready to grow from all the other stuff I throw at them.

It's a nice little trick, which can be used with most compounds such as deadlifts, bench press, shoulder press etc. There was a sprinter (can't remember which one), American guy I'm sure, who squatted circa 200kg just before breaking the 100M world record. The theory there was the same, I certainly have seen a difference.

Of course, it's fun being strong as well. Creatine will make you even stronger!