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Leg
Workout
Your Body Is A Tool So Take
Care Of It And It May Save Your Life
Someday
The leg muscles are
a very large muscle group that needs to be worked hard in
order to get them to grow. In training your legs you will
be hitting the quads, hamstrings, and calves to give you
strong & powerful legs that will help you in your Police
Officer duties. In Police work our legs are important
when we chase criminals and when we are struggling with non
compliant suspects. During a scuffle, a powerful set of
legs will give you an advantage over your opponent.
You will want to
incorporate the squat into your leg routine because it
builds strength and power like no
other exercise. If you suffer from bad
knees or bad back you may want to consult your doctor before
doing the squat. The squat puts a lot of stress on your
back so it is smart to use a weight belt when performing this
exercise.
As you can see in the
diagram below you start this move with your head up and
looking straight ahead. Throughout the move your head
stays fixed in that position. In the starting position
you have the bar resting on your traps which is the
muscle of your upper back. You then bring your
body straight down as if you were going to sit down in a
chair.
Some people actually
place a flat bench behind them and when their rear end
touches the bench they know it is time to power the bar back
up to the starting position. If you look at the picture
above showing Arnold doing a squat you will notice that Arnold
is at the bottom of the movement and his upper body is arched
slightly forward and he is looking straight ahead. You should
stop at the bottom position when your rear end is parallel
with your knees. Many people take the movement even
further down but I would caution against that until you are
more advanced.
If you have never done
the squat before it would be a good idea to practice
getting the form down by using a bar with no
weights. In this exercise technique is
everything. Poor technique can get you injured and
we do not want that to happen. Back and knee injuries
are no fun and they often take months to rehab. The
squat will work all of the muscles in your legs and it will
also work your glutes.
As with all workout
routines you will want to start off with 2 warm up sets with
light weight to warm up your knees and muscles. In
the beginner workout we will do 3 work sets of 8-12
reps. The squat is a movement that you must have a
spotter for safety reasons. You can get away with
not using a spotter if you are performing the squat on a smith
machine. Do the squat exercise first in your workout
because it will be the most demanding of your
exercises.
After the squat
you will want to incorporate a movement that targets the
hamstrings which is the muscle at the back of your upper
leg. The leg curl as shown below is an
excellent exercise to work the hamstrings. Now that
we have it the back of the legs we need to hit the front
of the upper legs which are the Quadriceps. Seated
leg extensions as shown below will hit the quads
perfectly. The squat exercise that we started with hit
all of the leg muscles at one time and now we are spot
training each muscle individually.
We have taken care of the
upper legs now we will finish the workout by hitting
the calves. The standing calf raise as
shown below is very good for stimulating the calf
muscles. I like the seated calf raise myself because no
pressure is put on your back or knees.
I included a
diagram showing the lunge exercise because it is a good
movement to strengthen the muscles around your knees and your
quads. Lunges are used by people rehabbing
surgically repaired knees and it works. I also
included a diagram of the seated leg press done on a leg
press machine because it is a good substitute for the
squat for those who have bad knees or bad backs. The seated
leg press puts no stress on the back and minimal stress on the
knees.
Most Police Officer have
to work 20-25 years before they retire so it would be
wise to have legs that will aide
you in the performance of your duties.
Squat
Leg Extensions
Leg Press
Lunges
Calf Raises
Leg Curl
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