3 times a week leg training

[BrotherIron]

Well, there's the "Bulgarian method"
I recall from my brief foray into oly lifting 20 yrs ago that I squatted almost daily, but the point was to develop the lifts themselves rather than the squat.
I have considered the idea of leaving a light weight in the rack and squatting it every time I enter the gym.

The Bulgarian method is not something anyone should do. It was about daily maxing, working with singles up to a max single and then after failing performing another wave. Ivan destroyed hundreds of athletes to make his team and they were all drugging heavily.

 

[monsoon]

The Bulgarian method is not something anyone should do. It was about daily maxing, working with singles up to a max single and then after failing performing another wave. Ivan destroyed hundreds of athletes to make his team and they were all drugging heavily.

I was not suggesting it as a viable alternative, rather daily squatting.
Returning to the original poster, while along the same lines, I have heard of daily 100 rep leg press, not nearly as stressful as daily squatting.

 

[BrotherIron]

I was not suggesting it as a viable alternative, rather daily squatting.
Returning to the original poster, while along the same lines, I have heard of daily 100 rep leg press, not nearly as stressful as daily squatting.

You have to figure that a leg press isn't nearly as stressful to the lifter as squatting daily. I trained with a guy for a short period where he squatted daily and while he made gains in size an strength, he found that he grew in size and strength more when he dropped it to 3x a week.

 

[JR Ewing]

For a good 20 years I've been splitting up quads and hams/calves into 2 workouts, hitting each once a week (or slightly less). When I started training 30 years ago, my legs were like toothpicks. They soon became my best bodypart.

I reached a point in my mid to late 20's where I could not do my entire lower body justice doing all 3 muscle groups together, and I was frankly having a very hard time completing such a workout. I was able to train each of the 3 muscle groups with greater intensity and volume by splitting them up, and my legs became much bigger and better over time.

Maybe consider trying hams/calves on Monday, upper body maintenance on Wednesday, and quads on Friday?

I will typically do 8-10 sets of various leg curls for hams (mostly 8-10 reps per set), and I also do some form of deadlifting roughly twice a month. I do 10-12 total work sets for calves (standing, seated, donkey) using moderately heavy weights, short rest periods, and a full ROM.

For quads I typically do at lest 5-6 sets of full squats for 6-15 reps, 3-4 sets of plate loaded machine squats for 6-15 reps, and several sets each of leg presses and hacks for 8-15 reps. I may occasionally do a final set of 20-30 reps of squats with a lighter weight at the end of the workout for a goof. I try to finish quads in under an hour. After 12-15 such work sets for quads I am totally whipped.

 

[chicken_hawk]

Greg Nuckols has some good info : https://www.strongerbyscience.com/the-bulgarian-method/

Sheiko also works off the same principles and if you google Norwegian Powerlifting Routine you will find an in house study they did with great results. I did Sheiko 29 (beginner) for meet prep and after 7 weeks I could barley lift 60% of my max. It was too much and I jumped right in from 1x wk training. However, I shit you not, I deloaded the final 5 weeks to the meet and set the masters 242 40-45 record (stood for about a week) and nearly shit my pants.

Take home being is that overreaching is good, overtraining is bad. A good place to start is simply divide current volume by two or three and start there. One can't simply triple the volume as I can attest too.

Hawk

 

[chicken_hawk]

Greg Nuckols has some good info : https://www.strongerbyscience.com/the-bulgarian-method/

Sheiko also works off the same principles and if you google Norwegian Powerlifting Routine you will find an in house study they did with great results. I did Sheiko 29 (beginner) for meet prep and after 7 weeks I could barley lift 60% of my max. It was too much and I jumped right in from 1x wk training. However, I shit you not, I deloaded the final 5 weeks to the meet and set the masters 242 40-45 record (stood for about a week) and nearly shit my pants.

Take home being is that overreaching is good, overtraining is bad. A good place to start is simply divide current volume by two or three and start there. One can't simply triple the volume as I can attest too.

Hawk

 

[chicken_hawk]

Greg Nuckols has some good info : https://www.strongerbyscience.com/the-bulgarian-method/

Sheiko also works off the same principles and if you google Norwegian Powerlifting Routine you will find an in house study they did with great results. I did Sheiko 29 (beginner) for meet prep and after 7 weeks I could barley lift 60% of my max. It was too much and I jumped right in from 1x wk training. However, I shit you not, I deloaded the final 5 weeks to the meet and set the masters 242 40-45 record (stood for about a week) and nearly shit my pants.

Take home being is that overreaching is good, overtraining is bad. A good place to start is simply divide current volume by two or three and start there. One can't simply triple the volume as I can attest too.

Hawk

 

[chicken_hawk]

Greg Nuckols has some good info : https://www.strongerbyscience.com/the-bulgarian-method/

Sheiko also works off the same principles and if you google Norwegian Powerlifting Routine you will find an in house study they did with great results. I did Sheiko 29 (beginner) for meet prep and after 7 weeks I could barley lift 60% of my max. It was too much and I jumped right in from 1x wk training. However, I shit you not, I deloaded the final 5 weeks to the meet and set the masters 242 40-45 record (stood for about a week) and nearly shit my pants.

Take home being is that overreaching is good, overtraining is bad. A good place to start is simply divide current volume by two or three and start there. One can't simply triple the volume as I can attest too.

Hawk

 

[chicken_hawk]

Greg Nuckols has some good info : https://www.strongerbyscience.com/the-bulgarian-method/

Sheiko also works off the same principles and if you google Norwegian Powerlifting Routine you will find an in house study they did with great results. I did Sheiko 29 (beginner) for meet prep and after 7 weeks I could barley lift 60% of my max. It was too much and I jumped right in from 1x wk training. However, I shit you not, I deloaded the final 5 weeks to the meet and set the masters 242 40-45 record (stood for about a week) and nearly shit my pants.

Take home being is that overreaching is good, overtraining is bad. A good place to start is simply divide current volume by two or three and start there. One can't simply triple the volume as I can attest too.

Hawk