I, Faith Sloan threw out the following question on the FEMUSCLE list. How do I get awesome quads short of the juice? On 08September1995, Linda offered me the following torture routine:

OK Faith you asked for it.... Actually i was on the stair master this AM reading my latest issue of FLEX, and found a great artical that describes my leg trainiing. The artical was titled something like "how to build awsome legs", (i dont have it with me, but i'm sure you can find it), anyhow... the author goes on to describe a concept called "DESIRE" and that the specific excercises don't really matter its more how you do them. Reading the examples he had in there sent a chill down my spine, cuz it was like reading an artical i would have written if i knew how to get the words out. Anyway... Ive done most all of the sick examples that were cited in there, and what can i say... DESIRE, yes... INTENSITY, even more so.

It has to do with an attitude. You go in ready to tear them up. I'll even give you a sample workout. Warning..i dont want letters from everyone about overtrainning... cuz it doesnt overtrain me. I guess thats where the genetics part comes in.

OK... walk in jump onto the leg extension,
WU. a set of warmups 10-15 reps at a light weight, (strech a little btwn)
WU. another set of warmups 10-15 reps at a med. weight, (strech a little btwn)
1. a good working set 8-10 reps at a good heavy weight
2. another like it a little heavier
3. go up a little more and have partner force rep 8 out of you, immediatly drop the weight by 1/3 and squeeze out 8 more
immediatly drop the weight by 1/3 and squeeze out 8 more
> this tripple drop should have you launching to get off the machine
> and shake this out
4. Stay at this weight or go up a little and do the last set again (all three drops
5. If i am feeling particularly masochistic, do another with four drops (ouch)!
Now the pump is unbelievable, time to get over to the inverted leg sled
(MY PERSON FAVORITE..)
W. Throw a few plates on each side and do a set of 10-12 (warm up)
1. Add another plate to each side and start the sick drop sets
- 4platesX 8 reps
- 3platesx 8 reps
- 2 plates x 10 reps
2. Add anotehr plate to each side and do another drop set (as many reps per set as you can get out)
- 5plates, 4plates, 3 plates, 2plates
3. if you can add another plate (maybe a 25), here we go again
this time keep stripping plates till you get all the way down to 1.
4. feeling good...repeat the last set, or... you can try this
start at 2 plates rep out 10-15, go up to 3 plates rep out 8, go up to four plates, rep out whatever you can with a few forced reps.
(ALWAYS HAVE A SPOTTER...THESE ARE TOUGH!!!)
Next one...
Next pick something like front squats in a smith machine or reverse squats on a tri-start hack machine (same priciple as the front squat).
1. pick a weight that you can barely get 10 repts for and do a set of 10
squeeze the hell out of these, make them hard!
go find a place to blast out as many reps of sissy squats w/no weight as a superset.
2. go up or down in weight depending on how the last set went and do another gut wrenching set of 8-10.
repeat sissy squats 3. repeat #2.

Last but definitely not least are 3 or 4 sets of WALKING LUNGES with light dumbells. Some call these "duck walks" or "death walks". The important thing here is not the weight (used mostly for balance), i use 25 lb dumbells, but the form. You want to do these so you are working the front leg not the back leg. As you lunge down lean into the lunge, as you come up all the weight has to be on the front leg so that the back leg is almost floating. If you use your back leg you will feel a hamstring workout on the wrong leg rather than the quad burn you are looking for. I find a nice clear strech of space and lunge my way down and back (30 ft each way is good).

I COULD go on and on coming up with this kind of stuff. I do similar type workouts for hams, but i tend to prefer to use supersetting rather than drop sets on them. I like doing hams and quads on different days.

As a note: my partner usually bailes out before I am through with quads, he overtrains much easier than i do, and knows his limit. He always sticks around to spot and encourage me. He keeps me from overtraining, i keep him from undertraining... a good partnership

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