Wisconsin native Jordan Plantiko, world champion powerlifter turned 2019 IFBB Chicago Pro and Omaha Pro Classic Physique champion, is no stranger to heavy-duty, old-school leg workouts, and with a certified 705-pound squat as a teenager, his results speak for themselves.
Here, Plantiko takes us through a typical quad day and shows us how you don’t have to get fancy or creative to get serious results.
“For this exercise, you can use a dumbbell, a barbell, or just your body weight. I like to keep my stride a little narrower to focus on my quads for this movement and less on the hips and glutes, which you might get going a little wider. It’s important to make sure you take a big enough step so that your knee isn’t extending out too far past your toes, but you also don’t want to take such a big step that you lose your balance. I prefer to go with about 30 total steps, or 15 with each leg.”
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Per Bernal / M+F Magazine
Single-leg Vertical Leg Press
Sets: 3 Reps: 12 per leg
“If your gym has this, I highly recommend using it. For this movement, I like to do one leg at a time, so really focus on each leg. I think a lot of people can benefit from picking an exercise or two in their routine to do one leg at a time. As with other body parts, most of us have a dominant leg, so hitting them individually can really help facilitate strength and growth. I like to keep my foot placement toward the middle of the platform to focus on my outer quad.”
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PAVEL YTHJALL / M+F Magazine
-Degree-Angle Leg Press
Sets: 4 Reps: 25, 20, 15, 12
“This is the main compound movement in which I try to use the most weight possible to hit the required reps for each set. Set 1 is 25 reps, Set 2 is 20, Set 3 is 15, and the fourth and final set is 12. I feel that using the higher reps for the first few sets really helps force the blood into the muscle tissue and gives me a great quad pump early on in my workout, and by not going lower than 12 reps, I take the strain off my joints and reduce the risk for injury often associated with lower rep ranges like four to six. For added intensity, I’ll turn my last set into a dropset by reducing the weight by 50% and taking the set to failure again.”
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Richard Theis / EyeEm / Getty
Leg Extension
Sets: 3–4 Reps: 10–15
“This exercise is used to warm up the quads and the knee joints and serve as a primer for the rest of my leg day. I like to have a brief pause at the top of the rep to really squeeze and contract the quads, making sure every rep counts. Also, just because it’s a warmup and the first exercise in my routine doesn’t mean it’s short on intensity. Once you’re through a few warmup sets and you feel ready to go, you have to put the pedal to the floor.”
