The Best Leg Day Workout: Free Training Program
Leg day. Some people love it, some people hate it. It’s undeniable that training your lower body is critical in sustaining good physical health, from greater athletic performance to healthier movement patterns, training your lower body optimally is vital in helping you achieve your health and fitness goals.
In this article, I’ll be going through the best leg day workout. I’ll provide a comprehensive guide that’ll discuss everything you need to know about leg training, as well as a full workout program for you to try out in the gym.
This article will help you understand
What leg day is and what muscles you’re going to want to train during your workout
How you’re going to want to approach your leg workouts
Why you should train legs consistently
Critical weightlifting concepts to help you reach your fitness goals.
As mentioned previously, I’ll also be providing a free leg workout in the body of this article, fit with images instructing you how to complete each exercise, as well as set procedures detailing how many reps you’ll want to perform and how much rest you should be getting.
Feel free to take screenshots of the program so that you can easily refer to them during your workout instead of continually returning to this webpage. Now let’s get into it.
What is a leg day workout?
Unsurprisingly, leg day involves training your legs and other lower body muscles. The term “leg day” is generally interchangeable with the term “lower body workout,” mainly because lifters refer to their lower body workout as “leg day.”
This workout is essential to every weightlifting program, due to the vast range of muscles that are trained, ensuring a balance between upper and lower body strength. If you’re looking for some gym gear to assist with your training, I’ve written reviews on the best equipment for a home gym, linked here.
Muscles trained on leg day:
Specific exercises and muscle groups targeted on leg day depend on individual preferences, fitness goals, and training programs. The program I’ll provide consists of a diverse range of exercises that’ll train each of your lower body muscles effectively.
The muscles trained during leg day include:
Quads
Hamstrings
Calves
Glutes
Adductors/Abductors
For reference, compound movements ensure an efficient leg workout by engaging numerous muscles simultaneously. You’ll come across this term later in the article.
How to approach a leg day workout
Training your lower body muscles is quite physically taxing. I can confidently tell you that the feeling you get when trying to squat down less than 24 hours after your leg workout is not great. Here are some injury and pain prevention methods that you can try out to minimize this.
Warm-ups are important
Begin your workout with a proper warm-up to prepare your muscles and joints for the upcoming exercises. Spend 5-10 minutes doing some light cardio exercise, such as jogging or cycling to increase blood flow.
Then get to stretching. It doesn’t have to take long, I found this routine which is very similar to my stretching procedure.
Focus on your form
Proper form is crucial during your leg day workout. It helps you avoid getting injured whilst maximizing the effectiveness of the workout. Pay attention to your body alignment by maintaining a neutral spine, engaging your core, and using controlled movements throughout each exercise.
If you're new to certain exercises, consider checking out videos of coaches guiding you through how to correctly carry out the movement.
Rest in between sets
Allow for adequate rest between sets and exercises. I personally find that periods of 1-2 minutes are sufficient for most leg exercises (I take a bit longer with heavy compound lifts, like squats).
During this time, focus on staying hydrated. A wide variety of studies (conducted by the GSSI, as well as many other sources) have found that dehydration can limit muscle growth.
Cool Down and Stretch
After completing your leg day workout, cool down with 5-10 minutes of light cardio, such as walking or gentle cycling. Follow this with static stretches that target the muscles trained during your lower body workout.
Focus on stretching the quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, and hip flexors to improve flexibility and reduce post-workout muscle soreness. I’m going to be honest, I never do post-workout cooldowns. It’s because I can’t be bothered. Should you also disregard them? No.
Cooldowns accelerate the recovery of lactate in blood, which is a fancy way of saying they ease the pain that you feel after an intense workout. If you don’t want to have trouble sitting down for the 24 hours after your leg day, make sure you’re getting your cooldowns in.
Why should you have a leg day workout?
It’d be fair to say that for many lifters, lower body workouts are one of the most hated activities in the gym. Despite this, leg day’s importance is inexpressible. Here are some reasons why you should consistently train your legs.
Functional strength
Your leg muscles are essential for everyday activities like walking, running, climbing stairs, lifting objects, and maintaining balance.
By training your legs, you develop functional strength that improves your ability to perform these movements effectively with reduced risk of injury.
Balanced muscle growth
Leg day workouts engage an abundance of muscles (which I talked about earlier), which contribute significantly to your overall physique and strength.
Training legs helps create a balanced and proportionate physique while promoting overall muscular development.
Increased calorie burn and metabolism
Leg workouts are known for their high calorie-burning potential. Leg muscles are among the largest in the body, and training them requires significant energy expenditure.
Intense leg exercises, such as squats and lunges, can increase your heart rate and metabolic rate, promoting fat loss and boosting your overall metabolism. I’ve written an article on weight loss diets, click here to read it if you’re interested.
Discipline
This is a factor that’s unrelated to your physical health and appearance, yet it’s just as important. Doing things that you don’t want to do is fundamental, not only in the gym, but in all life situations.
By persevering through the urge to skip lower body workouts, you’re remaining disciplined, as opposed to when you choose not to train, weakening your strength of character.
Important weightlifting concepts
Progressively overload each exercise
Over time, aim to progressively increase the difficulty of your lower body workout. This can be achieved by increasing the weight, adding more sets or reps, incorporating advanced variations of exercises, or trying new exercises altogether.
Gradual progression challenges your muscles and helps you continue to make gains in strength and muscle development. I can safely say that once I directed more focus towards progressively overloading all of my lifts, I saw far more progress than I’d ever seen before.
Click here to view a comprehensive study exploring the process of progressive overload.
Rep ranges
In weightlifting, the particular rep range in which you’re training heavily impacts your results. Here's a brief explanation of the different rep ranges and the results they induce.
1-5 reps: Training with low reps and heavy weights primarily focuses on building strength and maximal power.
6-12 reps: This rep range is often associated with hypertrophy training, which aims to increase muscle mass
12+ reps: Training with higher reps and lighter weights focuses on muscular endurance and metabolic conditioning.
It's important to note that these rep ranges are not mutually exclusive, and many training programs incorporate a combination of different rep ranges to achieve a well-rounded training stimulus. You’ll be able to notice this in the program we’ll provide.
Workout routines
Developing a workout routine which suits your needs is essential for efficient and effective muscle growth.
I personally only train legs once a week due to the fact that my upper body muscles are far weaker than my legs, however your situation may be different. I’ll quickly go through how you could fit your lower body workout/workouts into your week.
Here’s how I structure my weekly workouts - I use the push pull legs split (a popular bodybuilding routine)
Monday - Push (chest, triceps, and shoulders)
Tuesday - Pull (back and biceps)
Wednesday - Legs (quads, hamstrings, calves, and glutes)
Thursday - Rest
Friday - Push (chest, triceps, and shoulders)
Saturday - Pull (back and biceps)
Sunday - Rest
Check out my guide to the push pull legs split here.
Here’s how you could structure your week using an upper-lower split, including two leg workouts
Monday - Upper Body (chest, back, shoulders)
Tuesday - Lower Body (quads, hamstrings, calves, and glutes)
Wednesday - Rest
Thursday - Upper Body (triceps and biceps)
Friday - Lower Body (quads, hamstrings, calves, and glutes)
Saturday - Rest
Sunday - Rest
There are so many other ways that you could organise your weekly workout schedule. It all comes down to what works best for you.
Leg day workout program
Here’s the program, including specific set procedures and images providing a visual depiction of each exercise. Consider trying this routine out next time you’re in the gym!
Barbell Squats: 4 sets
12 reps (just the bar for warm up)
1.5 mins rest
Increase weight: 8 reps (80-90% effort)
3 mins rest
8 reps (80-90% effort)
3 mins rest
Increase weight again: 6 reps (essentially 100% effort, best to get a spotter)
3 mins rest
The Barbell Squat
Have your feet shoulder width apart, keep your chest up, and slowly make your way down before pressing upwards
Romanian Deadlift: 3 sets
10 reps (80-90% effort)
2 mins rest
10 reps (80-90% effort)
2 mins rest
10 reps (80-90% effort)
3 mins rest
The Romanian Deadlift
Think about keeping a nice neutral spine. Hinge at nd the hips on the way down, and push your butt back. Try to feel yourself coming back up through your hamstrings
Leg Press: 4 sets
8 reps (80-90% effort)
2 mins rest
8 reps (80-90% effort)
2 mins rest
8 reps (80-90% effort)
NO REST
Half the weight and do max reps (100% effort - this is called a drop-set)
3 mins rest
The Leg Press
Leg Extension: 3 sets
15 reps (90% effort)
2 mins rest
15 reps (90% effort)
2 mins rest
Max reps (100% effort)
3 mins rest
The Leg Extension
Leg Curl: 3 sets
15 reps (90% effort)
2 mins rest
15 reps (90% effort)
2 mins rest
Max reps (100% effort)
3 mins rest
The Leg Curl
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Calf Raises: 3 sets
20 reps (80-90% effort)
2 mins rest
20 reps (80-90% effort)
2 mins rest
Max reps (100% effort)
The Calf Raise
Try to feel a good, long squeeze at the top of the rep (seen in the right figure)
To conclude
Getting into weightlifting is tough, especially considering the wide variety of workout programs and fitness advice out there. In this article, I broke down everything you need to know about the leg day workout, with the inclusion of a full training program to help guide you on your leg training journey. I hope this page has provided you with the information you needed to understand lower body training. Best of luck in your future fitness endeavours!