How I Gained Strength and Size in my Legs

[Music] what's going on guys welcome to the video so I just had breakfast I had one Greek yogurt two bananas and I'm having a cup of coffee while I answer some emails and do some work for become elite I leave for my team training my small group team training in an hour so I have some time to kill right now other than that pretty typical day but the focus of this video I want it to be around my leg day routine I want to show you guys a leg day workout a lower body workout then be very very similar to what I would be doing as a high school kid focused around power strength and a little bit of hypertrophy to really build up the power of the strength and the size of my legs because I've been getting that question a ton but as you'll see there's nothing crazy about this it's very simple there's no exercises in here that are like secrets or they can be mind-blowing but it's just as you'll see the fundamentals but doing that and make consistent with that over 10 15 years anyway I'm gonna do some work but welcome to video [Music] [Applause] [Music] kind of a terrible day to be honest rainy kind of muggy and it's still like warm out it's like 65 but it's kind of weird probably gonna have some lightning or thunder later today like usual anyway I'm headed off to training right now I'm going to try to get a little bit of footage if I stay afterwards and do some individual work or some crossing work or something but we'll see I'm a little bit kind of strapped for time because I have a zoom meeting right at noon with in love with a college so I need to be sure that I'm like back in time for that but we'll see but yeah let's head off to passive facilities [Music] okay so I'm just getting back home to my apartment right now it's 11:45 so we're there for like an hour and thirty minutes I stayed after for like another 15 minutes or so just to do a little bit of crossing and then I did some long balls and first touch stuff not much just a little bit the very end it's always funny with like this quarantine now like we're forced to we can't go into the locker room because of like sanitation issues and stuff so we just have to drive home in our sweaty and dirty gear which is kind of funny it kind of reminds me back to like high school or club soccer days where you're responsible for your own kit but uh but yeah I missed having just dropping off all the clothes in the locker room taking the shower and doing all that stuff but hopefully we'll be able to do that soon soonish I have a zoom meeting with Mac U which is like a local college team in Oklahoma so I'm gonna go hop on Zoom for like an hour with them and talk a little bit about like my story and some like you know answer some questions do some Q&A and stuff and then I'm gonna head back to the facilities to get a workout in so let's do it and then also like if you guys want to transition to the pro game and you're really looking at doing that I think it's so again it's cliche and I mean like I can tell you to work hard and everyone's like oh yeah thanks like okay work hard got it but it really is true I mean like if you from what I've seen at Davis I think from my four years there of all the teammates I had I know seven or eight players that went on to play pro and I'm not like messing with you guys like the seven or eight players that went on to go pro we're always the guys that were like you hit them up on the weekend like you have your group shot like hey anybody want to play 3b3 anybody want to get extra touches in anybody want to go to the gym and those seven or eight guys that were always doing the extra always playing small sighted stuff always willing to hit crosses or do long balls after training always willing just to do a little bit extra those were the guys that ended up playing pro and having successful careers and so you know it is cliche and it's so easy to be like work hard and you know all your dreams will come true but there's no coincidence that the seven guys from Davis that I knew they were always doing the most and always doing the most workouts always taking it the most seriously are the ones that ended up with a becoming four and having the most successful professional careers so I just finished the zoom called Mac you Mitchell Danny all those guys it was awesome really well is 12:45 in the afternoon I'm gonna make a quick lunch and then I'm gonna go back to the facilities and get a leg workout in because I like doing that especially with legs after a full training when I go back to the gym immediately after it's very efficient and I get like out of the way and done but I definitely know that the leg workout isn't as good as if I come home relax for a bit get more food in my system and then be a little bit more fresh when I go back so that's exactly what it's gonna do the goal is to really focus like I said on strength and hypertrophy this is like weird ill have any game so the amount of soreness I get or how much I tear out my legs right now doesn't really matter I'm kind of focused on just that long term building strength building power and all that stuff for my lunch I don't know I'm gonna have right now but we'll figure it out okay here's lunch I did four eggs two veggie sausage patties three rice cakes in an orange so this is gonna be my pre-workout meal right now yes Oh easy there's I I'm gonna go to the gym I'm just doing one like a three-quarter scoop of c4 just now and the step certified for sport so I'm back on with my c4 kick a little scoop have this it's two o'clock in the afternoon and again I'll do a voiceover about the workout the whole focus of this is strength and hypertrophy this is gonna be exactly the type of workout that I did at age 13 14 15 16 17 to really build a foundation of athleticism strength and power so should be good I'm excited for it [Music] okay so as with pretty much any workout ever I started with about 10 minutes on the bike just to warm up the body and get the blood flowing obviously there's a ton of benefits to warming up but for me I think one of the biggest benefits is mental just for me getting a sweat going before I even start the workout just helps me get into the flow of the workout earlier and easier I'll then immediately hop straight into the first exercise but I'll do one to two warm-up sets where I just perform the movement with lighter weight and higher reps after the bike ride and the warm-up sets I'm all set to begin the workout the first exercise I do after the warmup and this power workout is always gonna be the main lift of the workout it's gonna be a compound lift for the focus of going heavy and low reps to focus on power and strength so this will be the back squat the front squat the deadlift trap bar deadlift or power cleans big heavy compound lifts and then to focus on power and strength I want to be as fresh as possible between each lift so this isn't gonna be a cardiovascular workout or I'm not focused on muscular endurance the intention is maximum power so I go heavy I go with low reps and long rest times up to a few minutes there's no exercise that I'll superset this with because I want all my energy and strength focused on the main lift and this specific workout I rested two minutes between each set just so I can really recover between each one it's slow and honestly kind of boring at times to rest that long between each exercise but I want to be at least you know 90 percent recovered before the next set the next couple exercises in this type of workout are gonna be functional compound movements as well but not as big or heavy as the main left of the workout and this specific workout I went with single leg box squats and glute/ham raises these two exercises work pretty well together because the single leg box squats are pretty quad dominant and the glute-ham raises are pretty glute and hamstring dominant so they complement each other pretty well and then lastly just for these two exercises I'm going to like the low-to-mid rep range so it's not like again not as heavy and low rep as the first exercise but it's not muscular endurance and it's not you know getting the heart pumping so what you just saw was the bulk of the workouts these last few exercises are really just the extra for this portion of the workout I'll add in some plyometric style exercises like box jumps skater jumps broad jumps etc and then maybe some accessory type exercises like calf raises Copenhagen's glute bridges wall sits etc in this workout I chose to superset some single leg box jumps with some calf raises and now again the focus of the workout is on power and strength so I'm not doing 30 box jumps fast to try to get the heart pumping I'm focusing on explosion and power full exertion with each jump so I do lower reps and and I rest for longer even with the calf raises I'm going heavier and doing a mid rep range just because I want strength and power and not muscular endurance and then lastly and these types of workouts you're kind of focused mainly around the main muscle groups you know glutes hamstrings quads etc so I don't want to neglect the smaller muscle groups like the hip flexors a doctors or abductors so I'll hop on this four way hip machine I'll do a few more accessory type movements just to target those areas so they don't become weak and get unbalanced with the larger muscle groups that I've been focusing on earlier in the workout anyway that's my strength and powered leg workout so I pretty much entirely focused on from the ages of 14 through 20 years old to really build up that athletic base of speed and power I'll do these a ton as well and offseason when I have you know no games so I can really push my legs and again these specific exercises might change due today or from workout to workout or whatever you know I might switch up the deadlift and I might switch in a back squat or I'll switch in a power clean or something or I might change the single leg box jumps with a lateral box jump or a bra jump or whatever but that basic format was what I used and I still use to this day for this style of workout so I just got back from from the gym for the workout is a really good workout I already know I'm gonna be pretty sore tomorrow and again I cannot stress this enough this was a focus of the workout was power strength and a little bit of hypertrophy to you know to build up the size and strength of the legs to build up that athletic foundation and it's great especially when those in those teenage years when you're becoming and developing into an athlete obviously now if you got to see my workout you see what I'm doing now it's kind of transitioned a little bit to maintenance now that I have the base now that I have the athleticism that I really want it's about maintaining it and keep everything in balance so again I think it's a good recommendation for you guys I mean you always have to look at yourself as a player and kind of like tailor your workouts and your trainings to what you need but if you're building up that athletic base and you want to do workouts like this just make sure that you're balancing it out with you know speed and agility type workouts you're doing a lot of play metrics you're continuing to do those workouts but also doing like the body weight and the little prehab movements you know the ab work all that kind of stuff balance it in so anyway the rest of today is gonna be really boring I'm just gonna pretty much be doing a lot of become elite work hanging out on the couch watching TV and then dinner and then repeating it all again tomorrow so hope you guys like this video if you did hit the thumbs up button subscribe I'll see you guys in the next video [Music]

Channel: Become Elite

Views: 757,404

Keywords: soccer, football, sports, vlog, matt, sheldon, become, elite, professional, pro, footballer, athlete, workout, weight, lift, train, training, saint, louis, fc

Id: GC3m8sllMCc

Length: 11min 46sec (706 seconds)

Published: Sun May 31 2020