Building Tree Trunk Legs with Tom Platz | Alpha Pharm Canada

Building Tree Trunk Legs with Tom Platz

Usually, at the beginning of every guy’s lifting career, they want the arms of Shawn Ray, the chest of Arnold, the shredded abs of Flex Wheeler, and the back of Ronnie Coleman. One major body part that people often neglect and “skip”, are legs. Building massive legs are the key to an X-shaped physique. They’re a sign of masculinity, power, and they keep your body in perfect proportion. Without massive quads and thick hamstrings, it always looks like something is missing. And let’s be real – nobody likes chicken legs.

Tom Platz is an American-born, IFBB Pro, from the Golden Era of bodybuilding. Despite never winning a Mr. Olympia (coming a close comparison to Franco Columbo), Tom Platz is recognized across the bodybuilding community for his ridiculous quadriceps and his massive hamstrings, boasting a raging 31′ measurement across his thighs. Not only that, he was able to squat a boastful 500 pounds for a whopping 23 reps, and rep out 225 pounds on squat for 10 minutes. Tom was a huge believer in high volume training in order to pack on muscle & size for tree trunk legs. Dianabol can help dramatically with volume training, as it can provide your muscle more energy & endurance. He was also a firm believer in getting “the biggest stretch possible” in the muscle during each rep – full ATG on squats and complete range of motion. To this day, he can still rep out over 365 pounds at 65 years old. To get legs like Tom Platz, let’s get into some of his personal favourite leg exercises.

Squats

Squats are arguably the king of lower body movements, as they’re a compound movement that uses a variety of different muscles, including quads, glutes, abs, hips, and slight bits of lower back. They’re also great because you’re able to load up heavy on them, to provide different styles of mechanical tension. Tom Platz loved to go heavy, but also high rep on squats. For strength like Tom’s, give Test E a shot – we promise it will satisfy. Some of his working sets would consist of even upwards of 30 reps! His general rule of thumb was to do 8-12 sets of 5-20 reps, as he liked to utilize all types of rep ranges.

Hack Squats

Utilizing a machine that mimics a squat movement is the perfect way to focus on the contraction, stretch, & mind-muscle connection to the muscle you’re working – and that’s exactly what a hack squat does. On a machine, the hack squat uses a fixed plane of motion so that you can squeeze your muscles at the top of every rep. On the way down, you won’t have to focus about losing balance either. This means you can focus directly on the muscle you’re working, which is great for bodybuilding because targeting the muscle you want to grow is the only way to do it. Tom Platz always wanted to focus on burning the muscle, tearing the muscle fibres, and giving it your all. For these, he would work with around 5 sets of 10-15.

Quad/Leg Extensions

Yeah, sure, you can definitely feel the burn on squats and hack squats, but at times they can be taxing on your cardiovascular system. However with the leg extension, you can truly contract your quadriceps until they feel like they’re about to cramp, without the heavy demand on your heart rate. Leg extensions are one of Alpha Pharm‘s favourite movements, as you can really focus in on your quads and get them to grow through sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and muscle damage. Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is from the increase of blood, pump, and volume within the muscles which expands them. For greater blood flow, try out Cialis on our site. Different foot angles on the leg extension can target different parts of your quad, including the sweep or the tear drop, depending on the angle you choose. Tom liked to go 5-8 sets of 10-15 on these. He would also encourage dropsets, and would highly pressure himself and his training partners to work past failure with partials and negative reps.

Lying Leg Curls

All of the exercises above focused on the quadricep muscle, but the lying leg curl is special because it specifically targets the hamstring. When laying down on the pad and doing the movement, make sure to keep your butt down, pad on your achilles’ tendon, and curl your heels up. On the negative of the movement, make sure to get a full stretch all the way to the bottom. The hamstrings are an easy muscle to cramp, so make sure to take the movement slow and make sure to stretch & warm up before starting your working sets, just like how Tom advises. He generally would up the sets on these as they’re his only hamstring movement. 6-10 sets is his preferred range, with 10-15 reps.

Calf Exercises

Tom Platz always goes hard on calves. Calves can be a hard muscle to grow since they’re heavily biased based on genetics. For his three calf exercises, he would do Standing Calf Raises, Seated Calf Raises, and Hack Machine Calf Raises (calf raises on the hack squat machine). For all these, he would do 3-4 sets of 10-15 for each. Again, make sure to stretch and warm up properly before these so that you don’t cramp up mid-set.

 

These tips are selected by Our Alpha Pharm Team to help you pack on major size to your legs, so that they can someday compare to Tom Platz’s. To find out what anabolics are the best for gaining mass, check out this article for the 5 best steroids.

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