5 day PPL split with 2 leg days
5 day ULPPL split with 2 leg days (one lower body + one leg)
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Key leg muscles
Your quads (quadriceps) are the muscles at the front of your thighs. Their function is to straighten your knee from the bent position, and they help stabilize your knee joint. Your quads help in exercises like climbing, walking, running and jumping.
Key leg exercises
Why: The deadlift works your entire posterior chain, including your glutes, hamstrings and lower back. The exercise also engages your core, traps, quads and forearms. 4 sets of 4 reps means you are focusing on lifting heavy weights with low reps, which is ideal for building strength and power, rather than endurance or hypertrophy.
How to do: Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, with your toes pointing forwards. Position the barbell with your toes underneath the bar, with your shins almost touching the bar. With proper form, squat down towards the barbell. With your knees slightly bent, hinge at your hips and sit back. Bend forward at your wait, reach forward and grip the barbell. Lift by pushing upwards with your legs, keeping the bar close to your body and your chest up. Straighten up to complete the lift, lockout, then lower the bar back to the floor, pushing your hips back, bending your knees and keeping them inline with your feet.
Read more: How to Do a Deadlift
Why train legs twice per week?
Many of us follow a workout routine where we train our upper bodies 2-4 times each week. Yet, it's common to only train our legs once. The legs are the largest muscle group in your body, and it is true they normally need extra time to recover. But could you benefit from adding 2 leg days to your routine?
Training your legs twice per week can stimulate more muscle growth in your lower body, as well as improve your balance and athletic performance. Being the largest muscle group, training your legs with greater frequency can also be beneficial for burning calories. This can help you lose weight (burn fat) or increase the overall muscle mass in your body.
It's important to plan your workout routine carefully. You need to allow adequate recovery time between workouts to avoid overtraining. In this article, we have two 5 day workout splits both with 2 leg days. They are based on our 5 day ULPPL and 5 day PPL split routines.
Benefits of 2 leg days in your workout split
Muscle growth
Adding 2 leg days to your workout split can significantly increase the rate of muscle growth. This is because your leg muscles, made up of your quads, hamstrings and glutes in particular, are some of the largest muscles in your body. Hitting these muscles with a higher frequency means you are stimulating a greater volume of muscle through the week. This ultimately results in you building more muscle mass.
Lower body balance
Building stronger muscles in your legs is key to developing balance skill in your lower body. Working your legs twice per week can help you develop your legs evenly. Stronger leg muscles can also boost your performance in other exercises, as well as sport and other activities.
Weight loss and calorie burn
A 5 day split with 2 leg days is a great option if your goal is to lose weight. Given the sheer muscle mass you have in your legs, working them demands a great deal of energy. This energy is made by burning calories, both during and in the hours and days after your workout. Using 2 leg days to burn additional calories will help accelerate your weight loss goal.
Athletic performance
Working your legs regularly will strengthen your lower body, providing extra power and stability. If you take part in sports, particularly those involving running or jumping, stronger legs and improve your performance.
