The Insanely Effective and Brutal 100 Rep Leg Workout

Try this brutal 100 rep leg workout if you want to challenge your health and fitness.

Brutal 100 Rep Leg Workout

This 100 rep leg workout has been designed by Jeff Cavaliere.

“If you want a leg workout that is going to be most effective at helping you to build bigger legs, this is the one. Continuing on in the 100 workout series, we are hitting the quads, glutes, hamstrings and calves in one efficient routine that is going to help you to build muscle in your legs.”

Effective Reps

“The workout’s efficacy revolves around the concept of effective reps. Whenever you perform a set of, say 12 reps to failure, the first 7 or 8 are not really challenging at all. In fact, some argue that they serve no purpose other than to fatigue your muscle to get to the point where the reps do start to become difficult. Well, what if there was a way to tap into these more effective, growth inducing reps more quickly? There is, and that is where this 100 leg workout steps in.”

Bulgarian Split Squat

“We kick off the workout for legs with one of my favorite leg exercises of all time, the dumbbell bulgarian split squat. Grabbing a pair of dumbbells that will cause failure in our first set at 8 on each leg, we perform what we call our ignition set. Keep in mind, these reps are not going to count towards your 100 rep total for this workout. They are just serving to kick off this exercise and pre-fatigue the reps that are to come after on this leg exercise.”

“After reaching failure on the ignition set you will rest/pause for just 15 seconds before jumping back into your first set of effective reps. Now keep in mind, leg workouts can be grueling for many. If that is the case for you, feel free to extend your rest slightly but do so realizing that the spirit of the workout as written is for you to ultimately be able to do this with your rest limited to just 15 seconds each time.”

“Perform 15 effective reps on each leg, making sure to get all of them done on one leg before proceeding to the other.”

Barbell RDL

“The next exercise up is one for the posterior chain which will give a much needed reprieve to the quads and anterior chain muscles – and it’s the barbell RDL. The key to doing this glute and hamstring exercise right is to hinge at the waist and soften at the knees. Don’t lean the barbell out too far in front of you as this puts unnecessary strain on your low back.”

“Aim for 20 effective reps after your ignition set of 12 to failure to kick it off.”

DB Alternating Reverse Lunge

“The next exercise is going to take you back to the anterior chain with the dumbbell alternating reverse lunges. Two great tips that make this exercise easier to perform are to remember to keep your back foot traveling not just back, but out as well.”

“This will broaden your base of support and help you to maintain balance from the split stance position. This is especially helpful when you are handling heavy weights as you will on this leg exercise that is to be performed at an 8RM ignition set leading into 15 effective reps each leg.”

Cable Pull Through

“Once again, we keep this leg workout moving by heading back to the posterior chain exercises, this time with a cable pull through. If you struggled to perform the hinge the first time around, you will not now. This is because the cable and rope help to pull your body into the proper position on every rep. Just remember to squeeze with the glutes to bring you back to the top into full hip extension.”

DB Spanish Squat

“The DB Spanish Squat is an amazing way to train resisted closed chain knee extension without having to use the open chain alternative leg extensions. The addition of the dumbbells to this leg exercise make it even more brutal and capable of trashing your legs in just the 15 effective reps I’m asking for.”

Seated DB Calf Raise

“Finally, you can’t complete your workout for legs without a little bit of calf work. Most people focus too much on the gastrocnemius and not enough on the soleus. Let’s change that by performing 15 effective reps on the seated DB calf raise. Remember to squeeze your contraction at the top and also slow down and hold the bottom position of stretch to remove some of the ballistic tendency of the achilles to dominate the calf muscles.”

Full Workout

For a quick summary of this 100 leg workout, it looks like this:

DB Bulgarian Split Squats x 15 effective reps each leg (do one leg at a time to completion)
Barbell RDL’s x 20 effective reps
DB Alt. Reverse Lunges x 15 effective reps each leg
Cable Pullthroughs x 20 effective reps
DB Spanish Squats x 15 effective reps
DB Seated Calf Raises x 15 effective reps

Video

Muscles of the legs

The legs are one of the biggest muscle groups in the human body. In fact, they are responsible for supporting the entire weight of your body, so it’s important that you exercise them properly and keep them strong. The following list outlines some of the most important muscles of the lower legs:

Iliopsoas muscle

The iliopsoas muscle is a powerful flexor of the hip joint, and it has an important role in maintaining upright stance. In addition to its role as a flexor of the thigh, it also serves as one of several muscles that stabilize your knees when you are standing or walking.

The iliopsoas muscle consists of two parts: The psoas major, which attaches directly to your vertebrae; and the psoas minor, which attaches to both sides of your lumbar spine (lower back). Both parts converge into one tendon that passes through an opening in your pelvis called “psoas hiatus,” which gives them their name (from Greek “psoa”). The psoas major connects with another large tendon–called iliacus–which then attaches at either side of your hip joint where they insert into bones called femur heads (upper leg bones).

Gluteus maximus muscle

The gluteus maximus is the largest muscle in the body. It has three main functions:

Hip extension (straightening of leg)
Hip abduction (movement away from midline)
Hip flexion (bending at hip joint).

Gracilis muscle

The Gracilis muscle is located in the upper thigh, just underneath your skin and superficial to your other leg muscles. It crosses both the hip joint and knee joint, though it does not extend all the way down to either joint.

The Gracilis muscle helps flex (bend) your knee and assists with adduction (moving toward center of body). You can strengthen this muscle by doing exercises such as squats or lunges with weights on your back or waistband; these will work out both legs at once!

Brutal 100 Rep Leg Workout – Sartorius muscle

The Sartorius muscle is located in the front of your thigh and acts to flex your leg at the hip, rotate it inwardly (medially), and flex your knee. It also helps stabilize your pelvis when you stand on one leg.

The Sartorius originates from several different places:

The anterior surface of pubic bone/linea terminalis/iliac crest/ischial tuberosity (wherever these things are located)
Anterior superior iliac spine (ASIS) (also known as “hips”)

Brutal 100 Rep Leg Workout – Rectus femoris muscle

The rectus femoris muscle is a quadriceps muscle that is located in the upper part of your thigh. It extends from your pelvis to just below your knee joint, crossing over both joints on its way.

The rectus femoris is the longest and strongest of the four quadriceps muscles and is responsible for straightening out your leg when you are standing or walking.

The muscle originates on the anterior inferior iliac spine (AIIS), which is located at an angle just above where your leg meets your pelvis, then travels down through two tendon attachments: one attachment connects it to bone just below where we walk (tibia) while another connects it near our knee joint (femur).

Brutal 100 Rep Leg Workout – Vastus medialis muscle

The vastus medialis muscle is a large, flat muscle of the thigh. It is located in the medial compartment of your upper leg and extends from below your kneecap to just below your hip joint. This muscle helps you straighten and extend both legs at once, as well as rotate them outwardly.

The vastus medialis is innervated by nerve fibers from L5-S1; these nerves supply sensory information from its insertion site on each tibia (shinbone).

Brutal 100 Rep Leg Workout – Vastus lateralis muscle

The vastus lateralis muscle is the largest of four quadriceps muscles in your leg. It lies on the lateral (outer) side of the thigh and extends from just below the hip joint to just above where bone ends and soft tissue begins in each leg.

Brutal 100 Rep Leg Workout – Gastrocnemius

The gastrocnemius muscle is the largest muscle in the calf and located on the back of your lower leg. It’s responsible for plantar flexion (pointing your toes) and dorsiflexion (lifting up) of your foot, as well as assisting with knee flexion. The gastrocnemius is also known as “the calf” because it helps make up most of that area on any given person’s leg.

Brutal 100 Rep Leg Workout – Tibialis anterior

The tibialis anterior is located on the front of your lower leg and is responsible for dorsiflexion (lifting your toes upwards). It also aids in balance and coordination. If you have an injury to this muscle, it can cause pain behind or around your knee as well as swelling.

You can strengthen this muscle by doing exercises like calf raises where you raise up onto the balls of your feet and hold for a few seconds before lowering again. Alternatively, try doing toe lifts where you lift up one foot at a time while keeping it straight; this will help isolate more evenly across both sides of the body rather than just focusing on one side like during regular calf raises would do!