Hard & Heavy Leg Workout | Mike Hildebrandt

This rock-solid leg workout from Mike Hildebrandt is designed to add size, strength, and definition to each and every muscle in your lower body. Embrace the challenge!
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Across 34 grinding sets, this personal trainer and Dymatize-sponsored athlete shows us the seriously hard work that enables him to sport a defined physique year-round. If you like his approach here, watch his athlete profile video—then pair this workout with his Superset Arm Workout and Pull-Day Challenge to build an upper body to match your lower half!
Since the bigger muscles in your legs require more rest in between heavy sets, this workout will take about an hour from start to finish. You'll need longer rest periods of 1-3 minutes at the beginning of the workout, but as you drop down to isolation exercises, the rest drops to 30-60 seconds. If the workout as written is a bit beyond your reach, cut back a set or two on the big exercises, but aim for the same rep ranges.
| Mike's Technique Keys |
| Back Squat |
Hildebrandt starts his workout with the bar on his back, pushing heavy weight for relatively low reps while his legs are fresh.
| Leg Press |
The leg press is a great follow-up to the back squat because it allows you to safely add more volume as you continue to target your quads, hamstrings, and glutes.
| Walking Double Lunge |
This dynamic, total-body movement is where this leg workout shifts into higher rep ranges—and you'll really start to feel the work piling up.
| Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift |
Moving into more isolated exercises, the dumbbell Romanian deadlift is Hildebrandt's first choice for targeting the hamstrings. But it's all in how you do it.
| Leg Extension |
The reps start to really add up with this isolation exercise—and as Hildebrandt warns, you're going to start feeling the burn. He leaves the rep range open at 15-20 because he wants you to try to find that point of muscle failure where your quads just can't take it anymore.
| Seated Leg Curls |
As with the leg extensions, you'll use a higher rep range on the seated curl to balance out the front and back of the leg. And since we're still solidly in isolation mode, avoid the temptation to go heavy or let momentum take over.
| Superset: Seated Calf Raise with Donkey Calf Raise |
Hildebrandt is known for his attention to detail, and this killer superset finisher is just the thing to bring out definition in those calves. By moving from a bent knee position to a straight knee position, you target all muscles in the calf complex for complete calf development. Don't be afraid to pack on weight just because this is a smaller muscle group—at the end of 20 reps you should feel like you have nothing left in the tank.
This is a superset, so immediately after the seated raises, hop off and go into the donkey calf raise.
"Calves are accustomed to a lot of use between walking and running and all the stress that we put on them," says Hildebrandt, which is why he targets higher rep ranges to develop those muscles.
You may find yourself doing an additional 20-30 reps of the donkey raise for a total of 40-50 reps on each superset. Rest 30-60 seconds between each superset.
You can do this workout up to two times per week with at least 72 hours of recovery between workouts. As Hildebrandt warns, you're producing a lot of damage on some major muscle groups, so make sure your recovery is on point—proper nutrition and plenty of sleep so your body can repair and recover before you come back and hit this workout again.
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