Living the Gray Life

A Fitness & Lifestyle Blog

| Posted in: Fitness, Workouts

Leg Day, Dead Day

Leg Day, Dead Day | Glute-focused leg workout

Hello, hello!

So, if you read the latest installment of my Project Comeback series, you would’ve seen the progress picture I included that showed literally no progress at all. #bummer

Working on my glutes and hamstrings for almost a year and seeing no progress was by far a letdown, but that kicked my butt into high gear to actually get some #bootygains. Wow, I cannot believe I actually typed that out…

I went into this workout without really having a plan, and all I knew was that I wanted to kill my glutes and hamstrings.

My goal for any workout is to have my legs shaking when I lean over the sink to brush my teeth or wash my face later that night. Needless to say, this workout did just that, and I couldn’t help but want to share my pain with y’all! You’re welcome in advance.

The Workout

Smith Machine Hip Thrust 4×15

  • Slow and controlled to really feel that 🔥
  • Squeeze those glutes at the top of the movement. #GrandmaButt will be in full swing but that’s how you get that nice 🍑

Glute-focused back extensions 4×10

  • @glute.guru is my new fave glute-focused Instagram account, and he has a great demonstration of how to do these HERE.
  • I do these bodyweight right now, but if you can use a weight, go for it!

Grab a bench or one of those 18″ foam plyo boxes for the next two supersets!

Superset: x3

  • Bench squats to 3/4 squats x10 each 
    • Use a dumbbell and hold it close to your chest like you do in a goblet squat
    • Whitney Simmons introduced me to the two movements above. You can check out her demonstration here.
  • In and out pulse squats x8 @ bodyweight

Superset: x4 (superset inspired by @glute.guru on Insta)

  • Banded hip thrusts x20
  • Banded hip abduction x25

Leg press 4×12

Single leg deadlift 3×10

  • If you’ve never done these before & are a complete beginner, I recommend doing Romanian deadlifts with dumbbells instead
  • Focus on keeping that head neutral (don’t be staring at yourself in the mirror) and that back flat

Seated single leg hamstring curl

  • Set 1-3: 8 reps each leg
  • Set 4: 8 reps each leg @ original weight then dropset until failure

What is a dropset? I actually get this question quite a lot! A dropset is where you do your original weight for a designated set of reps, then you drop the weight either to the next, lighter dumbbell weight or to the next, ligher pin on a machine. You work at this ligher weight until failure and keep dropping the weight until you run out of dumbbells or pin holes on the machine.

This workout KILLED my glutes and hammies, and I loved every minute of it. I keep my rest times as short as possible while allowing for adequate recovery. This is usually between 45 seconds to a minute. I treat my leg days as kind of a working cardio day because my heart rate is kept so high throughout the workout.

If you try this workout, let me know in the comments!! What are your fitness goals? Do you want amazing shoulders, maybe some killer quads, or are you looking for that six pack? I’m really loving sharing these new workouts with you. If you like seeing them, I’ll keep posting them!!

~abigail gray