When is Leg day?
Technically, every day and never.
Because the body doesn’t see “leg day” vs “back and bi’s day” or “chest and tri’s day.” Don’t misunderstand me. I love to squat heavy and then rep out lunges and hamstring curls, but a leg day ties into the bigger picture that lines up with my goals.
If your goals look like: staying young, decreasing body fat, adding and keeping lean muscle, while keeping the time down and the novelty factor high, then training energy systems is where you should be investing your workouts.
What are energy systems?
There’s three you need to know about:
- Anaerobic Alactic: Your heaviest squat, doing a 40-yard sprint, or jumping as high as you can.
- Anaerobic Lactic: Doing 6 minutes of max rep burpees, a one-mile run, for most crossfitters, “Fran” and “Helen”.
- Aerobic: Bike for 25 miles. Row or run a 5k. For all crossfitters “Murph”.
Why use “energy system days” vs “bodypart days?”
The beauty of training all of the energy systems is that you’ll see carry-over into different types of effort and sports. This is what someone means when they tell you (very stereotypically) that most powerlifters can’t run a mile to save their lives. Most runners can’t lift very heavy. Most crossfitters can do a pretty good job of both, but never max out on just one side of the spectrum.
Why? Because no bike race comes without hills to sprint up or a rider to overtake. No day of heavy yard work comes without some lungpower required.
Which is exactly the reason we train them all. You’ll get bigger biceps and defined legs in here. But you’ll also be able to use them for a whole lot more than getting biceps and legs.
Welcome to WLRCF, where every day is leg day.
