For Club the Hope members

CLUB the HOPE
It's leg day. You're tired. You're
tempted to take it easy and wander
through a few sets of leg press, extensions, and curls.
Sure, you could attack those exercises with sufficient
intensity and make short-term
progress. Eventually, though, your
development will get top-heavy and
you'll be the guy stuck in sweat pants,
hiding your peg legs. Real men and women—the kind
with bulging quads
and hanging hamstrings—can pull off
short shorts. This one's for you, brothers and sisters
in the sweats. Over time, we tend to
get into a training groove. We hit the
same exercises with the same
intensity, so our progress slows,
crawls, and eventually stops. Don't get comfortable; get
uncomfortable! Try
some new exercises—like the five leg
legends below—to challenge your
patterns and kickstart new gains. 1 / Zercher Squat This
is one of my favorite all-time
movements, especially for strength
athletes. Zercher squats eliminate many of the
problems that immobile
people have with back squats. I've
seen shoulders so jacked-up that
people can't get their hands on the bar
when squatting. Bad hips, weak hamstrings, and a bad
back can all contribute to
complications with back squats. The
Zercher is a great alternative while you
fix your jacked-up crap. It heavily
recruits the upper back and posterior chain, is relatively
easy on the spine,
and the bar position makes it simple to
squat correctly. As you start, you may find cradling the
bar to be uncomfortable. There are a
couple of solutions to this—along with
sucking it up, of course. You could use
a thick bar, such as a strongman axle.
The increased surface area will radically reduce the
discomfort. You could also use a barbell pad, such
as those the weak might use during a
back squat. Regardless, rotate the
Zercher squat into your program. It's
fantastic. 2 / Bulgarian Split Squat A single-leg squat not
only adds a limited amount of instability to your
squat (more similar to what you would
see on an athletic field than a two-
legged squat), but also allows you to
train with a lighter load. This has its
place, like when you want to give your spine a break
from those disc-
crushing poundages. It's easy to get
someone doing this movement
correctly with intense loads, and
injuries are unlikely. That makes a
rear-foot-elevated split squat a great addition to any
program. The most common issue with the split squat
is incorrect placement of the front foot. Most will place
the front foot
too close to the rear, causing
excessive knee displacement and
potential discomfort. Get more glutes
and hamstrings involvement, with less
knee pain, by moving the front foot to a position that
keeps the knee directly
above the ankle. If the movement
causes too much of a stretch in the hip
flexor as you descend, use a shorter
bench or box. I recommend beginning with
dumbbells until you have mastered
the set-up. It won't be too long before
your weights move up drastically.
Once you have graduated to a barbell,
I would recommend doing this movement in the
comparative safety of
the squat rack, on the off chance