Tom Platz "The Golden Eagle" , awesome leg work-outs

Giant legs

If you have been around the Iron Game for a while, there is one name that comes instantly to mind when people discuss leg training. That name is Tom Platz. “The Golden Eagle” is widely regarded as having the most massively muscular legs in the history of bodybuilding. His thighs measured a whopping 35 inches and were shredded to the bone. Tom’s muscle building program that created those unforgettable wheels revolved around one exercise and one exercise only; the barbell squat. If you want to add some serious mass to your legs you had better familiarize yourself with this exercise in a hurry.

Since the quads typically have a very wide variance of muscle fiber types you can use a great range of reps in your quest to build pillar sized legs. Often times, Tom and other lifters with notoriously huge legs, would go as high as fifty reps per set on squats. When I was young and painfully skinny, high rep squats were one of the most effective discoveries I ever made and helped me and my brother pack on size faster than anything we had ever tried to date. The old 20 rep squat programs from the golden era of the Iron Game made a massive man of many a skinny boy.

Although high rep squatting leads to massive and rapid gains, I usually recommend starting with a few heavy sets in the 4-8 range first. Sometimes I even add in a set of 10-15 after the heavy sets, and finally finish with one all out set of 20 (and sometimes 30-50). When you use this rep scheme you ensure that you hit all fiber types and stimulate the greatest amount of muscle growth possible.

Another note that needs to be added here is that high rep squats shouldn’t be done until you have mastered squat technique with several months of low rep training. You need to build the strength, coordination, endurance and stability needed to safely complete picture perfect low rep sets of squats first before you can move on to the high rep sets.

Beginners should squat three times per week, intermediates twice and advanced lifters should probably only squat once every 5-10 days, depending on a variety of factors and how much running and other extra curricular activities you participate in.

When putting together your muscle building program, be sure that squats are the focus of your lower body training; if not the only thing you do. Once you have mastered “the king of all exercises” you can then begin to think about adding in stuff like lunges, step ups and glute ham raises. Until then, and until you have gained significant size and strength from a steady diet of squats, I expect you to be spending a lot of time in the power rack.

Tom Platz was at his best nearly a quarter of a century ago he finished 3rd in the 1981 MR.O, but no one since has matched Tom Platz’s combination of conscious-altering size and cross-striated definition

He reports that while weighing less then 230 pounds, he squatted eight reps with 635 pounds and 52 reps with 350 pounds. On numerous occasions, he squatted for 10 minutes straight for more than 100 reps with 225 pounds.This might seem like hyperbole, if not the fact that Platz is seen in a video shot in 1992 squatting 495 pounds for 23 reps with his thighs going below parallel. One cannot deny his genetic predisposition to develop large muscular thighs. But it was Tom Platz’s barn-burning intensity and sheer bravery to train past the limits of his potential that made his thighs legendary.

Platz enjoyed squatting with 225 pounds for ten minutes straight. That was his style and the reason he created such massive and striated quads. High volume training was a main stay for Platz. Leg curls and leg extensions were performed at 60 rep increments…yes sets of 60, talk about blood flow.