“Gone are the days of 1,500-pound leg presses,” lamented six-time bodybuilding champion Dorian Yates in the caption of a May 31, 2024 Instagram post.
Yates, now 62, is one of the most decorated bodybuilders in modern history, having bagged six Mr. “O” titles during his career while helping to usher in the “mass monster” era that colored the sport throughout the ’90s and ’00s.
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“The Shadow,” as Yates is known by his nickname, may have hung up his weightlifting belt when it comes to compound exercises on leg day, but that certainly doesn’t mean he’s cutting corners on his lower-body training. Quite the opposite, really — we’re going to break down the movements that Yates uses to build leg muscle in his 60s, plus how you can design your own squatless leg workout.
Dorian Yates’ Favorite Leg Exercises
“My last calf workout was 27 years ago,” Yates joked while showing off his legs on social media. We’ll circle back to how he maintains his calves since you’re here for the meat and potatoes; for Yates’ part, the following leg exercises are his bread and butter:
It may not look like much — leg day purists would even hem and haw at the omission of any loaded squat variation — but these four movements are more than enough for any bodybuilder to maintain muscle at any age, including a retired champion. Here’s why, plus how they might look in a workout.
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The “No Squat” Leg Workout for Bodybuilding
When it comes to building muscle, there are basically no must-do movements. Provided you accrue enough training volume and perform at a high intensity, you can bulk up your legs without ever touching a barbell.
We’ll admit that you might not make it as far as Yates did in his heyday, but still. This workout is a great place to start if you hit it twice per week:
- Bodyweight Squat: 5×10, on the minute
- Leg Extension: 4 x 8-12, with a drop set
- Seated Hamstring Curl: 2 x 8-12
- Lying Hamstring Curl: 2 x 8-12, with a drop set
- Bodyweight Squat: 5 x 10, on the minute
- Standing Calf Raise: 3 x 15
Studies consistently show that machine leg exercises produce high amounts of muscle activation. (1)(2) Moreover, the leg extension and seated leg curl specifically tax the muscles in their stretched positions, which emerging clinical research regards as especially potent for muscle growth. (3)
- Yates noted that all he does for his calves nowadays is walking, “predominantly.”
- For just about everyone, treadmill walking or interval workouts aren’t enough to build calf muscle. That’s why we’ve included a few sets of standing calf raises, which studies show as having the potential to build twice as much muscle as their seated cousins. (4)
To temper expectations a bit, Yates’ closing remarks on his social media post highlighted the impact of genetics in bodybuilding:
“I remember Mike Mentzer once said, ‘the secret to bodybuilding is choosing the right parents!’” It’s a funny quip but one that holds true the higher you climb in the arena of professional bodybuilding.
Luckily, you don’t need to have physique athlete parents to train your legs. A couple of well-chosen machine exercises and some Olympia-caliber work ethic will get the wheels turning.
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References
- Martín-Fuentes I, Oliva-Lozano JM, Muyor JM. Evaluation of the Lower Limb Muscles’ Electromyographic Activity during the Leg Press Exercise and Its Variants: A Systematic Review. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Jun 27;17(13):4626. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17134626. PMID: 32605065; PMCID: PMC7369968.
- Venturelli, Massimo & Tarperi, Cantor & Milanese, Chiara & Festa, Luca & Toniolo, Luana & Reggiani, Carlo & Schena, Federico. (2021). The effect of leg preference on mechanical efficiency during single-leg extension exercise. Journal of Applied Physiology. 131. 10.1152/japplphysiol.01002.2020.
- Pedrosa, G. F., Lima, F. V., Schoenfeld, B. J., Lacerda, L. T., Simões, M. G., Pereira, M. R., Diniz, R. C. R., & Chagas, M. H. (2022). Partial range of motion training elicits favorable improvements in muscular adaptations when carried out at long muscle lengths. European journal of sport science, 22(8), 1250–1260.
- Kinoshita M, Maeo S, Kobayashi Y, Eihara Y, Ono M, Sato M, Sugiyama T, Kanehisa H, Isaka T. Triceps surae muscle hypertrophy is greater after standing versus seated calf-raise training. Front Physiol. 2023 Dec 13;14:1272106. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2023.1272106. PMID: 38156065; PMCID: PMC10753835.
Featured Image: @thedorianyates on Instagram
