This intense bodybuilder leg workout is trending on social media. But is it safe?
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If the Tom Platz leg workout had a motto, it would be: more is more. More weight, more reps and more sets, until you simply can’t do any more work.
The famous bodybuilder — known for his extremely muscular quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves — was a pretty big fan of leg day.
But what can the average gym goer learn from a world-class athlete like Platz? Should these types of workouts be reserved for the pros or are there ways you can safely integrate these exercises into your routine? According to experts, there are a few positive takeaways from Platz’s workout style — though you may not want to try his regimen rep for rep.
Here’s everything you need to know about Tom Platz’s leg workouts, and how you can safely integrate his squats, extensions and curls into your own strength-training sessions.
Who is Tom Platz?
Tom Platz is a bodybuilder who is known for having “the world’s most developed legs.” Called The Golden Eagle, Platz says he became interested in weight lifting when he was about 10 years old and his parents bought him a Joe Weider Weight Set and training manual for Christmas.
“I inherently felt these weights would change my life and be my life,” Platz writes on his website.
While Platz held several bodybuilding and physique titles over the years — earning a controversial third place at the 1981 IFBB Mr. Olympia — it’s his quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves that continue to earn him fame today.
Ironically, Platz has said that at first, he seemed an unlikely candidate for having the best legs. Why?
“I didn’t like squatting that much, I didn’t like squatting at all, to tell you the truth,” Platz told a room of fans at a seminar in Zurich in 2018. “But I love — I’m addicted to the feeling afterward. After doing a squat workout of 400, 500 pounds for reps, and your life passes in front of your eyes and you succeed — life is great. The sky is blue, the grass is green, life is absolutely wonderful.”
What is the Tom Platz leg workout?
Tom Platz’s leg workout includes squats, leg extensions, leg curls and calf work. The routines feature a wide rep and set range and target the largest muscle groups first, then work down to the smallest muscle groups.
“He’s putting the most advanced exercises first, when you have the most energy,” says Noam Tamir, a certified strength and conditioning coach and CEO and founder of TS Fitness in New York City.
There are several versions of Platz’s workouts, but they all look similar to this:
Squats or back squats: 8-12 sets, 5-20 reps
Hack squats: 5-7 sets, 10-15 reps
Leg extension: 5-8 sets, 10-15 reps
Leg curls: 6-10 sets, 10-15 reps
Standing calf raises: 4-8 sets, 10-15 reps
Seated calf raises: 3-8 sets, 10-15 reps
Hack machine calf raises: 3-6 sets, 5-10 reps
One important detail: Platz promoted training to failure — meaning that you perform reps until you physically can’t lift the weight again. While there’s debate about this type of training, one recent review seems to indicate that it may not necessarily help you see the biggest gains.
What are the benefits of the Tom Platz leg workout?
For one, these wide rep ranges can actually be very beneficial, Tamir says. Working with higher weights and lower reps will recruit a different energy system and potentially different muscle fibers than working with lower weights and higher reps. One style of training isn’t necessarily better than the other, it just depends on your personal goals.
Plus, as you get older, developing those muscles below the belt matter most, says Stu Phillips, PhD, Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine Award and a professor and Canada research chair in the department of kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario. Think: Crossing the intersection before the light turns, getting up from a chair or in and out of your car. Your lower body does the heavy lifting, literally.
Is the Tom Platz leg workout safe?
“If you’re not used to doing something like this, you can definitely cause injury,” Tamir says.
You’re also more likely to injure yourself with a higher number of reps than a lower number reps, says Domenic Angelino, a trainer at Trainer Academy, fitness consultant and exercise scientist.
“If you’re doing low reps, you’re lifting something really heavy, right?” Angelino says. “So you think, that’s going to be more dangerous, but people pay a lot of attention.”
If you’re lifting hundreds of pounds and only doing two or three reps, chances are, you’re laser-focused. But 20 reps? Your mind has time to wander. And when you’re not paying attention, your form can falter.
Plus, if you’re working to failure, you might not feel great the following day. Whether its muscle soreness or the feeling that exercise is “hard,” that negative association can make people burn out, and cause them to stop working out entirely, Angelino says.
In short, while there’s merit to this routine, it might not be right for everyone, Phillips says. “The volumes I’d object to unless you’re an advanced trainer. So if you’ve got years of experience, go for it. It’s just not something that I would immediately drop on top of the average person.”
How to create a safe weight-lifting routine
Just about everyone can benefit from weight lifting, our experts noted.
But think about how often you’d like to work out. “Most of the time, I don’t have people dedicate splits,” Tamir says. “I like to have more of a full-body fitness routine, where [clients] will do some lower-body, some upper-body.”
If your goal is simply to maintain a healthy lifestyle, you don’t need to spend an entire workout session on just your legs, Tamir says. Likewise, you may want to try a basic squat, rather than something like a hack squat, which requires more shoulder mobility and is more advanced.
To try Platz’s style of working out, select two or three of the exercises above — say, a basic squat, leg extension and leg curls — and add them to your weight-lifting days. Start with 2-3 sets and 6-12 reps.
You may also choose to begin with exercises like leg extensions and leg curls that require a machine, since the risk of injury on a machine is much lower than using something like a barbell, says Angelino.
Building muscle takes more than just lifting heavy
Phillips says that while you’ve got to be consistent and you’ve got to be dedicated in your workouts, even with all of that, not everybody will end up looking like Platz.
“The return at some point is that you don’t get more muscle,” Phillips says. “Otherwise, if we just kept adding more volume, there would be people that would get bigger and bigger and bigger forever. And that doesn’t happen.”
That’s because gaining muscle is a complex phenotypic trait, Phillips says, meaning that it’s affected not simply by one gene, but a whole bunch of genes — plus other factors like age, nutrition, hormones and more.
Additionally, all of the experts TODAY spoke with noted the prolific use of anabolic steroids in the bodybuilding world — despite the fact that such use is almost always illegal and comes with a lengthy list of negative side effects. (Platz has also previously discussed his own steroid use.)
But there are plenty of good reasons to weight lift beyond aesthetics. Weight lifting has been linked to a number of benefits including increased bone density, improved thinking and weight management. It’s just one more reason to never skip leg day.
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
