Facing the leg-training music

It’s the windmill to my Don Quixote, the Gargamel to my Papa Smurf, the Denzel Washington to my Ethan Hawke (à la Training Day): Leg training and I, we don’t get along.

Before you burn me at the stake for Oxygen blasphemy, let me assure you that my relationship with my quads, calves and glutes wasn’t always this way. Seven or eight years ago I would have considered leg days the cornerstone of my training plan, perhaps even the fitness equivalent of clean air or water. Now it pains me (quite literally at times) to lift a single leg and perform a half-hearted lunge.

Still, I have not let my personal dislike for working my legs and glutes get in the way of my physical growth. Leg days are necessary, and I have ensured that they become a part of my training – whether I want them to be or not.

So how do I trudge through the drudgery of my most hated training days, you ask? Well, here it goes:

1) Plan it out. I will admit: I am addicted to training my arms, shoulders and back. I get fast results, I can see my hard work even in the most winter-proof Canadian attire, and it’s easy to pick up a dumbbell and work every area of my upper half thoroughly. To stop myself from squeezing in yet another biceps workout, I schedule my week on Sunday, mentally planning when I will fit in my legs day and even marking it on the calendar. Simple, but it works.

2) Gentle reminders. In the past I would plague Brad, my husband, with complaints of sore lower-body joints on a near-daily basis. Once I started dedicating more workouts to my legs and glutes, however, the complaints mysteriously vanished – and he, being the doting spouse that he is, noticed and spoke up. He’s even (somewhat timidly) recommended that I up my frequency to twice per week, although I have yet to decide if this suggestion is earnest or a cover for an ulterior motive – like more solo time with the Wii, for example.

3) Be unbalanced. My leg routines used to look pretty much the same week in and day out: dumbbell squats, lunges, leg presses and the occasional hamstring curl or calf raise. What I needed was a shake-up, and I found that in the form of body-weight exercises, most of which incorporate a balance element (like walking lunges or single-legged squats). I can do them anywhere, they call on underdeveloped muscles I might not hit with regular lunges or squats, and they keep me interested through each (seemingly) never-ending set.