Ruhl on quads: my triple-whammy thigh routine, done right, will work for you — count on it!

Flex, May, 2002 by Markus Ruhl

My quad workout is where fad fitness and silly science come to die. I'm 31 years old and have been bodybuilding for only 11 years, but I've learned a lifetime worth of lessons, which I'm willing to pass on. The most important lesson I've learned is that the most productive exercises are simple and compound. That may sound contradictory, but, ironically, you can't have one without the other.

By simple, I mean an exercise you know in your gut is right. It's instinctive, intuitive, and you don't have to fight with your common sense in order to do it. You don't have to wander through the trees in search of the forest, stumbling from one training principle that tells you to find the right "target" muscle, then to another that tells you to "achieve optimum stimulation of white and red fibers." Instead, you utilize a heavy weight and contract the muscle you want to work with all your might.

By compound, I mean comprehensive. Traditionally, compound has been understood as a multiple-joint movement, but out of respect to Joe Weider, who developed the concept and the term, it's time people understood that Joe was thinking of a bigger and more detailed picture: Every muscle in the bodypart should be involved in a manner that enables you to lift maximum weight for a maximum contraction. Again, it's simple, intuitive, natural.

There's no way to grow faster, and there's no way to get more muscles to grow bigger and stronger. Not only does this technique work for maximizing your mass as a bodybuilder, but it's also the safest and quickest means of rehabilitation after an injury. I can attest to that after having two knee surgeries: one from soccer, when I was 19 years old, and the other following the 2000 Mr. Olympia. In both cases, I recovered quickly with more power and muscularity than ever, solely because I stayed with natural-movement, compound-power exercises that strengthened all of my leg muscles.

The message was clear that such rehabilitative results should also translate into improvements for me as a competitive bodybuilder. So, as soon as I was fully recovered, I pursued the same program, this time full-blown. At the 2001 Mr. Olympia, its potency was evident: Many qualified critics told me I had the best quads in that show.

STRENGTH AND MASS Fortunately, in all the years I've been lifting, I've never bought into scientifically sanitized training. The fancy labels sound sophisticated, but something has always told me they're reasonless.

Besides, I'm in bodybuilding not for a statistical aesthetic edge over my competitor, but for the charge I get out of accumulating so much strength and mass that I am an insult to those precious statistics. Furthermore, I love the work ethic required for lifting the heaviest weight possible for each exercise. Just knowing that I'm demanding--and getting--the most from every muscle in my thighs takes me to a high that no other Sensation can equal.

I guess that's the reason I train six days a week and do 20 to 25 sets per bodypart. I've learned that the heavier I lift and the more sets I do, the more I grow. I pick the simplest and most compound movement as the foundation exercise for my workout, then pyramid it to the ends of the earth. Not that I advocate that everyone does 25 sets per bodypart. I've built up to that quota over an 11-year period, and as you will see in my training chart, I give workload suggestions for beginners and intermediates.

Self-discipline, however, does have its place. History shows that I have the ability to push my body beyond its capacity; as a deterrent to injury, I spend as much as a half hour stretching and easing into range-of-motion movements before I get serious with my workout. My thigh routine is not for the fainthearted, but by following this three-movement program, you can dramatically increase your thigh development. Here's the lowdown.

EXERCISE ONE: SQUATS When I'm confident that everything is warm and eager to go, I head straight for the squat rack, with nothing on my mind except feeling hundreds of pounds of iron on my back, squeezing my quads down to the floor and pumping them to twice their normal size. All the while, I make sure I'm in control, that my back is a steel girder and my abdominal wall is a bridge piling. I never pitch forward or use--my lower back as a lever. Up and down, I'm pushing through the perfect power plane that makes its way through the center of my torso, the center of my hips, the center of my quads and the center of my heels.

For my first set, I want to build a good burn, to let me know it's going into the right area, so I may do as many as 30 repetitions--whatever it takes.

After more stretching and rubbing to get rid of some lactic acid, I throw another plate on each side and go at it again with perfect form, to make sure my quads are receiving the maximum pressure of the blood. All the while, my longtime friend and training partner, Marc Arnold, is yelling at me to keep in line, stay tight, build the pump, explode and do one more. If anybody can get me going, it's Marc.