The Tom Platz Leg Workout for Building a Shredded Lower Body

Tom Platz Leg Workout.(Image via instagram)
Tom Platz Leg Workout. (Image via Instagram)

The Tom Platz leg workout is a legendary routine known for its intense focus on building massive leg muscles and developing incredible strength. Tom Platz is one of the most famous bodybuilders of the 1980s.

An IFBB professional, he competed in seven Mr. Olympias, finishing in third position in 1981, and winning the Mr. Universe title in 1980.

The Tom Platz leg workout. (Image via Pinterest)
The Tom Platz leg workout. (Image via Pinterest)

While Tom Platz was undeniably popular among his followers, he never really reached the top of the sport in his career. Despite this, he is known as a bodybuilding legend because his leg development is out of the box in the bodybuilding industry. The Tom Platz leg workout routine is everything you need for building the legs of your dreams.

Tom Platz’s legs measured around 30 inches. However, this did not mean his upper body was small. His legs were simply much bigger than his upper body. One of the reasons why the bodybuilder was not successful in this career was perhaps because his massive legs countered his upper body. After all, bodybuilding is a sport that rewards balance, proportions, and condition of the body.

The bodybuilder continues to have a strong presence in the industry and is a highly reputed coach. Despite being in his 60s, Tom Platz continues to train daily, and his legs are still massive with good conditioning.


Tom Platz Leg Workout for Building a Shredded Lower Body

Tom Platz built his massive lower body by performing squats, and lots of squats were present in his training plan. He was known for his squats and developed a passion for this exercise very early in his bodybuilding career. Tom Platz leg workout was an inspiration to the entire bodybuilding industry. His squat training sessions included squatting 225lbs for at least 10 mins, followed by 765lbs for one rep, and 23 reps with 525lbs.

The bodybuilder uses a variety of workouts in his training methods to improve his great physique. However, the one constant was his great intensity and focus, and he pushed himself to the last limit every time. There were no easy and simple workouts in his training sessions.

Tom Platz Leg Workout for Building a Shredded Lower Body. (Image via Pxfuel)
Tom Platz Leg Workout for Building a Shredded Lower Body. (Image via Pxfuel)

The Tom Platz workout routine began with a series of stretches to avoid any kind of injury. Excellent flexibility meant that the bodybuilder could use a full range of motion for all his leg exercises, making his workout safer and more effective with time.


1. Squats

Heavyweights and deep squats are signature moves in the Tom Platz leg workout. The bodybuilder favors a narrow stance when he performs squats. This increases his quadriceps. Sometimes, Tom Platz does them with his heels raised on wooden blocks to make them even to perform and get effective results. Moreover, narrow, deep squats are far from easy, so you may need to adopt a wider stance and stop parallels to prevent hurting.

Tom Platz started his workout with lightweights and high reps and pyramided up in weight and down in reps and repeated it again. This acted as an extended warm-up. Typically, Tom Platz leg workout went from sets of 20 reps to sets of five in his workout sessions. Tom Platz seldom went lower than five reps per set. Weight-wise, 500lbs was the norm for the heaviest sets of squats in his training sessions.


2. Hack Squats

The bodybuilder’s leg workout involves hack squats. He had a new way of performing hack squats. He'd rise up onto his tip toes and put his knees forward to increase the range of motion with the activation of the targeted muscles.

If you are concerned about your long-term knee health, you should probably keep your feet flat and try to reduce knee travel. If done this way, using hack squats is an effective quadriceps exercise with good results.


3. Leg Extension

Leg Extensions were a staple in the Tom Platz leg workout routine. (Image via Pxfuel)
Leg Extensions were a staple in the Tom Platz leg workout routine. (Image via Pxfuel)

Tom Platz moved from the hack squat to the leg extension machine. Leg extensions were performed with heavyweights for high reps and a good number of sets to use the last bit of energy from his quads which led to maximum growth.

After all those sets of squats and hack squats, the bodybuilder’s quads would be pumped to the max limit. Tom Platz kept pushing his quadriceps to the limit possible for him.


4. Leg Curls

Tom Platz's leg training didn’t have an enormous amount of hamstring workouts. Deep squats seem to have provided his hamstring with good stimulation. The bodybuilder, however, did perform stiff-leg deadlifts from time to time.

Getting the most out of leg curls from the Tom Platz leg workout involves training to failure and then getting help from a training partner to lift the weight. He would then lower the weight on his own.

Leg curl sets often end with several forced reps to fully fatigue their hamstrings in the Tom Platz leg workout. However, if you prefer, you can also do seated leg curls for effective results.


5. Standing Calf Raises

Standing calf raises work for the upper and lower calf muscles, respectively. Tom Platz’s calves were as enormous as his quads. Tom Platz clearly has the perfect genes for building massive legs, and till date his legs look massive!


A lot of bodybuilders have their favorite body parts. Dorian Yates has a massive back, while Larry Scott had his massive biceps. Arnold Schwarzenegger is probably best known for his huge chest. While most bodybuilders plan for leg development, the Tom Platz leg routine is usually the name that comes to mind as he is the best personality who can guide and provide the correct path to getting massive legs.

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