Greg Rutherford is a British track and field star who specializes in long jump and competes as a sprinter. Rutherford won the long jump gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics, 2014 Commonwealth Games and 2014 European Athletics Championships. The guy knows a little something about training legs.
Rutherford spoke to AskMen about his leg training routine and explained you don’t have spend hours in the gym to get insane legs.
AM: What are the best exercises to improve your legs training?
GR: Yeah, I’d say box step-ups, power cleans as well, especially if you want to get fast, explosive. Any Olympic lifts, snatch or whatever, anything that’s using legs and bum a lot. I think squats is a generic thing – you can do squats with anything. That’s the great thing about it. As long as you get in a safe position to do it. You can do body squats if you’re trying to do some circuit work, or if you haven’t got access to a gym, pick up something a little bit heavier, hold it as close to your body as possible and do squats. They are simple to do, but make sure you’re doing them in the right position, because you can injure your back otherwise. But for me, box step-ups and power clean is by far the best.
AM: Are there any other things that you can do at home?
GR: Yeah, nearly anything you need to get at the gym you can get naturally. For example, a lot of training I do is running up hills, running up steps, just in the woods behind my house. Jumping on to things. All these things you can do anywhere, you don’t have to go to the gym.
For more training tips from Greg, check out the full article on AskMen.