Watch a Bodybuilder Attempt the 'Quadfather' Leg Workout
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When it comes to growing giant legs, nobody did it quite like bodybuilding legend Tom Platz, whose enormous quads earned him the nickname "The Quadfather." In a new video on the Buff Dudes YouTube channel, Brandon White sets out to get as big a leg pump as possible by recreating Platz's infamously tough lower-body training routine.
"This is going to be intense," he says. "The volume is absolutely insane."
White starts out with 8 to 12 sets of barbell squats, with variable reps: he can either perform more repetitions at a lower weight, or lift heavier for fewer reps.
"One of the great things about Tom Platz's workouts is that nothing is set in stone, you kind of feel it out," he says. He explains how Platz would focus specifically on his quads in this exercise, maintaining an upright torso position and placing plates under his heels in order to target that muscle and reduce the contribution of the glutes; rather than building full lower body strength, the so-called "Quadfather" wanted as much definition in that specific muscle area as possible.
"I probably should have brought a puke bucket," says White, although he is able to admire the pump he has achieved in his quads already, and which he will work even more in the next exercise: 5 sets of 12 hack squats at 100 pounds. White clarifies that Platz would do a variation of the hack squat here, where he would push his hips out and go up onto his toes as he lowered into the movement.
"As difficult as this is, I'm really loving this variation," he says. "I don't even have to go that heavy, but man, I just feel every bit of the movement going right into those quads... Man, it's hard."
The third exercise in Platz's workout, and the last one to focus exclusively on quads, is leg extensions, performed for between 5 and 8 sets of 10 to 15 reps. "He was very much an advocate of cheating," says White. "He'd take it to the limit... and then he would bust out half reps, quarter reps, micro reps. The guy was literally just pumping his legs over and over again."
Finally, White targets his hamstrings with lying leg curls, which Platz recommended doing for 6 to 10 sets of 10 to 15 reps, and then burns his calves with seated calf raises.
While this all tallies up to an extremely high-volume session, White adds that Platz only really trained legs seriously twice a month, totally "demolishing" them and then allowing himself two whole weeks to recover before his next intense workout.
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