Bodybuilding for Women: Cecile Bayeul's Leg Workout Routines

Where do women store most of the body fat? For the most part, in the thighs, hips and the glutes. As a result, the first question that many women ask me is how to get the legs in shape. A lot of women unfortunately do excessive cardiovascular exercise only to get marginal results. In order to get the lean looking legs that you want you need to do some bodybuilding. Bodybuilding combines weight training with cardiovascular exercise and the proper diet in order to increase the muscle tissue while burning the body fat. Increasing muscle accomplishes two things:

1) It increases your metabolism (ability to burn calories) permanently since the more muscle you have, the more calories your body needs to use every day in order to live.

2) It hardens and shapes the area trained giving women the lean and sexy legs that they are looking for.

Just doing cardiovascular exercise as many women do burns calories (something that will help you to lose weight if you are following the right diet) but does nothing to shape your legs or increase your metabolism permanently. In addition, an aerobics only exercise program will result also in loss of muscle tissue which will leave you looking flabby at the end. Again, if you want to re-shape your legs, or any other body part for that matter, you need to combine bodybuilding training with weights, cardiovascular exercise and the right bodybuilding diet. With that being said, I will go ahead and share my leg workout routines.

Cecile Bayeul's Leg Workout Routines

Obviously, every training program should be personalized and adapted to your body. Thus, I will provide you with some guidelines to follow in order to get the best bodybuilding results:

1) Choose a weight that allows you to reach failure within the amount of prescribed repetitions.

2) You can split this legs workout in two; for example, focus on training your quadriceps and calves on Monday, and hamstrings/glutes on Thursday.

3) For those who train legs one time a week, you can choose 3 of the quadriceps exercises and 2 of the hamstring/glutes exercises and calves, and switch the exercises the next week.

4) Rest enough time in between sets (60-90 seconds) to catch your breath and then move quickly to the next one. When you are done with all of the sets of one exercise, you can rest 2-3 minutes before moving to the following exercise.

5) For those who are just getting started, you should do no more that 2 or 3 sets, and rest longer between each set until you catch your breath.

6) I include the weights that I use just because I want to give you a clear snapshot of what is on my training journal. However, remember to choose a weight that allows you to do the repetitions that I recommend.

Quadriceps:

4 sets of superset lunges (press with toe) : 3 sets of 10 reps with 8 kgs dumbbells (17 lbs)
rest 3 min before moving to the next exercise
4 sets of squats in crescendo : 10, 12, 14, 16 reps with 60 kgs (132 lbs)
rest 3 min before moving to the next exercise
4 sets of legs extension in crescendo : 20 reps with 45, 50, 55, 60 kgs (99, 110, 121, 132 lbs)
rest 3 min before moving to the next exercise
4 sets of legs press : 10 reps with 110 kgs (242 lbs)
rest 3 min before moving to the next exercise
4 sets of sissy squats in crescendo : 10, 12, 14, 18 reps with bodyweight

Hamstrings/Glutes:

5 sets of glute hamstring raises in crescendo : 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 reps with bodyweight
rest 3 min before moving to the next exercise
5 sets of lying legs curls : 20 reps with 20 kgs (44 lbs)
rest 3 min before moving to the next exercise
5 sets of stiff legged dead-lifts in crescendo : 10,12, 14, 16, 18 reps with 40 kgs (88 lbs)
rest 3 min before moving to the next exercise
5 sets of wide stance squat pushing with heels : 20 reps with 12 kgs (26 lbs)

Calves (everything in superset without rest):
superset 4 sets of 20 reps one leg calf raise with bodyweight +
superset 4 sets of 20 reps toes in 2 legged calf raise + 10 reps one leg calf raise with bodyweight

Remember to Follow Your Diet

Like I said, remember that even though you have the right bodybuilding routines now, you also need to follow the proper diet in order to feed your muscle and starve the fat. Follow a program like the following in order to lose the fat and shape your legs:

Diets for Fat Loss

Don't Forget Your Cardiovascular Exercise

Remember that cardiovascular exercise is also an important part of the program. Do at least 3 sessions of 20-30 minute cardiovascular workouts a week either first thing in the morning on an empty stomach or right after the workouts. For more information on cardiovascular exercise, please take a look at the cardiovascular exercise page.

As you can see, I like to do my cardio first thing in the morning and my weights later on at night. However, if you cannot do this, you can do the cardio right after the workout.

Conclusion

Well, there you have it. Follow these bodybuilding routines, mix them with a good diet and cardiovascular exercise and you will get the lean legs that you are looking for. As someone who used to have the same problems that most women have in the legs and glutes.

About the Author

Cecile Bayeul was born in France in 1982 in a firefighter family. She wanted to become a firefighter and passed the tough professional firefighter tests which included various physically demanding feats. However, she decided to keep a more peaceful job (as her family wanted her to) so she became a nurse.

As a registered nurse she ended up studying various diet protocols for patients with special nutritional requirements due to their sicknesses.

In order to relieve stress from her job and to heal from an anorexia caused by a difficult divorce she picked up natural bodybuilding. Through bodybuilding she learned to regain her confidence and to be happy with her body.

Her passion for fitness led her to start conducting personal training not only for women but for men as well. She teaches that by embarking into a fitness program you can achieve any body that you want; something that builds up faith in oneself and develops the valuable skill of goal setting; things that at the end of the day improve every single aspect of your life!