Written by Ron Harris
14 July 2018

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Leg Exercises for Mass With Dennis Wolf

11 Moves to Build Big Wheels

 

 

A Brief History of the Wolf Wheels

      Dennis Wolf entered his first local contest in Germany in 1999 at the age of 20, after less than a year of training. He had been working his legs even less time— in fact, he’d just starting training them six weeks before the contest! As you would assume, they weren’t anything special. By the time Dennis got back onstage again a year later, his quads overpowered his entire upper body, with the exception of his shoulders. “The genetics were always there for them to grow, and they grew so fast once I began training them,” he says. His hamstrings didn’t share the same proclivity for insane growth response, which is why it’s taken them so long to catch up to his quads. “It just took time after that,” he says. “I put more effort into my hams than I do my quads, and my hams get more sore after training than my quads do.” Let’s take a look at what you can do to build your legs like the Big Bad Wolf:

 1) Squats

      He can hit good sets of 8-10 reps with 495, but in recent years he’s been experimenting with higher-rep sets with success. “A lot of times what I will do is use only 315 or 365 at the most, for three work sets of 15 reps,” he says. “But I keep the rest periods between the sets short. By the third set, that 315 feels like 600 pounds and I am getting the most ridiculous pump and burn in my quads— but it’s so much safer for my knees and my lower back.”

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2) Leg Press

      Regardless of what type of leg press you use, Dennis insists that you will always be better off being more concerned with the feeling in your quads, hams and glutes rather than seeing how many plates you can load up. “Get a full range of motion and feel the muscles working,” he stresses. “Any gym you go to, you will see guys who put on every plate the machine holds and then do these little half-reps— and nine times out of 10, their legs aren’t very developed at all. Forget about the weight. I can’t even tell you how many plates I use because I just don’t care.”

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3) Hack Squats

      Any set of wheels with an awesome sweep, whether they belong to Branch, Kai or Cutler, has hack squats in part to thank for that eye-popping shape. Dennis has put his time in on hacks over the years, and it shows. “They hit the quads in a different way than squats do, but you have to be careful with your knees— I know I do.” He recommends a slower rep speed and advises against bouncing out of the bottom position. Dennis also cautions against loading the machine up with as many plates as you can. “If you can’t go down to parallel for 10 reps, take some weight off and get the full benefit of the movement.”

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4) Leg Extensions

      Dennis usually kicks off leg workouts directly with squats. But once he’s preparing for a show and his body fat levels are getting lower, he does leg extensions at the start to ensure that his knees are thoroughly warmed up before squats. The rep ranges reflect this as well: 12-15 reps per set pre-contest, yet heavier for sets of 10-12 in the off-season phase. Either way, he will always do two very light sets that he doesn’t count first, to get the feel of the motion. Most of the time he uses the standard form with his toes pointing straight ahead, but every few workouts, he will do the first two sets with his toes pointed inward to target the vastus medialis or teardrop, then two or three sets with toes pointed out to emphasize the vastus lateralis, which helps add sweep to the outer quads.

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5) Lunges

      Dennis does do lunges, but only in the pre-contest phase of his training. “To me they are a detail exercise for helping to make the separations in the quads and between the glutes and hamstrings get deeper, but they are not really something that I think helps you build size.” He will use a barbell sometimes and hold dumbbells at others, but in either case he walks rather than stay in one spot. “It’s a lot easier to get the set done when I can see the point on the gym floor I need to reach,” he notes.

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6) Squat Machine

      We shot Dennis using this machine, but it turns out he doesn’t really utilize it in his leg training. “I try everything in the gym to see how it feels,” he begins. “For me, I felt it in the bottom stretch position and in the top part only, and nothing in the middle of the rep, so I don’t use it.” That doesn’t mean you or I might not benefit from it. We are all individuals with our own unique structures and needs.

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7) Lying Leg Curls

      Leg curls have been the bread-and-butter movement for Wolf’s meaty hams since day one in the gym, and he typically does four sets of 10-12 reps on them. As a contest draws nearer, he ups the reps to the 15-20 range. “I do my reps very slowly on these,” he says. “That’s the only way you can get the most out of leg curls. I urge all bodybuilders to try slowing down the reps on leg curls and squeezing the muscle as hard as they can, and see if they don’t notice a big difference in how it feels and eventually, the results you get.”

 Even though Dennis now often performs three different types of leg curls for hams in the same workout, lying leg curls are always one of them. “It’s the most basic exercise for them, just like a barbell curl is for biceps,” he notes.

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8) Seated Leg Curls

      Dennis is not so blessed in the hamstring department, so he also does seated leg curls and single-leg curls along with lying leg curls. “What I like best about the seated leg curl is that because of the different way your body is positioned, you can put a lot more emphasis on the contraction point of the rep and really squeeze the hams,” he says. “You don’t really get that as much with the lying leg curl, but you get a better stretch of the hams with the lying ones— so I really think most people should do them both.

 

9) Standing Single Leg Curls

      Two leg-curl movements might be fine for the average bodybuilder, but Dennis needs sweeping, fuller hamstring development to compare to the guys blessed in the hamstring department— so after the heavier lying and seated versions, he heads over to a standing unit to work his hammies one at a time for better focus and isolation. “I get a better squeeze at the top when I do the standing leg curl,” he says. “At the top, I make sure I hold the contraction for a little second to make it better.”

 

10) Stiff-Legged Deadlifts

      Dennis tried leg curls and Romanian deadlifts earlier in his career but found he got a much better feeling out of an exercise that’s rarely seen anymore, good mornings. For the uninitiated, these are done with a barbell on the back just like a squat. Instead of doing a deep knee bend as with a squat, you bow forward at the hips as if you were bowing down in a show of respect to a lady or a dignitary. “I feel these in my hamstring, my glutes and my lower back— all areas I need to build— whereas with stiff-legs I tend to feel just the hams,” says Wolf. Dennis uses the two movements interchangeably, choosing one or the other at each hamstring session.

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11) The Calf Conundrum

      Calves have been the one body part to give Dennis the greatest challenge since he started bodybuilding. What seems to be working well at the present time is hitting them twice a week with fairly heavy weights, doing slow reps and emphasizing both the contraction and the stretch. Standing and seated calf raises are both done for six sets of 20-25 reps each at some workouts, and 10-12 for others. “If I go super high on the reps, it doesn’t feel like the weight is enough to stress the muscles so much, but I get a better pump. I think you need to do both lower and higher reps for best results.”

 

Training Split*

 Monday:            Chest

 Tuesday:            Quads

 Wednesday:      Arms

 Thursday:          Hams

 Friday:              Delts

 Saturday:          Back

 *Calves are done every other day.

 

 Leg Workout

 

Tuesday: Quads

 Leg Press or Hack Squats         4 x 12-15

 Vertical Leg Press                    4 x 12

 Leg Extensions                         4 x 12-15

 Dumbbell Walking Lunges         3-4 sets of 10-15 steps per leg

 

Thursday: Hams

Seated Leg Curls                                4 x 12

 Lying Leg Curls                                  4 x 12

 Standing One-leg Curls                       4 x 10-12

 Good Mornings or Stiff-leg Deadlifts     3 x 10-12

 Glute Kickback Machine                      4 x 12

 

Every Other Day: Calves

 Standing Calf Raises     8 sets of 10-15 reps (increasing weight)

 Seated Calf Raises        6 sets of 8-12 reps (increasing weight)

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Dennis Wolf’s Pro Record

 2006 Santa Susanna Pro                        Third Place

 2006 Europa Super Show                      Seventh Place

 2006 Montreal Pro                                 Fifth Place

 2006 Mr. Olympia                                  Sixteenth Place

 2007 New York Pro                                Third Place

 2007 Keystone Pro Classic                    Winner

 2007 Mr. Olympia                                  Fifth Place

 2008 Mr. Olympia                                  Fourth Place

 2009 Mr. Olympia                                  Did not Place

 2010 New York Pro                                Third Place

 2010 Mr. Olympia                                   Fifth Place

 2011 Flex Pro                                         Fourth Place

 2011 Arnold Classic                                Second Place

 2011 Australian Grand Prix                     Winner

 2011 Mr. Olympia                                   Fifth Place

 2011 Sheru Classic                                Fourth Place

 2012 Arnold Classic                                Second Place

 2012 Mr. Olympia                                    Sixth Place

 2012 Arnold Classic Europe                   Second Place

 2012 Prague Pro                                   Winner

 2013 Mr. Olympia                                  Third Place

2013 Arnold Classic Europe                   Third Place

2014 Arnold Classic                               Winner

2014 Mr. Olympia                                   Fourth Place

2014 Arnold Classic Europe                    Winner

2014 EVL's Prauge Pro                          Winner

2014 San Marino Pro                             Second Place

2015 Mr. Olympia                                  Fourth Place

2015 Arnold Classic Europe                   Third Place

2015 Prague Pro                                   Fourth Place

2018 Arnold Classic Ohio                      12th Place

 

 

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