How to build legs like Kortney Olson

 http://www.ironmanmag.com.au/training/training-tips/806-video-how-to-build-world-record-legs-a-thighs

  

Written by Kortney Olson

Want world-record legs? Kortney Olson can crush watermelons between her thighs. Here, she shares her top tips.

So, you want thighs of superhero strength? You may or may not want to crush watermelons with them but, either way, adding this routine to your repertoire will surely increase your power. The biggest thing I attribute to having bone-crushing thigh strength is from working my abductor and adductor muscles as if they were as important as quads or hammies.

Close your eyes

I’d be doing you a huge disservice if I didn’t share this epic tip with you: During training, you’ll often find me training with my eyes closed. This helps me connect my mind to my body. So often we throw heavy weights around, never stopping to mindfully connect to the movement we’re pushing through. Having real strength comes from squeezing the living crap out of whatever muscle it is you’re working.

I’m sure all of you reading this have seen that one person in the gym who has ridiculous form. There are quite a few tools in the gym who think they’re the greatest thing since grape gum. However, a large number of gym junkies don’t have great form either. A lot of us (myself included) take a fair while before we realise that we’re sore in places we didn’t even think we were training! Often, we lift heavier than we need to and lay down the blue print for crappy form. If I had a dollar for every time I saw someone who thought they were doing dumbbell shoulder presses but in reality were working chest.  

SEE VIDEO: Kortney Olson crushes watermelons between her thighs

Visualisation

Mind control during a workout is paramount. Practising on-going brain training is a must if you want to take your training to another level. The power of the subconscious mind is incomprehensible; our minds control everything.

Visualising is seeing the future in advance. Before I went to crush steel bars between my legs for my last TV stunt (on Stan Lee’s Superhumans), I visualised myself already having had done it. I visualised myself smashing the crap out of those bars, just as a superhero would. I had 110 per cent self-belief that I was going to bend the bars in half, without a shadow of a doubt.

Here’s a rundown of a typical leg workout for me:
Warm up:
Rowing machine for 500m

HIIT:
Tabata regimen — 20 seconds work, 10 seconds rest with four different jumps (I highly recommend a Tabata training app for your smartphone.)
The jumps are: 1 minute pop-squats, 1 minute jumping lunges, 1 minute kneeling step-ups and 1 minute jump squats
Repeat 4x with no rest.
16 minutes total.

Note: I often do these barefoot so I can really feel the ground underneath my feet. When pushing through my heels barefoot, it really helps to switch on and activate my posterior chain. Our feet have a heap of pressure points and nerves, which are much easier to use in connecting the mind and body when our shoes and socks are off.

Strength:  
Back or front squats
 • 1 warm-up set at 50 per cent 1RM x 5 reps
 • 1 set at 80 per cent x 5 reps
 • 4 sets at 90 per cent x 3 reps.
 • 1 set at 100 per cent x 1 rep
Note: After my warm-up, I rest 30-45 seconds between my 90 per cent lifts, and a good two minutes before my one-rep max.

Box jumps:
• 
3 sets of 10 (from a seated position) with scissor squeezes in-between
• 
Rest 1–2 minutes between sets.
• 
After 10th jump, go into scissor squeezes (see below)

Notes: I’ll take a bench and 
sit on it about 1.5 metres from the box I am going to jump on (mount, lol!). I rock back, slam my heels down into the ground, then explosively jump onto the other box and land in the bottom of a squat as quietly as possible.

After the 10th jump, I go straight into seated scissor squeezes. You can use a towel as an object to squeeze, but I prefer a foam roller. Sitting on your butt, with your legs extended out in front of you, place the rolled up towel or foam roller between your thighs, and cross your ankles. Then, close your eyes and visualise squeezing the head of your mother-in-law with every cell of your body, until it explodes  — or you can’t squeeze any longer.  Finish off with some stretching, and boom, Bob’s your uncle. You’re on your way to having deadly thighs!

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Kortney Olson is a certified personal trainer, Olympic lifting coach and Australia's first female arm-wrestling champion.