Karl Leavey Coaching

People who say they’re “not gym people” remind me of people who say they’re “not cat people”.

Usually, they just haven’t found the right one yet.

Pixel strongly objected to being used to make this point.

Want to grow your quads?

Exercise selection matters, but it’s only one part of the equation.

Here are three things I’d focus on if building bigger quads is the goal.

And the last one has nothing to do with exercise selection

Embracing uncertainty doesn’t mean you stop caring about what happens.

It means you stop demanding certainty before you allow yourself to move forward.

We can spend so much time trying to predict outcomes, control what happens next, or prepare ourselves for every possible scenario.

But life has never worked that way.

Sometimes the healthiest response is simply:

“I don’t know what’s going to happen — but I know I’ll be alright.”

You don’t build that belief by thinking your way into it.

You build it by living. By taking chances. By getting things wrong. By going through difficult periods and eventually realising that you handled far more than you thought you could.

You can’t control what’s around the corner.

You can learn to trust yourself with whatever is.

Latest Leg Session - First and Last reps

2nd leg sesh since bouncing back from injury. Was comfortable getting a hinge pattern back in today, but played it pretty safe. Strength is back up a bit from last time too, work capacity back up since picking the cardio back up (and getting consistent with training again) so this was not nearly as much of a slog as the last one thankfullly.

I dare say I even enjoyed it. And enjoyment is the key to adherence. Good to be back smashing these poxy chicken legs, it’s what they deserve and crave.

If you are interested in upping your training, locking-in with your diet and nutrition and just working on being the best version of you possible, don’t hesitate to drop me a line

Hanging leg raises are one of my favourite ways to train the abs — provided you’re actually controlling the movement rather than swinging your way through it.

Done properly, they’re great for:

• Training the abs through a large range of motion
• Building strength and control through the trunk
• Training the abs to actively control the position of the pelvis
• Challenging the hip flexors alongside the core
• Developing grip strength simply from maintaining the hang
• Building better body control and stability
• Progressing easily from bent-knee raises → straighter-leg raises → more advanced variations

The big one though, is control.

If momentum is doing most of the work, you’re making the exercise easier in exactly the place you’re trying to make it harder.

Slow it down, control the pelvis, and make your abs actually earn the reps.

And if you can’t do that from a free hang yet, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with using a more stable variation and building up to it.

I used to be a bit of a begrudging fu**er.

Turns out, it had very little to do with the people I was begrudging.

Row your own boat.

The chest press seems simple enough — but a few small mistakes can make a big difference to how effectively you’re actually performing it.

Keep your upper back stable, find a comfortable elbow position, and control the weight rather than rushing through your reps.

Get the technique right, train hard, and give yourself something to progress over time.