Ryan Pateracki: Squat Life
Find me a top tie
r IFBB Pro who doesn’t bring a fantastic set of wheels to the stage. I don’t mean just any athlete who has a pro card and a subpar set of legs. What I mean is an athlete who is a threat to crack the top 3 in any show that they enter who also has legs that are a glaring weakness on their physique. Go ahead… I’ll wait.
The truth is that in the ultra-Darwinist world of professional bodybuilding where only the freakiest of the freaky occupy the top of the food chain – having a set of badass wheels is a necessity just to be in the conversation.
Sporting a set of show-stopping quads isn’t just limited to what we see on an IFBB stage. Every legitimate contender at a pro qualifying contest needs to have striated and separated slabs of muscle from the waist down. Just take 2013 NPC Super Heavyweight Champion and Species Athlete Ryan Pateracki for example.
Ryan brought arguably the best legs in the show to the stage on his way to winning his class and bringing home his IFBB Pro Card. Ryan recently gave me the chance to find out how he built his incredible quads, and you can find all of the details here in this Rx Muscle exclusive.
Leg Extensions
Ryan starts each workout off with leg extensions in order to prepare his quads and his connective tissue for an intense training session. With age comes wisdom, and as a seasoned veteran of the gym and the stage Ryan places a premium on getting the blood flowing to his massive quads before hopping under a barbell. On a typical day he likes to do four sets of leg extensions, gradually going heavier with each set. “I like to pause for a second on each and every rep to get a full contraction.”
Squats
Physiques may be built in the gym, but men are made in the squat rack, and after he finishes toasting his quads with four intense sets of leg extensions it’s time to head over to the place where every great pair of legs has been born. Although his quads look like they’re capable of squatting barbell bending po
undages, Ryan understands the importance of training hard and smart.
Pateracki states, “The older I get, the wiser I get with my training. I now realize that every workout doesn't have to be an all-out assault with extremely heavy weights. I've learned to be more of an instinctual trainer over the years paying very close attention to how my legs are feeling and going off of that. If everything is feeling great you better believe it’s going be a very intense crazy session!” Ryan pounds his quads with five heavy work sets and has routinely squatted over 500 lbs. on his way to building his monstrous wheels.
Leg Press
Just like any real bodybuilding masochist, the fun doesn’t stop until his legs are totally exhausted! Ryan finishes off his quads by blasting away a few more brutal sets on the leg press. Even though he’s already tortured his quads, Ryan stacks the leg press with weight that would crush any mere mortal and finishes up with four heavy sets using strict form and making sure he keeps constant tension on the muscle.
Despite the fact that his legs have always been one of his better body parts, Ryan knows that progress doesn’t come easy. And if he’s going to be onstage competing against the best in the world he needs to have a great work ethic and put his nose to the grindstone each and every time he trains.
I asked Ryan what he believed was the most important element of success for developing great legs and he said, “You plain and simple have to just train hard and smart! It seems to me that this is definitely the missing link in most people’s regimen. Every day I go to the gym I see very few people taking their workouts seriously and training hard! Most gym goers are too caught up in joking around and socializing with one another that they have absolutely no focus whatsoever! I think if you really want to improve your legs, you better check your work ethic first. You really have to be willing to give it every last bit of mental and physical effort you have!”
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