6 Best Exercises To Build Massive Legs
No matter how great you look from the waist up, neglecting the
development of your legs will ultimately make your physique appear weird
and unbalanced. Leg training isn’t something that should be saved for
“later”, once you accomplish your goal of building a humongous upper
body
We get it that you probably find it less appealing than for example,
biceps training, but the fact remains that if you’re hoping to build a
highly aesthetic and well-defined physique, you need to get as serious
about building big legs as you are about building a massive chest
With that in mind, we offer you a set of five must-do leg moves that will
push your lower body growth out of the box and separate your physique from
that of the average rabid bench presser. Start today
Try this 5 Exercises To Build Massive Legs
Squats
Roughly put, leg training begins and ends with squats. This exercise is
the single most important one when it comes to adding mass to your lower
body, but sadly, its potential often remains untapped due to the lack of
focus on form and technique. To make the most out of squats, leave your
ego at the gym door and resist piling plate after plate on the bar –
instead, try to perfect your form and improve your mind-muscle connection
by focusing on maximizing the contraction on every rep
First, make sure to properly warm-up by doing a couple of sets with only
the weight of the bar. This will get the blood flowing to your leg muscles
and prepare your joints for some heavy work. As you lower the weight,
focus on keeping your back straight. Aim to complete a full range of
motion to maximize muscle fiber recruitment
Pyramid sets work great for building leg strength. Start with a weight
that allows you to get around 12 reps with good form, then increase the
weight by 20 pounds and perform 8-10 reps. Increase the weight again by
adding 20 reps and perform 8 reps, then add another 20 pounds and go for 6
reps. The next set should be the peak of your pyramid – increase the
weight by 20 pounds again (by now you’ve added a total of 80 pounds to
your starting weight) and aim to get 4-6 reps with as strict form as
possible
Now it’s time to come down the pyramid, so remove 20 pounds and try to
hit 6 reps, then remove another 20 pounds and go for 8 reps, and so on
until you get to the weight you’ve started with and perform your final 12
reps
Deadlift
The deadlift is another staple exercise, allowing you to lift heavy
loads and hit all the muscles in the lower body.
Just like the squat, the deadlift is also very ‘functional’ as the hip
extension is a movement mimicked in day to day life. For athletes, or
those participating in sport, the squat or deadlift is also key as it
has been shown to improve factors such as acceleration, sprint speed,
jump height, power, and they may reduce the risk of injury.
The deadlift will primarily work the posterior chain, though it does
depend on the set-up and the amount of knee bend you employ. You can
also experiment with your deadlift technique; taking sumo stance, for
example, will hit more of the posterior chain, while a conventional
deadlift will hit the quads slightly more, as greater knee bend is often
needed.
Hack Squats
Next, you will get your quads to scream “no more” with hack squats. While
performing these, your main focus should be on increasing the time under
tension by going through the full range of motion in a slow and controlled
manner
Pick a weight that allows you to get 15 good reps and perform 12 reps
with a 4-second lowering phase. Each lifting phase (upward motion) should
be performed in a fast and explosive way while each lowering phase should
last 4 seconds in a maximally controlled manner with emphasis on keeping
the muscles under constant tension. Be careful not to completely lock out
your knees however, because this can easily result with injury
Hack squats deserve a special place in your leg training routine because
they place more emphasis on the lower, inside area of your quads than
regular squats do. And since hack squats take the upper body out of the
equation, they remove potential compensations that might affect your squat
depth
Also, you can change the focus of the exercise by simply adjusting your
foot position – a higher foot position will hit the glutes more
effectively, whereas a lower foot position will primarily engage the
quads
Hack squats are performed on a hack squat machine which offers additional
control and stability of the movement, thereby allowing you to load up the
weight. It’s important to make sure that you keep your back in contact
with the backrest throughout the entire movement in order to keep your
spine adequately supported at all times
Given that you perform it correctly, this intense exercise will cause
your leg muscles some serious pain but it will ultimately bring terrific
mass gains. To maximize its benefits, keep your form in check and aim to
keep the mechanical tension constant
Ideally, you should perform 4 sets of 12 reps with a 4-second lowering
phase on each rep
Lying Hamstring Curls
The hamstring curl is a crucial exercise for ensuring complete balance
between the front and the back of the leg, which results with improved
aesthetics and a lesser risk of injuries rooted in unbalanced muscle
development. On top of that, leg curls will work your hamstrings more
directly than any other exercise
Sadly, hamstring training isn’t as popular as quad training is and this
causes many lifters to forget about the importance of complete muscle
development and leave their hamstrings underworked and
unimpressive-looking. The hamstrings cross two joints – the knee joint and
the hip joint – so they need to be trained with the help of exercises that
target the knee flexion function and the hip extension function of the
hamstring muscle separately. The leg curls, you guessed it, utilize the
knee flexion function of the hamstrings
This exercise is best performed in a drop set fashion. Pick a relatively
heavy weight and perform 12 reps with good form, then reduce the weight
and perform 12 reps again. Drop the weight again and go for 12 reps, then
drop it one last time and perform the final set, making sure your form is
intact. That’s a total of 4 sets with 12 reps each. Again, aim to
maximally exhaust your hamstrings by keeping the muscle tension as intense
and constant as possible
Seated Leg Extensions
The leg extension is a simple, limited movement which occurs only at the
knee joint and can be used to strengthen the quads. Leg extensions get a
lot of bad rep because there seem to be a lot of guys who believe this is
the only move they need to build awesome-looking quads and use it as an
excuse to neglect superior exercises like squats and deadlifts
While it’s true that leg extensions aren’t the greatest leg exercise on
the planet, it still has a lot of potential to upgrade your leg
development as long as you use it just like you would use any other
isolation exercise
In this context, leg extensions can and will help you build more muscle,
so don’t write them off just yet. In fact, this is a key exercise for
strengthening the patellar ligament and the quadriceps attachment for the
knee, which is super important for maintaining knee health and improving
the results of lower body training
As simple and basic as this exercise is, it’s worth keeping in mind some
key form points that will maximize its effectiveness. First of all, you
need to adjust the pad so that it falls on top of your lower leg, just
above the feet. In addition, make sure that your legs form a 90-degree
angle between the lower and upper leg. This will help you avoid placing
undue stress on the knee joint
Again, perform a drop set, starting with a weight that’s heavy enough to
make you struggle to get 10 good reps, then drop it and perform another 10
reps. Continue in this manner until you complete 4 sets of 10 reps
By now your legs will be burning like hell, so if you can’t go through a
full range of motion on every rep, go for half reps on the last two sets.
Using your quads, extend your legs to the maximum while keeping a slight
bend in your knees to protect the joint and ensuring that the rest of the
body remains stationary on the seat at all times. Hold the peak
contraction for a second, then slowly lower the weight back without
letting your legs go past the 90-degree limit
Static Dumbbell Lunges
To completely drain your leg muscles of any remaining bits of strength,
we recommend finishing the workout with a few sets of dumbbell lunges.
Lunges are great at engaging your quads and gluteal muscles and can help
you improve overall leg definition. But instead of doing forward lunges,
you will hold the position for about 30 seconds
Take a dumbbell in each hand and lunge forward with your right leg,
keeping your body aligned and abs contracted. Without moving your feet,
lower your rear leg until the knee almost touches he floor while bending
your front leg. Hold for 30 seconds, then return to the start position and
repeat with the other side. Perform 3 sets of 10-15 reps per side. If you
feel like you can do more, increase the weight of the dumbbells and make
sure that you struggle at every rep towards the end of the set
These 5 exercises make up a great basic leg routine that is guaranteed to
help you jump start your leg development. If you start training your legs
regularly with this workout, you should be able to see noticeable
improvements in terms of size and strength pretty quickly
