Best Exercises for Legs

Squats

Grab the bar with a medium grip. Put your feet directly under the bar, get under it and put it between your traps and rear shoulder muscles (“low bar”). Chest up,  upper-back tight. Unrack the bar by Squatting up. Take one step back with one leg, one with your other leg. Stand straight with your knees and hips locked for maximum stability. Take a big breath, hold it and Squat. Do this by pushing your knees to the side and your hips back and down. Squat until you break parallel – your hip crease must go below the top of your knee. Hold your breath at the bottom. Don’t stop but quickly reverse the movement by driving your hips straight up. Keep your knees out, your chest up and your upper-back tight. Lock your hips and knees at the top. Exhale and rest a second. Then take a big breath, hold it and Squat your next rep. After your finished completing the reps, rack the weight back by stepping forward.

Leg Presses

Sit on the machine with your back and head against the padded support.

Place feet on the foot plate about hip width apart, ensuring the heels are flat. The legs should form an angle of about 90 degrees at the knee with a little variation either way as long as the heels sit flat on the plate, the knees should be in line with the feet and neither bowed inward nor outward.

Your bottom should not be raised from the seat platform. If it is, and the legs are at too sharp an angle, then you need to adjust the seat back until the correct position is enabled. You can recognize this poor position when the knees seem to be in front of your eyes and you feel cramped, grasp the assist handles.

Brace the abdominal muscles and push the platform away with heels and forefoot by extending the knees and hips and pushing the back into the seat pad, the heels should remain flat on the foot plate and the front of the foot or toes should not be used exclusively to move the pad forward.

Don’t lock out the knees in an explosive fashion but do express a full range of motion. Return the foot plate to the starting position by allowing the knees to bend under control while maintaining the feet flat on the surface, Repeat the movement.

  

Leg Extensions

For this exercise you will need to use a leg extension machine. First choose your weight and sit on the machine with your legs under the pad (feet pointed forward) and the hands holding the side bars, make sure that your legs form a 90-degree angle between the lower and upper leg. If the angle is less than 90-degrees then that means the knee is over the toes which in turn creates undue stress at the knee joint. If the machine is designed that way, either look for another machine or just make sure that when you start executing the exercise you stop going down once you hit the 90-degree angle.

Using your quadriceps, extend your legs to the maximum as you exhale. Ensure that the rest of the body remains stationary on the seat. Pause a second on the contracted position, slowly lower the weight back to the original position as you inhale, ensuring that you do not go past the 90-degree angle limit, Repeat the movement.

Hack Squats

  

Place the back of your torso against the back pad of the machine and hook your shoulders under the shoulder pads provided.

Position your legs in the platform using a shoulder width medium stance with the toes slightly pointed out. Place your arms on the side handles of the machine and disengage the safety bars Now straighten your legs without locking the knees.

Begin to slowly lower the unit by bending the knees as you maintain a straight posture with the head until the angle between the upper leg and the calves becomes slightly less than 90-degrees Inhale as you perform this portion of the movement, Begin to raise the unit as you exhale by pushing the floor with mainly with the heel of your foot as you straighten the legs again and go back to the starting position, Repeat the movement.

  

Lying Leg Curls

Adjust the machine lever to fit your height and lie face down on the leg curl machine with the pad of the lever on the back of your legs (just a few inches under the calves). Keeping the torso flat on the bench, ensure your legs are fully stretched and grab the side handles of the machine position your toes. As you exhale, curl your legs up as far as possible without lifting the upper legs from the pad. Once you hit the fully contracted position, hold it for a second.

As you inhale, bring the legs back to the initial position, Repeat the movement.

Lunges

Set the bar on a rack just below shoulder level. Once the correct height is chosen and the bar is loaded, step under the bar and place the back of your shoulders (slightly below the neck) across it, hold on to the bar using both arms at each side and lift it off the rack by first pushing with your legs and at the same time straightening your torso.

Step away from the rack and step forward with your right leg and squat down through your hips, while keeping the torso upright and maintaining balance. Inhale as you go down, using mainly the heel of your foot, push up and go back to the starting position as you exhale, Repeat the movement.

Tip: Alternate with Dumbbells.

Seated Calf Raises

Sit on the machine and place your toes on the lower portion of the platform provided with the heels extending off. Choose the toe positioning of your choice (forward, in, or out)

Place your lower thighs under the lever pad, which will need to be adjusted according to the height of your thighs. Now place your hands on top of the lever pad in order to prevent it from slipping forward, lift the lever slightly by pushing your heels up and release the safety bar.

Slowly lower your heels by bending at the ankles until the calves are fully stretched. Inhale as you perform this movement, raise the heels by extending the ankles as high as possible as you contract the calves and breathe out. Hold the top contraction for a second, Repeat the movement.