Best exercises for leg development—and how to execute

Leg day—every lifter’s favorite day of the week! (Am I being sarcastic?) Some dread training legs, and some love to. Whichever side you fall on, it is undisputed that the squat is crucial for developing your physique.

Legs play a huge part in the overall balance of your physique. Without a developed lower body, you may suffer from “chicken legs” syndrome, which is not something I’d like to be associated with! Let’s face it—we all know at least one person who skips legs to train the upper body instead…

Benefits of training legs

Although I’m sure we can agree that leg day is certainly the most taxing on your central nervous system, there are great benefits that you should see after completing this difficult workout. See the below facts:

• Strong and developed legs keep your body balanced better, which can help with your posture and lingering back pain
• Powerful legs improve athletic performance, such as speed, agility, quickness, coordination, and vertical leap. (You should definitely be squatting if you’re trying to dunk!)
• Legs build the foundation you need on other lifts, such as the Overhead Press, Bench Press (yes—strong legs can increase your Bench Press with proper driving technique), Deadlifts, and of course—Squat)
• Improved core strength. The stability required to perform leg exercises (such as squats and lunges) engages your abs and lower back, two vital groups of your core.
• Consistent leg training stimulates important hormones in your body necessary for muscular development. These include testosterone and human growth hormone (HGH). It is important to note that training legs will produce more of these hormones as opposed to other, smaller muscle groups (arms, shoulders, etc). If you skip out on your legs, you won’t be getting the benefit of this great effect!

Moreover, because leg training is generally more taxing on your body as opposed to training the upper body, this will allow you to burn more calories! To give you a good example to go along with this, on an average one-hour session of upper body training, I generally burn 700 calories or so. (Wearing a mask in the gyms burns even more calories by the way.)

Compare this with a one-hour average leg training session—I burn between 825-900 calories. These extra calories certainly add up throughout the week and could be used as an excellent way to aid in weight loss.

Short on time and looking to still get your workouts in? Check out my article on how to make sure to get it in and stay motivated!

What happens when you don’t train legs?

A lot of lifters surely would rather be hitting dumbbell curls for those peaked biceps, or maybe bench pressing for their pecs. As mentioned before, choosing to do this can have undesirable effects.

In contrast with the benefits of training legs, prolonged periods of time skipping them can cause some problems. Aside from “chicken leg” syndrome, the below can occur:

You won’t last as long cardio-wise

Without an optimally trained set of legs, your cardiovascular performance can actually decline. This could lead to you not being able to run the splits you could be if you were to properly train legs.

Your lower back may tighten up

Considering many of us work sedentary jobs (I envy those of you who don’t!), sitting down all day can cause your hamstrings to tighten up. Our hamstrings are connected to our lower back like a rubber band. When our hamstrings are tight, they pull on the lower back muscles, causing back pain. When you train your legs, all the related muscle groups are relatively loose, alleviating this issue.

Your likelihood for injury may increase

This is especially true for runners and other endurance athletes. Many runners who neglect leg training will surely have an imbalance between their quads, hamstrings, glutes, and knees. Knee pain is common amongst runners, and imbalances between your quads and hamstrings can be a cause of this. When your lower body is trained evenly, the pain will most likely subside.

Exercises to perform

I would like to breakdown this section by best exercises for:

• Strength
• Muscular Development
• Athletic Performance

If you’ve read my other article on how training the same exercise in a different way can lead to different results, you know this to be true. It is widely known that the best overall exercise for legs, regardless of criteria, is squats. Squats make your legs big, strong and improve athletic performance.

Because of this, squats should be included whether trying to improve strength, grow your legs aesthetically, or improve athletically. In addition to squats, other great exercises include:

• Leg press
• Walking lunges
• Bulgarian split squats
• Seated quadricep extension
• Seated hamstring curl
• Lying hamstring curl
• Stiff-legged deadlift/Romanian deadlift (RDL)
• Calf raises (seated or standing)
• Sled pushes
• Sled pulls
• Depth jumps
• Farmers’ walk

Best exercises for strength

From my experience, the below three exercises are the best for gaining strength:

1. Barbell Low Bar Squats

Notice “low bar” underlined above. This is because there is a distinct difference between low bar, high bar, and front squats. In the below video, I demonstrate a low bar squat for you:

The two main differences between a low bar and a high bar squat are the bar placement and posture during the movement. For the low bar squat, you want to aim to keep the barbell beneath your trap muscles and more on the rear deltoids. Doing so will increase your leverage for the squat, allowing you to lift more weight!

Squatting this way also engages your glutes more. The glutes are the largest muscle in the human body, so it makes sense that engaging them more will add to a bigger squat.

You will also notice that I am leaned-in more as opposed to the high bar squat (which I will show later). This is intentional. As the bar is lower on your back, standing upright during a low bar squat is not practical, as it could roll off your shoulders and cause you to lose balance. Leaning forward is required to support the bar placement.

When you’re in this position, be sure to take a slightly wider stance as opposed to the high bar position and point your toes outward. (A foot outside of shoulder-width on each side should work best.) Taking all these points into consideration will produce more power during the squat and certainly, add to strength increases.

2. Leg Press

The leg press is another great exercise for developing strength and size in your legs. If you are unable to squat due to pain or for other reasons, I’d say the leg press is the second-best exercise.

Similar to squats, leg placement here can make a difference in the development of your legs. A wider, higher-up stance on the machine engages your hamstrings more. On the flip side, a closer, lower-down stance on the machine engages your quadriceps more, so pick and choose what you feel most comfortable with based on your goals.

I always found it best to complete 3-5 pyramid sets of this exercise (increasing weight and decreasing reps each set). Doing so will allow you to work within multiple repetition ranges, and also reap the benefits of the power sets. For these power sets, aim to perform 8 reps at most.

Take the proper stance on the press, disengage the lock on the machine, and begin to lower down the weight until your knees touch your chest. Do not place your hands on your knees, as you will be cheating yourself! Keeping your hands under the seat, press the weight back up to the starting position, contracting your quadriceps, and repeat for the desired rep range.

3. Walking Lunges

Lunges, in my opinion, are the most difficult leg exercise. Walking back and forth for a certain amount of time/number of steps takes a large toll in the cardiovascular department. Not to mention, adding a good amount of weight makes this even more difficult.

Do not let this deter you from the fact that they are one of the best exercises for quadriceps, glute, and hamstring development! Lunges can be performed stationary or by walking a path back and forth. In this example, I will be referring to barbell walking lunges.

Start by standing as you normally would, with your feet shoulder-width apart. If performing this exercise with bodyweight, put your hands on your hips and flare your elbows out. Take larger than normal steps forward, dip down one knee until it (almost) touches the floor, and continue this pattern throughout the movement.

In the below video, I demonstrate this with a barbell on my back for increased resistance. The principle is the same as if you were to perform this weightless. The only difference is supporting a barbell on your traps. Check it out:

Best exercises for development

From my experience, the below three exercises are the best for hypertrophy:

1. Barbell High Bar Squats

As mentioned before, there is a distinct difference between high bar and low bar squatting. We now know low bar squats excel for strength gain, but what about actual muscular development? The winner here goes to high bar squat.

For this exercise, the bar placement will be higher up on your back as opposed to low bar squats (more on your trap muscles). When the bar is in this position, you are now able to stand more upright as opposed to when the bar was lower on your back during low bar squats.

Doing so allows you to take more of your glutes out of the movement and engage your quadriceps more. This is the reason that high bar squats excel at muscular development. The only downside to this exercise is that generally speaking, you won’t have as good leverage as you would during the low bar squat, and as a result, won’t be able to squat as much. This isn’t true for everybody though; there are athletes who high bar squat 1,000+ lbs!

In the below video, you will notice my cousin standing a bit more upright, and engaging his quadriceps more:

As far as foot placement/position goes—point your toes forward, and narrow your stance to slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. You should also try to sit back during the squat, and avoid your knees from going too far over your toes.

2. Seated Quadriceps Extensions

I’d like to mention that the leg press could be another pointer on this list as well, as they are excellent for leg development, but for the purpose of variety, the quadricep extensions cannot be overlooked.

To be honest, there aren’t many exercises that make your legs burn like the seated quadriceps extension. Performing higher repetitions on this machine (12+) usually works best, and really helps to bring out the striations and fibers in your legs.

This is a fairly basic exercise to perform, and not much technique is required to master it. Make sure you are seated and have your shins placed on the pad of the machine. Bring your toes up towards the ceiling, making sure to squeeze your quads! Lower the weight back down in a slow and controlled fashion, and explode back up again. Aim for 12-15 reps each set for maximum benefit.

3. Lying Hamstring Curl

There are many people who prefer Romanian Deadlifts/Still Legged Deadlifts over this exercise, but let me explain why in my opinion, these are better for hamstring development.

This exercise is direct hamstring isolation, with little to no muscles involved other than the hamstrings. During RDLs/SLDs, your lower back, glutes, and core all come into play, which can take away from the hamstring benefit you may be looking for. This is not to say that this is a bad thing, but for the purpose of muscular development, isolating your hamstrings as much as possible is the goal.

Like the quadriceps extensions, this is another fairly basic exercise to perform. Lay face down on the machine, and hook the back part of your ankles against the pad. Bring the weight up towards your butt, squeeze the hamstrings, and lower back down slowly. Aim to perform 10-15 repetitions, and I guarantee your hamstrings will be BURNING.

Best exercises for athletic performance

From my experience, the below three exercises are the best for athletic performance:

1. Front Squats

This squat is under the athletic performance section due to the core strength and balance required to execute this squat. Of the three types mentioned in this article, this is the overall hardest squat to perform in terms of weight.

This is due to the fact that the barbell is not placed on top of your back—it is held in front of you! As a result, your leverage is greatly decreased and you most likely won’t be able to squat as much as you could on a back squat.

Not to worry—research has shown that although you cannot lift as much weight on a front squat when compared with a back squat, the added difficulty from this movement supersedes this fact, and you could still get the same results with lighter weight!

The front squat targets mainly your quadriceps and upper back, as you have to ensure to keep the weight held high and not have your back cave in. This certainly helps with attributes like strength and power.

Another excellent benefit of performing front squats is that there is far less stress on your lower back. Considering the weight is held in front of you, this takes away from the bar compressing your spine as it would on a back squat. This is one of the reasons why I prefer front squats.

In the below video, you can see me performing the front squat:

The stance should be similar to a barbell high bar squat, with your toes pointing forward and stance slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. With the bar balanced on your front deltoids, keep your hands crossed over your neck (while holding the bar with your fingers), and your head held high. Squat down until your quads are parallel with the floor, and return to the starting position. Perform for desired reps, although I find 8-12 to work best!

2. Sled Pushes/Pulls

I’m sure you’ve seen NFL athletes perform this exercise. This is where you load up weight plates on vertical stacks on a sled, and push/pull across a turf field.

This exercise is honestly a full-body workout and is excellent for improving athleticism. You have to drive mainly with your legs and ensure your core is engaged. Your shoulders/arms will be firing to move this weight sled!

The calories burned during this exercise are substantial, and it has been known to improve conditioning, speed, agility, and functionality. This is why this exercise is a favorite for many professional athletes.

Load up the sled with a weight you are comfortable with, and push one direction for 15-30s, and back the other way for the same amount of time (depending on your fitness level and the weight used). You can keep your arms extended for more core engagement, or have your arms closer to your body for more leg drive/power. I usually like to switch off from set to set. This is an exercise that will really get you pumping and out of breath, but at the end of it, you will feel so accomplished that you were able to withstand the pain. Great work!

3. Depth Jumps

This exercise is known for increasing vertical leap and power. As this is a plyometric exercise, the great part about these if you could do them anywhere! All you need is a platform to jump off (like a step in your backyard).

This is arguably the best exercise for improving vertical leap (aside from squats). The goal here is to step off a platform 1-2 feet from the ground, and the moment both of your feet touch the floor, explode upwards, jumping as high as you can. You can also tuck in your legs when traveling upwards for increased agility.

This movement mimics a vertical leap. When training for vert/dunking, the goal is to squat down into your charge stance and explode back up as quickly as possible to maximize your vertical leap. This exercise does exactly that.

For the best results, aim to perform 3 sets of 10-12 repetitions, making sure to spend as little time on the ground as possible, and explode upwards as high as you can.

Summary

No matter which exercises you choose from the above, you really can’t go wrong with any of them. As previously mentioned, your training will vary depending on whether you’re aiming for strength, muscular development, or athletic performance. It is always a good idea to incorporate some of these exercises in every workout for optimal performance.

Squats can be performed in a variety of ways: Low Bar, High Bar, or Front. Depending on how you perform the exercise, each variation works your body differently. If you’re looking for strength, do low bar squats. Muscular development? Try some high bar squats. Looking to improve your athleticism in the sport of your choice? Well, front squats would suit you best.

It is no secret that squats are the king when it comes to leg development, regardless of what you’re training for. Always be sure to include them in your leg training routine, and I guarantee you will improve astronomically!

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