Get Bigger, Stronger Legs Fast with these 8 leg exercises designed to train your entire lower body. This blog will help you create a lower-body workout to train your quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes. Whether you want a rounder butt or nicer thighs, you'll find many of these exercises useful. Many leg exercises can be performed as an at-home workout without weights and still be very effective.
Stronger legs will help you move faster, jump higher, and be more explosive with athletic activities. It'll also improve your overall balance and decrease the chances of getting an injury to your knees and lower back. There's no doubt that it's essential to strengthen and develop your lower body which is why today I want to give you guys the 10 Best Exercises that you can do for stronger, bigger Legs.
8 Leg Exercises Designed to Train Your Entire Lower Body
1 back barbell squat
And by far, one of the best exercises for legs is the back barbell squat. Now a lot of beginners give up on doing heavy barbell squats because they feel awkward at first, but after showing the regular squat, ill explain the box squat variation that beginners can use to get comfortable with the form.
Whether you want rounder glutes, nicer thighs, or more power in your lower body, squats should be one of your staple leg exercises. So to do a regular barbell squat, you'll first step up to a loaded barbell and unrack it with the barbell resting on your traps, not your neck. After unracking and stepping back, spread your feet wider than shoulder-width apart while also slightly rotating your feet outward. Before you begin lowering yourself down, make sure that you're focusing on keeping your chest up, pointing straight ahead, and that you're maintaining the neutral curve in your lower back.
Then take a deep breath and hold it as you drive your hips back, bend your knees and ankles, and lower your body down. As you're doing this, ensure you're keeping your weight over the middle of your foot. Squat down until your legs are either parallel or a little under parallel with your knees. Then push your feet into the ground, and extend your knees as your hips drive forward under your shoulders. Once you get the barbell up in a relatively straight line, release your breath, then take your next deep breath, hold it, and squat back down for your next rep. Taking a deep breath before each rep is a technique known as the Valsalva maneuver, and it shouldn't be overlooked because it acts as a natural belt and protects your lower back while squatting or deadlifting.
Now, like I said, a big issue that a lot of beginners have with squats is learning how to sit back rather than just lowering themselves straight down. That's why another great exercise for both beginners and those who are advanced is the box squat.
2 box squat
This movement pattern is almost identical to a regular squat, but now you'll start with a bench or another platform set up behind you at about knee level. So you're going to unrack the barbell and back your feet up until your heels are almost against the platform. Then you're going to squat down the same way as before, and if you're a beginner, concentrate on sitting rather than squatting. When you take a seat on a daily basis, you don't even think about it, but you naturally shift your hips back and perform a squat to get your butt into that seat That is why this exercise is beneficial because it allows you to sit rather than Squat, and you'll automatically feel less afraid of falling back. Remember, when you squat down to the bench, you don't want to relax your core and allow your spine to round forward. Just bring your butt back, tap the seat and Drive the weight back up. As I said, this is still great for those of you that are Advanced because it challenges you to go all the way down to whatever platform or bench height you choose, and that slight pause at the bottom really makes the exercise feel more challenging. That's why you'll most likely have to use a lighter weight load for box squats than you normally use for regular squats.
3 weighted lateral lunges
Next, we have an exercise to improve your unilateral strength, weighted lateral lunges. Unilateral strength just refers to training and developing one side of your body at a time. Most of your everyday tasks use one leg at a time rather than both; for example, walking up a flight of stairs, you drive your body up with one leg at a time. It's also especially important for athletic activities, for example running or changing directions quickly will require unilateral strength aside from developing each of your legs separately lateral lunges are also great for developing the muscles around your inner thighs so to perform lateral lunges you're going to grab two dumbbells and hold them at your sides while standing straight up then take a big step out to one side as you're doing this don't make the common mistake of pointing your foot in the direction that you're lunging in instead you want both feet pointed straight ahead the whole time then bend the knee on the side that you stepped out with and concentrate on sitting into that lunge so you should shift your hips back bend your knee over the line of your toes and almost imagine like you're doing a one-legged squat on one side while the other leg stays straight after lowering yourself down push off that lunging foot straighten your leg and step back into the center starting position. from there you can alternate to the other side or finish all your reps on one side before switching to the other side.
4 single-leg leg press
Another great unilateral exercise that uses a machine is the single leg leg press now to be clear I don't recommend leg pressing with both legs at the same time because it's responsible for a good amount of lower back injuries this is because your back gets pinned against the pad in a way where it becomes very difficult to maintain that natural lumbar curve as both your knees Bend and come in towards your chest as you go further and further down your hips and back will begin to round forward while pinned between the weight and the pad behind you and this often leads to a nasty lower back injury so instead you're going to take a seat lean back and place one foot on the platform rather than two the other leg should be in front of you on the ground by having that other leg down you lock your hips in place and prevent them from rounding forward helping you maintain the natural lumbar curve so you're simply going to unrack the weight and lower it down with one leg by bending your knee and bringing it down towards your body then extend that leg back up until it's almost fully locked out and repeat for reps.
5 weighted Bulgarian split squats
Moving on next, we have a lower body exercise that'll help you improve your balance and once again work on your unilateral strength-weighted Bulgarian split squats. You can do these by either holding dumbbells at your sides or with a loaded barbell on your traps so to begin you'll stand a few feet in front of a flat bench, then you'll raise one leg back and plant the front or the top of your foot down on the bench from there you're essentially going to perform a single leg squat with your front leg so bend your front knee and lower yourself down as you bend your back knee at the same time and bring it towards the ground try to get a nice stretch at the bottom and then press your foot back into the ground while straightening your front knee until you're standing upright make sure that your front foot is far enough forward before lowering yourself down if your foot is too close to the bench you'll wind up putting a lot of unnecessary stress on your knees.
You'll know that your foot is too close if you're forming a triangle shape in between your legs when you come down to the bottom instead of a rectangle shape.
6 Romanian deadlifts
Next, we have Romanian deadlifts, which are by far one of the best exercises for your hamstrings and glutes. You'll begin by stepping up to a loaded barbell, get your shins close to the bar, and plant your feet a little wider than hip-width apart, unlike regular deadlifts where you would hinge at both the knees and the hips with Romanian deadlifts you're mostly concentrated on hinging only at the hips, and your knees should just be bent slightly.
Basically, just enough to be able to lower the barbell without overstretching your hamstrings, so hinge your hips by pulling them back behind you while slightly bending your knees and keeping your chest up to maintain the neutral Arc in your spine. Grab the barbell slightly wider than where your shins meet the bar, then squeeze your shoulder blades back together take a deep breath, hold it and lift the weight up by concentrating on driving your hips forward word and standing upright make sure that you're not just lifting with your lower back instead you should squeeze your abs keep your shoulders retracted and drive your hips forward exhale at the top then take a deep breath and lower back down.
you can either tap the ground with the weight on each rep, or it's also fine to lower the barbell about halfway down your shins before coming back up for your next rep. Keep in mind you'll probably be really sore the first few times if you don't normally do Romanian deadlifts
7 weighted step UPS
Next, we have weighted step UPS. To perform this one, you'll want to set up a platform or a bench at about knee level and stand in front of it with two dumbbells at your sides. From there raise one leg up and plant the foot on the platform then kick off your back foot while simultaneously pressing your front foot into the platform drive that foot down and extend that front leg until you're standing all the way up. once you straighten that leg step right back down on the other foot and then repeat for reps and then switch sides after you're done with all your reps on one side now there's a variated form of Step Up so you can also do instead and it'll take your calves and momentum out of the movement entirely putting much more emphasis on the glutes.
it'll also make it much more challenging to the point where your body weight may be all that you need for this exercise so to begin you'll start once again in front or to the side of a platform raise one leg up bend your knee and plant your foot on the platform but this time before you step up it's important that you point the big toe of your foot that's on the ground straight up towards the ceiling this actually prevents you from kicking off as you step up and puts much more stress on the glute and the thigh that's working in front of you so step up using your lead leg while focusing on driving your chest up to maintain a nice vertical posture.
Once you stand all the way up, lower back down until you're back to the starting position, and repeat for reps.
8 walking lunges
Another staple lower body exercise that you should be doing to build up your glutes, hamstrings and your quads is walking lunges. With lunges deadlifts and squats you really want to focus on increasing the weight load that you can lift so make sure you select a weight low load that brings you close to failure after doing around 8 to 10 lunges for each leg to begin grab two heavy dumbbells and hold them at your sides as you take a big step forward make sure you step far enough forward to form what looks like a rectangle between your legs rather than that triangle shape that we were talking about earlier which will happen if you take too small of a step forward.
Also when you step forward don't try to keep your feet overlapping in a straight line instead you should keep them hip distance apart during each lunge then drop your back knee down towards the ground and bend your front knee at the same time once your knee almost touches the ground stand back up and bring your back foot in front of you to alternate to the other side and continue for reps.
so those are eight of the best exercises you can do to strengthen and grow your legs you can take half of these exercises and perform each of them for three sets of eight to ten reps then you can do the other half on your second leg day of the week.
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