The Guide to Having Great Quads
I see more and more guys hitting the gym the past few years, but, a lot of them as always seem to concentrate more of their efforts on their upper body and seriously neglect their legs.
Two reasons for this is;
From a physical standpoint, nobody really sees and/or looks at your legs as much as body parts as biceps & chest.
Legs are extremely hard to train, reason being they are large muscle groups meaning they need heavier weights to stimulate them, as opposed to something like biceps, which are a lot smaller in size.
Here are my ‘King of the Quads’ exercises
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 position your legs using a shoulder width medium stance with the toes slightly pointed out. Keep your head up at all times and maintain a straight back. This will be your starting position.
Begin to slowly lower the bar by bending the knees and hips as you maintain a straight posture with the head up. Continue down 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.
If you performed the exercise correctly, the front of the knees should make an imaginary straight line with the toes that is perpendicular to the front. If your knees are past that imaginary line (if they are past your toes) then you are placing undue stress on the knee and the exercise has been performed incorrectly.
Begin to raise the bar as you exhale by pushing the floor with the heel of your foot as you straighten the legs again and go back to the starting position.
Begin standing with your feet shoulder width apart and your arms by your side with dumbbells in both hands.
Step forward with one leg, flexing the knees to drop your hips. Descend until your rear knee nearly touches the ground. Your posture should remain upright, and your front knee should stay above the front foot.
Drive through the heel of your lead foot and extend both knees to raise yourself back up.
Step forward with your rear foot, repeating the lunge on the opposite leg.
Along with the quads, hamstrings and glutes, the calves can too be neglected a lot of the time by gym goers and sports people.
You are limited as to what you can do in regards to exercises, as the bio-mechanics of the calf muscles are very basic.
Personally, my favourite quad exercise although some will disagree as you are using a machine over free weights. Place your feet on the pad – the same width as your knees & hips. From there, lower the weight so your legs are bent roughly into a 90 degree angle. Push up but make sure your feet do not come off of the pad & do not lock out at the end.
The reasons for this are, you can potentially cause an injury and you are alleviating some of the stress from your quads on to your knee.
