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When it comes to training the quads, you must understand there are 4 muscles that make them up. Your vastus medialis (inner head), vastus lateralis (outer head), vastus intermedius (middle head/hidden), and rectus femoris (middle head/visible).

So in order to build your quads, you must be working all four of these muscles. But the issue is, an exercise as simple as the leg extension, does not work all four due to the rectus femoris requiring hip flexion to be stimulated. This means you need an exercise where your knee lifts up.

One thing to keep in mind is to imagine as if there is a coin under the arch of your foot and you have to keep as much weight off it as possible, while making your main points of pressure your heel and big toe. This will enable you to activate your quads optimally.

The first one is a reverse lunge. The most important thing to remember is to act as if for the first half of the exercise, you are trying to get a one legged squat, then after you are halfway down, put your foot out on the ground behind you for full range of motion then drive back up through your front foot again and squeeze at the top for the peak contraction.

Next is close stanced leg press. You want to be just inside of shoulder width with your toes slightly pointed outward. From there, you will bend your knees to about 90 degrees and push up through your toes to engage your quads and make sure you are squeezing out at the top with locking out your knee joints.

Lastly, and my favorite, back foot elevated split squat. This is a great exercise to get a deep stretch on the hardest quad muscle to work, which is the vastus lateralis (outer head). You will put your back foot on something about a foot off the ground and focus on working your back leg's quad muscle. From there, make sure you shoulders are directly above your waist and sit back on your back leg about half the distance of a regular split squat and stand back up without locking out your knee.

Try these exercises out on your next leg day and let me know what you think!

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By Chris Wright

Chris has spent many years working and teaching in the IT field. He enjoys spending time outdoors and learning about new topics. He likes playing golf, spending time at the beach and working on classic cars and woodworking projects.

31 thoughts on “3 Exercises For Bigger Quads (HIT ALL 4 MUSCLES!)”
  1. Your videos have great info, but take about twice as long to convey that info as they should. This video should be 4 minutes max, not the nearly 10 minutes that it is. I would watch more of your videos if they were more concise. Thanks.

  2. Just bought your fitness plan, starting on the first day of august so that I can get my meals ready beforehand . Going to try my best wish me luck! :)

    1. He’s not wrong. There’s a video of a lady doing the leg press, obviously doesn’t have a lot of weight on, locks out her legs and gets one folded like a lawn chair. Weight doesn’t mean doodoo

  3. Yo Vanilla ice, i mean vshred, I thought higher up on the leg press plate engages more ham string? While lower down more quad? And do you happen to drive a mustang 5.0?

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