Leg Strengthening Exercises – 3 Leg Exercise Routines To Build Muscle

While not nearly as glamorous as the chest or bicep muscles, the legs nevertheless make up a very large part of the body's muscle mass. In fact, the biggest muscle on the human body is the upper thigh muscle. Although the opposite sex will hardly be beating down your door because of the size of your leg muscles you should still spend a large portion of your workout time developing your leg muscles. After all, your leg muscles have the unusual responsibility of supporting your entire body.

There are many muscles within the leg but the primary muscle areas are the glutes, hamstrings, quadriceps, biceps femoris, leg abductors, leg adductors, and finally the calfs. You of course don't need to remember all of these different muscle areas but remember that the leg muscles are a very complex muscle area.

As with just about any exercise always remember to do 5-10 minutes of warm ups before engaging in heavy lifting. Warms up exercises are especially important with leg exercises because a serious leg injury could prevent you from walking. Because your leg muscles are such an enormous muscle group you can actually do more reps than normal but remember to keep each set short and intense.

That being said, here are 3 of my favorite leg strengthening exercises:

1. Leg Extensions – This is a great all around exercise for hitting most of the primary muscle areas contained within the leg. To do this exercise you will need to locate the leg extension machine at your gym. Once you have found the machine, hook your legs beneath the roller pads and then slowly push until the knees almost lock in place. Pause for approximately 2 seconds while your legs are in the extended position before bringing your legs back down again.

2. Squats – For this exercise you can use either the free weight squat stand or the secured squat stand. If this exercise is new to you, use the secured squat stand instead of the free weight stand. This exercise takes a little getting used to and a mistake with free weight squats could simultaneously cause very serious leg, neck, and back injury. To begin this exercise stand shoulder width apart with the barbell laid across the shoulder. Always be sure to use a shoulder protector on the barbell if you can find one as this will reduce stress on the shoulders and neck Bend down slowly until the legs are nearly parallel with the ground and then gradually push back up to the standing position.

3. Lying Leg Curls – You will need to locate the leg curl machine for this exercise. The leg curl machine will require that you lay down flat on your belly. Once you are laying down, hook your feet beneath the curl pad and then slowly curl the legs up and towards the lower back. As with leg extensions you will want to pause approximately 2 seconds once the weight has been brought fully upward.



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