Ready for leg day?

Ive already shared myfavorite exercises for hamstringsand foryour glutes (a.k.a.

Its time to tackle the main muscle group we think of when we think of legs: the quads.

What are the quads?

Your quadriceps are a group of four muscles on the front of your thighs.

The function of these muscles is to straighten your knee.

Three of the muscles (the ones with vastus in the name) start on your upper thighbone.

The other muscle in this group, the rectus femoris, actually originates on the front of your pelvis.

It straightens your kneeandflexes your hip.

The rectus is one of the hip flexors.)

Theres one more sub-muscle you may hear people talking about: the VMO, or vastus medialis oblique.

This term refers to a portion of the vastus medialis that has oblique (diagonal) fibers.

So to work the quads, well need to do exercises that ask us to straighten our knees.

Ready to get started?

Beginners often start with bodyweight squats and move on to goblet squats.

For many people, the biggest barrier to a good squat is flexibility in the ankles.

The longer your thighbones are, the more ankle mobility you need.

(Try pausing at the bottom of each squat as you are warming up.)

Elevating your heels can help too.

But you know whatrealweightlifters do?

They wearshoes with a wedge built in.

Its not cheating, its just smart accessorizing.

I wear squat shoes even though I have excellent ankle mobility.

They help me to put my body in a stronger position.

Finally,theres no law that you have to squat to (or below) parallel.

Better to cut depth short than to give up squatting altogether.

The only catch with squatting above parallel is that you need a way to keep your squats consistent.

Tap the bar gently on the safeties with each rep.

No barbell?

(Forward, reverse, and walking lunges being the most common choices.)

I remember steering clear of this machine because I was taught that physical therapists hate it.

You guessed it: the leg extension.

If your knees get cranky when you use this machine, the likely culprit is your positioning.

The machine has a pivot or hinge where the arm can rotate.

This should be right next to your knee, not way in front of or behind it.

Fix that, and the machine will be alotmore comfortable.

Then, straighten your kneeswithoutstraightening your hips.

Grab something heavy, and enjoy the burn.