Exercise 1: Compound Movement for the Entire Lower Body

I believe in starting an effective thigh workout with a compound movement. It can be full squats with free weights, machine squats, or leg presses. Regardless of which you feel most comfortable with, you need to work the entire area, including the glute muscles, for power, size, and balance in your lower body.

I shoot for six to eight repetitions on all leg exercises (usually six). Neither I nor my clients have ever reaped much muscle gaining benefit by going after the higher reps. Some trainers hypothesize that it works the slow twitch fibers by doing so (thereby building all fibers).

I've found that it builds lung capacity more than muscle size. If you want to have impressive workouts more than impressive muscles (or you want to be able to sprint up a mountain), then by all means, go for fifteen reps.

On squats as well as the following isolation exercises, I recommend doing four to seven sets - only the last one going nearly to muscular failure.

👉 Exercise 2: Horizontal Leg Press Machine with Feet Apart/Toes Pointed Out
👉 Exercise 3: Inner Thigh Leg Extensions
👉 Exercise 4: Horizontal Leg Press with Feet Together/Weight on Heals
👉 Exercise 5: Outer Thigh Leg Extensions