The best quad exercises will do wonders for your thigh muscles.
You shouldn't waste your time on isolation exercises for the quadriceps.
You should put all of your foucs on the best compound quadricep exercises.
This page will show you the best exercises for building muscle throughout the entire thigh region.
I'm a huge believer in free weight exercises, so you'll never find very many machine exercises on this website. I will always recommend free weights over machines.
Really, there is no comparison between free weights and machines. Free weights require your body to work more as a unit to complete a lift. Machines work for you and don't require you to use as much muscle mass, which isn't good.
With free weights, your body has to stabilize the weight. With machines, the weight is stabilized for you.
That's a quick run down of why you'll see free weight exercises below. Let's get straight to the exercises…
The Best Quad Exercises for Building Strong and Powerful Legs
 | In no particular order… |
The links above are quick links to the weightlifting exercises further down this page.
Barbell Squats
Barbell Squats are an absolute must for beginners. Squats are the king of all exercises. You can use the videos below to give you a good idea of how to perform squats properly, but you'll need more than that to get it right.
Read more about Starting Strength to give you everything you need to know to learn how to perform Squats with proper form and technique.
Now on to the videos…
Front Squats
The front squat is probably the best pure quad exercise.
The back squat works not only the quadriceps, but the entire body. The front squat allows you to put a little more emphasis on the quadriceps and still get the benefits of the squat movement.
Front squats are a very tough exercise to learn how to do properly and comfortably… harder for some than for others. You'll need lots of practice with this quad exercise and good wrist flexibility.
Front squats are definitely one of the best quad exercises. If you've never given them a shot, you need to start working on them today.
Barbell Hack Squats
Barbell Hack Squats are one of my personal favorites. The quads really get worked during this exercise.
Let me make clear that I never recommend you elevate your heels during this exercise. There's really no need.
Doing different variations in the Squat will only help your Squat get better. You'll get stronger on the regular barbell squat by doing all of these different squat variations.
Bulgarian Squats
Bulgarian squats are a very tough variation of the Squat. Bulgarian squats are also called split squats. The Bulgarian squat is one of the best quad exercises, but you only perform the exercise one leg at a time.
Hip Belt Squats
The hip belt squat is a squat variation that many people know nothing about! And that's great for you because this is an exercise that you can benefit from in terms of muscle and strength…
Zercher Squats
Zercher squats are another one of the best quad exercises available. This variation can be a little awkward at first since your arms are supporting the weights…
Lunges
Lunges can be done with a barbell or dumbbells. I prefer a barbell because you don't have to rely on your grip strength to sustain the set.
If you need to work on your grip strength, though, you might choose dumbbell lunges.
Lunges are a truly awesome whole body exercise. You should try them doing them for an entire weight lifting program (at least a few months) and then you'll see why I highly recommend them.
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