The Online Home for Strength Sports
Written by Jake BolyUpdated by Alex Polish on August 9th, 2023 Olympic Bench
If you were to ask an athlete about what muscle group looks the most impressive on the body, there’s a good chance they’d say, “the quadriceps.” Few muscles exemplify power and strength more than a pair of thick, strong quads peeking through a pair of shorts or pants. A strong and muscular lower body tells the world you do more in the gym than curl some dumbbells.
Whether you’re a recreational lifter, competitive strength athlete, or play a sport that somehow doesn’t feature barbells, strong quads are essential for performance and healthy movement. Not to mention that they’re essential in maxing out your barbell squat. Building powerful quads isn’t a complicated process. But it does take time, programming, and planning.
In this article, you’ll dive into the 13 best quad exercises to integrate into your leg day. You’ll also get acquainted with how to train for strength and more pronounced teardrop muscles.
Editor’s Note: The content on BarBend is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. When starting a new training regimen and/or diet, it is always a good idea to consult a trusted medical professional. We are not a medical resource. The opinions and articles on this site are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional.
Sure, you can’t do a heavy back squat without a pair of almighty quads to fuel and support the effort. But if you’re aiming to specifically target the fronts of your thighs, the front squat has got your back.
Since you’ll be front-loading the weight, you’ll be forced to keep your torso more upright than you can in a back squat. As a result, your quads will have to work a whole lot harder. As you can load up the front squat pretty heavily, this move will be key to supporting quad strength and development.
Coach’s Tip: Strong and mobile wrists and shoulders are crucial for an effective front-rack position. Before front squatting, be sure to warm up your hips, wrists, shoulders, and ankles. Drive your elbows up throughout the movement.
Sets and Reps: Perform three to four sets of four to 10 reps, depending on your goals.
You’ve probably seen the back squat on plenty of exercise lists. The squat is a movement pattern that we engage in daily, such as when we squat down to pick something up or get in and out of a chair.
By training it with a heel elevation, you’re able to drive the knee further forward, placing more muscular tension on the quads. Also, leg strength has carryover to more athletic movements such as jumping and sprinting, which are two activities your quads are directly involved in.
Coach’s Tip: Test out your weight plates or another elevated surface to get a feel for the movement before loading up the weight. Do warm-up sets with just your body weight and an empty barbell before doing anything else.
Sets and Reps: Do three to four sets of eight to 10 reps.
A fabulous exercise for beginners and advanced athletes alike, the goblet squat is a classic staple of leg day for a reason. You can choose between holding a dumbbell or a kettlebell. And although the weight will be front-loaded, you don’t need nearly as much wrist and shoulder mobility as you do with barbell front squats.
The goblet squat places a ton of emphasis on your quads, but that’s not all. It’s a compound movement that will involve your whole body, including your upper back and core. You’ll get a lot of bang for your buck with this one, for sure.
Coach’s Tip: If possible, keep your elbows tucked close to your sides. Some flaring out can help if that feels more natural for your body, but try to avoid a dramatic “chicken wing” effect to spare your elbows and shoulders unnecessary strain.
Sets and Reps: Perform three to four sets of eight to 15 reps.
There’s a reason so many lifters dread the Bulgarian split squat: it’s tough. Still, it continues to feature in so many high-quality strength programs. This unilateral movement allows you to smooth out strength imbalances while also training your stability, core strength, and — you guessed it — your quads.
The Bulgarian split squat will strengthen your legs very effectively, as your back leg will be elevated on a weight bench or plyo box. It’ll likely also present a strong mental challenge to build the fortitude and discipline you need to power through even the trickiest of accessory exercises.
Coach’s Tip: On the descent, lean slightly backward. On the ascent, focus on driving through that front leg.
This squat variation isolates one quad at a time, which also allows you to target a potentially lagging quadricep on one side. The heel lift allows you to drive your working knee forward further, placing more muscular tension on the quads.
Like other leg exercises, this variation can be loaded for more muscular tension. By loading up heavily, you can increase your hypertrophy and strength potential.
Coach’s Tip: Avoid letting your chest collapse forward, keeping your shoulders back and down. Squeeze the dumbbells to maximize full-body engagement.
Sets and Reps: Perform three to four sets of eight to 15 reps per side.
Originally the beloved brainchild of George Hackenschmidt, this exercise shares attributes with the back squat, reinforcing the squat movement pattern to build strength that translates into countless other lifts.
As a bonus, the machine creates external stability, removing the need to balance during each rep. When you don’t have to worry about balance, you can load up the weight pretty significantly.
Coach’s Tip: Once you get a feel for the movement, you can load up fairly heavily because of the external balance and stability. Take advantage of this, but ensure that you have your form and prerequisite strength locked in first.
Sets and Reps: Do three to four sets of six to eight reps.
The trap bar deadlift variation is one of the most underrated exercises around. It allows you to hold the load more in line with your body and with a neutral grip, which helps keep the torso more upright and allows for more weight to be loaded.
By elevating your heels, you’re placing the load more directly over your quads. You’re also able to achieve more depth, placing more tension on the quads through a larger range of motion. This is a deadly combination for building muscle and strength in the quads.
Coach’s Tip: Don’t skimp on bending your knees a lot more generously than you do with a barbell deadlift. This will help increase the activation of your quads.
Sets and Reps: Perform three to four sets of four to eight reps.
The leg press is another fantastic exercise for building strong resilient quads. Changes to foot position, adjustments to back pad angle, and built-in safety mechanisms help make the leg press a reliable, customizable option for quad training.
You can also train your quads with incredibly heavy loads, as this exercise lets you load up. Make sure you’re keeping your hamstring and glute training intense, too — you don’t want to overuse this move and get disproportionate strong on only one part of your lower body.
Coach’s Tip: Make sure your thighs are breaking parallel for maximum benefits or at least maximally pressed against your stomach or chest. If you can’t achieve that position or tension, lower the weight.
Sets and Reps: Perform three to four sets of eight to 12 reps.
This cable-based squat variation is another great exercise for training one leg at a time. The directional pull from the cable not only guides your path but also acts as a natural cue to drive the knee further forward — placing more tension on the quads.
These are great for beginners who need a more stationary leg exercise and for more advanced trainees who want to place targeted emphasis on the quads.
Coach’s Tip: Take your time to figure out the proper positioning with the cable stack. You want to be far enough away for the cable to provide constant tension, but close enough that you’re not losing balance or overcompensating.
Sets and Reps: Perform three sets of 15 to 20 reps per side.
Whether you’re at the gym or stuck at home training in your garage, sissy squats are one of the best exercises for creating a big stretch in the quads.
The banded variation keeps all the benefits of the conventional sissy squat but adds resistance from the mid-point to the top, where this exercise typically loses most of its challenge.
Coach’s Tip: Make sure you’re comfortable with the rigors of a regular sissy squat before adding resistance in this manner.
Sets and Reps: Perform three to four sets of 10 to 15 reps.
When performed with control and proper form, the leg extension is a stellar exercise to hone in on your quads. It’s easy to learn and execute (there’s practically no learning curve) and it doesn’t load your spine. That’s great news for lifters who want to target their legs without involving their back.
Leg extensions also require less weight to be effective, and it targets the rectus femoris muscle in its shortened position. That’s a quadriceps muscle that crosses the hip joint and plays an important role in helping stabilize the pelvis in other strength training exercises.
Coach’s Tip: Perform single-leg leg extensions if you have any strength or muscle imbalances you want to iron out.
Sets and Reps: Perform two to three sets of 12 to 20 reps.
The prowler sled is typically used for aerobic conditioning. Pushing or pulling the loaded sled ramps up your heart rate in no time and can be used in many different ways. The driving force behind a prowler pull is your legs — specifically your quads.
Loading up the sled with heavy weight adds a significant stimulus to your legs while limiting the strain on your back, so you can blast your quads while getting some conditioning work in.
Coach’s Tip: Make sure you’re breathing throughout your set. Try to breathe deep into your core instead of gasping for air.
Sets and Reps: Do three to five rounds of 15 to 45-second pulls.
Competitive cyclists are known for their monstrous quads, and it’s no wonder why — their sport involves thousands of reps of knee extension.
The cyclist squat adjusts the leverages of a standard squat to mimic the posture you’d take on a bicycle while providing an unmatched stimulus level to the knee extensors.
Coach’s Tip: Master the atypical movement pattern here before loading up the weights.
Sets and Reps: Perform three to four sets of eight to 12 reps.
A proper warm-up can help raise your core body temperature, activate your nervous system, and increase your readiness and mental state heading into that day’s session.
An effective warm-up for any muscle group is also going to incorporate the exercises you are performing in that day’s training session. For example, if you’re performing heel-elevated back squats, you can warm up by performing light reps and increasing the intensity as you proceed toward your working sets.
This ensures that the appropriate muscles and joints are being primed, reducing the risk of injury and improving your overall training performance.
Work the following moves into your full-body warm-up when leg day rolls around. Your lifts will be glad you did.
The quad muscles give strength and structure to the lower body and help protect the knee and hip. As such, you’ll either want to train quads with your legs as a whole or pair them with a couple of your upper body workouts.
Here are three benchmarks for quad training — it’s up to you to decide how to integrate them into your routine.
The exercises you choose play a significant role in the muscles being worked. Muscles of the leg work in synchronicity to achieve a wide range of movement patterns. Therefore, different muscles will be biased more depending on the actions being performed.
When selecting an exercise for quad-focused training, the main priority should be the amount of knee flexion in the range of motion. However, there are secondary considerations. When choosing exercises to perform, you want to pick ones that:
When it comes to training the legs, there are a lot of great options for exercises and tools to get the job done — including cables, machines, free weights, and body weight.
There’s no magic number of sets and reps — it depends on your ultimate goal. That said, a good rule of thumb is to stick with between 10-14 sets per week for your quads. The quads can take a beating due to their large surface area, but monitor your total training volume and how you respond to it.
To avoid size and strength plateaus, you want to progressively overload the quads. This entails selecting a certain number of sets and reps to perform an exercise for — say, three sets of 10 reps. For each workout, you’ll add one rep to each set of the movement. After a few weeks, start again with 10 reps but increase the load you’re lifting by about five to 10 pounds.
Remember, there is a limit to how much you can do per workout while still being productive. If you notice your performance dropping off, it may help to split up some of the training volume to a day later in the week. A training frequency of two to three sessions a week has been recommended to help maximize muscle growth. (1)
It’s not only about what you do and how you do it, it matters when. Placing compound exercises first in your workout is preferred, especially for beginners. This is because the more fatigued you get, the worse your technique will become, potentially increasing the risk of injury later in the workout.
Placing exercises like deadlifts and other barbell variations — that demand more from your body — toward the start of your workout will increase the effectiveness of your training. Here’s an example of how you may order the exercises in your next leg workout:
The heavier, more challenging compound lifts are performed first while you’re nice and fresh, tapering down to targeted isolation work towards the end.
There aren’t many hard rules in hypertrophy training, but there are plenty of good guidelines to follow. Adhering to these principles can help you get more out of your leg day every time you set foot in the gym.
More range of motion has been shown to lead to greater outcomes in hypertrophy. (2) While more of everything isn’t always better, when it comes to growing your quads, getting deep and maximizing knee flexion is a big deal.
The more depth you achieve, the more tension is placed on the quads through a larger range of motion. The ability to create significant tension will determine the overall success of your strength training, no matter the goal.
Knowing that depth matters is only half the battle. Choosing the right exercise for the job comes down to understanding what the exercise demands, alongside your skill level, structure, and mechanics.
There are a lot of different ways to train your quads. If you haven’t had personal success in the past with the traditional back squat, try out the heels-elevated back squat or trap bar deadlift.
These movements help drive the knee forward, placing more tension and bias on your quads compared to their traditional counterparts.
Building a noteworthy set of legs takes work. It takes planning, sets close to failure (and maybe one or two past), and proper recovery. Pushing the intensity of your sets close to, or past failure is crucial to level up your quads.
Knowing when and where to do this is also important — rather than pushing the intensity too far in exercises like the squat, go all-out in exercises like the hack squat, press, or leg extension. These movements naturally help protect the spine and deter accidents due to the fixed path and safety mechanisms.
The benefits of training your legs are well-established. Leg training helps burn a lot of calories, builds muscle and strength in your lower body, reduces the risk of injury, and helps you move around better overall.
Training your quads specifically not only helps build more functional strength — aiding in exercises like the squat and deadlift — but packs on size to your legs in a big way. If you’re looking to size up your khakis, kicking your quad training up a notch is a surefire way to be bursting at the seams.
Building up muscle and strength in the front of your legs leads to an increase in performance across the board. Stronger quads can lead to increased performance on your squat, deadlift, lunges, sled variations, and more. Alongside noticeable gains in strength, training the quads more directly will pack on noticeable size to your legs — commanding respect and turning heads.
Your quads play a vital role in helping stabilize the knee during many motions, including squats, deadlifts, power cleans, walking, sprinting, and jumping. Since the knee joint is one of the largest and most active in the human body, it deserves every ounce of attention we can give it.
The four heads of the quads extend down from the hip and attach nicely to the patellar tendon. These muscles work together alongside the hamstrings and calves to protect the knee and allow you to lift, move, and remain independent across your entire lifespan.
Your walking speed is a vital metric in healthy aging. A large body of scientific literature points us to the relationship between gait speed, our ability to get up out of a chair, and preventing falls or other age-related accidents. (3)
If you think the only time you squat is in the gym, rest assured that that’s not the case. Any time you get up and down from a chair, you’re squatting. Walking up or down the stairs is essentially a lunge. Building strong and resilient quads can help you engage in daily life while also keeping you more independent as you age.
The quadriceps are made up of four distinct muscles — namely the rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, and vastus intermedius. These muscles make up the bulk of the front of the thigh, help stabilize the knee, and play a vital role in hip stability as well.
The quadriceps all perform the same primary function of knee extension, although the rectus femoris specifically does have some role in auxiliary stabilization. In movements like a farmer’s carry, the quadriceps work double-time to help stabilize the hips. (4)
Understanding the mechanics of your muscles can help you get more value out of your training as well as enrich your time spent in the gym. Now that you have learned about building your quads, here are some other resources to help you expand your leg-day encyclopedia.
Featured Image: Sjale / Shutterstock
Jake holds a Master's in Sports Science and a Bachelor's in Exercise Science. Currently, Jake serves as the Fitness and Training Editor at BarBend.
The BarBend newsletter is everything you need to know about strength in a 3 minute read.
BarBend is an independent website. The views expressed on this site may come from individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect the view of BarBend or any other organization. BarBend is the Official Media Partner of USA Weightlifting.
Commercial Leg Press Copyright © 2023 · BarBend Inc · Sitemap