3 BRUTAL QUAD BUILDERS
Building Bigger Quads
While leg press, hack squat, and leg extensions are nothing new to bodybuilding workouts, how you perform them can make all the difference in adding muscle to your legs. Samson Dauda relies on a few key tricks to increase the intensity when doing these exercises. Follow his strategy below to get the most out of each exercise and add more muscle to your quads.
Samson Dauda's Quad Workout
1. Leg Press:
Sit back in the leg press and bring your feet on the lower part of the platform with your feet 5-6 inches apart. By having a more narrow stance you will help to develop the counterpart of the quad referred to as the sweep. Perform 10 reps, working the weight up each set. Once you’re properly warmed up, perform a working set by performing 10 reps with a 30 second hold at the top with your knees slightly bent. After that 30 second hold, do an additional 10 reps with a 30 second hold and then perform a final 10 reps with a 30 second hold before finishing the set.
2. Hack Squat:
Next up, Hack Squats. Set yourself up in the hack squat so that your shoulders are on the pads, chest is up high and feet are in about the middle of the platform. Begin by standing up tall and disconnecting the safeties. Begin to lower yourself down in a controlled manner and stop at 90 degrees or below for 5 seconds each rep. Once at the bottom explode up. Perform warm up sets of 10-12 reps until you reach failure and do two working sets.
3. Leg Extension:
The Final exercise is a leg extension. This will totally burn out the quads. Perform a set of 10 reps and work your way up in weight each set until you get to your working weight. Next you will perform 3 working sets with a unique variation for each set.
Set 1: Perform 5 reps and at the top of each rep, hold the weight for 5 seconds. After your fifth rep, perform 5 straight reps with no hold.
Set 2: Before the first 5 reps by doing a 5 second concentric (lifting the weight up) followed by a one second eccentric (bringing the weight down) for the first 5 reps and then flip for the second 5 reps. So, a 1 second concentric, followed by a 5 second eccentric for the last 5 reps of the set.
Set 3: Have your training partner push against the pad for the first 10 reps, you want to fight them from being able to push the pad down. After those 10 reps, have your partner stop pushing and perform as many reps as you can until failure.