5 EXERCISES TO BEEF UP YOUR QUADS & HAMS

Lying Hamstring Curl:

Establishing a mind muscle connection with your hamstrings is paramount when it comes to leg development. With squatting movements the hamstring carries the load on the eccentric portion of the movement. By starting with lying hamstring curls you will activate your hamstrings and have them primed for bigger compound movements. The other reason is to allow the knees to warm up without putting a direct load on them like a leg extension would. He does 5-6 sets of 10-15 reps. On the last set take 10 reps to failure, from there drop the weight 20% and complete as many reps you can until failure and then drop an additional 20% and do another set to failure. 

Hoss Tip: 

Lift knees off of the pad at the top of the hamstring curl. By lifting your legs, you will force your hamstrings to activate harder and will eliminate your glutes and lower back from taking the load.

Leg Press: 

This is the first compound movement of this workout. Fouad is doing a slightly wider foot placement on the sled for this workout. The wider foot placement allows for more adductor (inner thigh) activation. Fouad does feeder sets where he does 10 reps to feel the weight out before going heavier. He completes as many sets as necessary until he fails on his final set of 10 reps. 

Hoss Tip: You want to bring the weight down as low as possible before your lower back starts to round. You want to maximize range of motion while decreasing lower back injury risk. Also, you want to keep the hands off of the handles and your legs to force your legs to move the weight. 

Machine Squat:

Here we want to have a shoulder width stance with feet in the middle of the platform. Here you want to go all the way down and come up about 2/3rds of the way. By having this shorter range of motion you increase the time under tension for your quads. Make sure you push through the heels. Complete 6 sets of 8-10 reps, climbing up weight each set until you take the last set to complete failure.

Hack Squat Superset with Barbell Front Squat:

For this superset you will perform 3-4 sets of 8-10 reps of hack squats and barbell front squat. For the hack squat you will perform each rep with a dead stop at the bottom. What is a dead stop? A Dead stop is where you have the weight come to a complete stop at the bottom of the hack squat. By stopping the weight for a count of 2 seconds, you will eliminate any inertia or elastic tension at the bottom of the movement, forcing your quads to work much harder and help you to develop more powerful legs. When you complete 8-10 reps of hacks, you will immediately go over to the squat rack and do 8-10 reps of front squats. The key with this is to stay upright and keep the elbows high so that the bar stays in place. You want to come up about 2/3rds of the way in order to keep tension on the quads and really burn them out. This superset is a quad killer and will totally burn out your legs.