Leg training has (re)emerged as a big aspect of fitness and gaining the respect it deserves within the fitness world. While some still opt to skip leg days, the bulk now seek to optimize their leg training, specializing in exercise selection and loads.
But, what about what number of leg exercises you need to use on leg day?
There’s numerous variables to make a decision comparable to training status and goals. Further, does the squat count as training each the hamstrings and quadriceps? Does it matter?
This text will attempt to help with these issues and answer what number of exercises you need to use on leg day.
Anatomy And Function Of The Legs
Unlike the upper body, where you’ll be able to train different muscle groups on separate days, the legs present a novel challenge on leg day. It’s extremely difficult to isolate your quads from hamstrings, especially when using compound movements. That is as a result of the indisputable fact that all leg muscles work along side each other during most movements, a results of the biomechanics of the leg.This creates the difficulty of what exercise trains what muscle.
Subsequently, understanding the anatomy and performance of your leg muscles is crucial for effective leg training. Let’s break down each muscle and its specific functions, which is able to help us understand how different leg exercises train each muscle.
Quadriceps
The quadriceps are a gaggle of 4 muscle heads on the front of your upper thigh. These muscles extend out of your hips all the best way all the way down to your knee, where the tendon inserts.
The quadriceps muscle is the first knee extensor, extending the knee from a flexed position. It also helps with hip flexion.
Your quadriceps play a serious role in human performance and performance because they extend the leg. Jumping, sprinting, and kicking all require your quadriceps.
Hamstrings
Your hamstrings, positioned opposite your quadriceps, are situated on the back of your upper thigh. They consist of three muscle heads that reach out of your pelvis down your leg, where they, too, insert below the knee.
Your hamstrings are the body’s primary knee extensor and can pull the leg up behind the body. That is seen once you’re walking and must pull the leg as much as take a step forward.
As well as, it plays a serious role in hip extension. The hamstrings are part of what is often called your posterior chain, a sequence of muscles that run down the back of your muscle. Technically, the posterior chain runs out of your neck with the traps and runs all the best way all the way down to your ankles.
Nevertheless, by way of fitness and health, we primarily think about three;
- Erector spinae
- Glutes
- Hamstrings
Together, these three muscles work to increase the hips. For instance, you pull your torso up after you tie your shoes, called hip extension.
The hamstrings also help pull the leg back. Take into consideration walking again. After you plant your forward foot, you then propel the body forward by pulling the leg back. That is where the hamstrings play a giant role.
Glutes
The largest and strongest muscle in your body – the glutes. Your glutes are involved in nearly every movement, each lower and upper body. That is as a result of its role in hip extension and overall stability.
The glutes are literally made up of three large muscles;
- Gluteus maximus
- Gluteus medius
- Gluteus minimus
These muscles sit on the back side of the body on the pelvis. As such, together, these act to increase the hips while also holding the hips in position. For instance, chances are you’ll hear the cue to “squeeze your glutes” during an overhead press to maintain the torso straight.
At the identical time, the glute muscles work to govern the leg, especially abduction. Further, the gluteus medius plays a vital role in stabilization and balance. Have you ever ever wondered why once you take a step, your body doesn’t fall over and even sag? That is due to your glutes!
Calves
The calves sit on the back of the lower leg and work to point the toes. You employ them each time you walk, because the calves must push off the bottom to propel the body. Further, the calves play a serious role in jumping or propulsion.
Leg Biomechanics And Movement Patterns
We reviewed a few of the leg’s movement patterns above as we examined the leg muscles. Now, we’ll review them again in additional detail and list the movement patterns. Knowing the leg’s functions allows us to pick out the correct amount of exercises to coach it.
Squat
The primary major movement pattern of the lower body is the squat. Discerning the squat from the hip hinge could be a bit confusing, as technically, they each contain hip flexion/hip extension.
The first difference seen in a squat is the quantity of knee flexion that happens and the involvement of the quads. During a squat, the knee travels forward because the hips are pushed back, which generally causes the knees to achieve 90 degrees with the thigh parallel to the bottom.
The more vital aspect is that the quadriceps shall be the first mover. This is not all the time the case, as there may be numerous nuance, but that is the predominant gist. Subsequently, squats include leg exercises during which the quadriceps are the first driver. Exercises include;
Hip Hinge
We just went over the hip hinge a bit as we described a squat. Again, the hip hinge occurs when the hips are pushed and act as the first mover. This makes hip extension the first movement, meaning these goal your glutes and hamstrings.
Over time, the conventional deadlift has been the first hip hinge in most workout programs. Nevertheless, there are many other high-quality leg exercises that use hip hinges.
Many consider the Romanian deadlift is the superior hip hinge movement for targeting the glutes and hamstrings. Lots happens when performing the deadlift, and it’s always performed with heavy weight. Because of this, many individuals could have problems really targeting those muscles. Nevertheless, a Romanian deadlift uses a smaller range of motion and lower weight, which allows higher isolation.
The barbell hip thrust is one other powerful hip hinge movement to focus on the glutes.
Lunge
The lunge is a unilateral exercise during which one leg is in front of the opposite, followed by the torso descending. As a result of its unique biomechanics, it trains your entire lower body, and the precise muscle activation can vary depending on the version you utilize.
More importantly, it trains the body’s stabilizer muscles to enhance balance and coordination. Further, it’s certainly one of the few dynamic movements used usually training. By dynamic, we mean that you’ll actively step out under load and move. This quality places it near the highest for being a very functional movement.
For these reasons, every leg training session must have a minimum of one lunge pattern. This does include split squats, but you need to definitely rotate in proper lunges as a result of their dynamic nature.
Knee Extension
Lots of the above movements already involve knee extensions, so this movement is a bit different. Think concerning the difference between doing a row and a bicep curl.
So, knee extensions isolate the quadriceps, with the most effective exercise example being machine knee extensions. These will be used to extend muscle mass in each the quadriceps and strengthen the knee joint.
With that said, including a particular knee extension exercise is not all the time essential in everyone’s training program. Its inclusion could rely on your personal needs.
Knee Curl
The identical principles to the knee extension can be applied to the knee curl (knee flexion). These will help isolate the hamstrings to extend muscle mass and strength and stop injury. At the identical time, most knee curls, just like the lying leg curl, can even hit the glutes to some extent.
Dorsiflexion (Point The Toes)
The ultimate movement pattern of the legs is dorsiflexion. The term “dorsiflexion” will be confusing because it incorporates “flexion”. Nevertheless, it refers to once you point your toes, which might appear to be an extension.
This confusion is solely as a result of the biomechanics of the ankle and calf muscles and the way the calf tendon inserts into the ankle. Regardless, this is a vital movement that is essential for each step.
Unilateral Leg Exercise
We spoke about this above with the lunge, but I desired to make a special note. Your leg training should contain a minimum of one unilateral leg exercise. Along with lunges and split squats, the unilateral Romanian deadlift is one other great option. Other great selections include;
How Many Sets Should You Use On Leg Day?
The number of coaching sets you utilize to coach a muscle is often called your training volume. Total volume has been found to be the first indicator of muscle growth and strength.
Nevertheless, you furthermore may don’t desire to do an excessive amount of, as you may risk collecting an excessive amount of volume. It’s generally believed that in case you keep performing sets, you may eventually stop seeing growth and possibly even see a decrease.
That said, the final advice for the variety of sets per muscle in a session is about 10 sets. This may mean you’d need to train:
- quads with 10 sets on leg day
- hamstrings with 10 sets on leg day
- glutes with 10 sets on leg day
Now, one problem when attempting to directly apply this number to training the legs is that you just use every muscle to various degrees in every compound movement.
Well, it won’t matter as much as we once thought, a minimum of to the purpose of stressing over counting sets. Some recent research has shown that the upper limit appears to be significantly higher in the case of training the legs. How high? 52 sets!
So, we’re obviously not going to suggest you train every leg muscle with 52 sets. The predominant point is that we probably need not stress an excessive amount of about hitting the right variety of sets.
How Many Leg Exercises Should You Use On Leg Day? My Advice as a Personal Trainer With Over 15 Years Experience
What number of exercises you utilize on leg day will vary barely depending on several aspects. The first issues would come with;
- Training experience
- Training frequency/split (Training legs twice every week or once?)
- Goals
A recent beginner training twice every week may use just 1-2 exercises per training session. Then again, an experienced lifter training for mass may do 10 on a leg day!
In other words, there’s numerous variance.
That said, I can offer you a clearer answer, i’ll just must boil it all the way down to one training day vs two training days per week. I’ll also discuss it from a beginner perspective.
When you train twice every week:
Nowadays, essentially the most common training advice suggests you train a muscle twice every week. This implies you’ll need two legs a day in the course of the week. Here’s how that may look:
Every week, you need to have one primary squat and one primary hip hinge. As these are each big movements, you’d start each leg day with one or the opposite. You then desire a secondary hip hinge and squat. The front squat and barbell hip thrust are good selections. After that, you may pick an adjunct hip hinge and squat, comparable to the Hack squat and Romanian deadlift. Finally, you may finish each days with a leg curl, leg extension, and calf raise. When you wanted, you may run these as a superset or perhaps a tri-set.
This may lead to seven exercises on two leg days, as such:
Leg Training Day 1:
- Back Squat 4X4
- Barbell Hip Thrust 3X6-8
- Hack Squat 3X8-10
- Walking Lunge 100
- Leg Curl + Leg Extension 3X10-12
- Calf 2X15-20
Leg Training Day 2:
- Deadlift 4X4
- Front Squat 3X6-8
- Romanian Deadlift 3X8-10
- Bulgarian Split Squat 3X8-10
- Leg Curl + Leg Extension 3X10-12
- Calf 3X8-10
This may be an awesome, complete leg training program in your average lifter or intermediate lifter (6+ months of coaching) who trains legs twice every week.
When you train legs once every week:
Now, let’s take a look at what this might seem like in case you trained the legs once every week. One in all the largest questions in the case of exercises on leg day is in case you can train each the back squat and deadlift on the identical day. You will discover a wide range of answers and all might be right depending on the rationale.
With that said, we feel that after an individual starts using heavier loads, training each the deadlift and squat on leg day is hard.
You might in case you trained one with a strength load after which one with lighter weight for hypertrophy. You might then alternate them weekly or monthly. I.e.
- Week 1- Squat (heavy), Deadlift (light)
- Week 2- Deadlift (heavy), Squat (light)
- Week 3- Squat (heavy), Deadlift (light)
- And so forth.
Regardless, here’s what your leg training might seem like:
Leg Day Training
- Squat 4X4
- Barbell Hip Thrust 3X6-8
- Hack Squat 3X8-10
- Barbell Romanian Deadlift 3X8-10
- Walking Lunges 100
- Leg Curl + Leg Extension (Super) 2X12-15
- Seated Calf Raise 3X10-15
This may likely be the max amount of exercise in your average lifter, even an intermediate with a pair years of coaching. Though it’s 22+ total working sets (depending what number of sets you wish for 100 lunges), we could try to interrupt down the sets for the quads and hamstrings (the glutes are utilized in all the things)
- Quads: Squat (4) + Hack Squat (3) + Leg Ext (2) + Lunge (~3) = 12 sets
- Hamstrings: Barbell Hip Thrust (3) + RDL (3) + Lunge (~3) + Leg Curl (2) = 11 sets
As you see, once we break down the muscle, we’re near that 10 set range. Regardless, an important aspect is that we hit the first movement patterns which we do.
Related: The Ultimate Leg Day Workout
When you are a beginner:
When you’re a beginner trainee on leg day, you are not going to want as many exercises. Your predominant focus ought to be your big, compound movements and getting strong on these. When you have a look at Starting Strength, one of the vital popular beginner strength programs, you ultimately train the back squat and deadlift 3 days every week.
In point of fact, this might be your only two exercises on leg day. With that said, we expect there’s numerous value to adding a lunge, as these movements provide advantages you’ll be able to’t get from other movements.
This implies we’d say a beginner’s leg training day should include a minimum of 3 exercises, one from each of the movements.
- Primary Squat: Back Squat, Leg Press, Front Squat, SSB Squat
- Primary Hip Hinge: Deadlift, Deadlift (Elevated Below Knee), Barbell Hip Thrust
- Lunge: Lunge, Walking Lunge, Split Squat
When you just use these three exercises and deal with getting as strong as possible, that’s all you wish. You might add more in case you wanted, nevertheless it would not be essential.
Leg Day Training Volume Conclusion
Leg day training will be bittersweet. All of us understand it’s probably essentially the most painful day, but there’s nothing higher than seeing your squat and deadlift increase and the width of your thighs.
The quantity of exercises you utilize will depend entirely in your circumstances but most individuals will use anywhere from 3-8 leg exercises. The first variable is that you just hit the foremost movement patterns to make sure you load every muscle and your legs are going to grow!
