Welcome to another entry on the GETBIG Series. Every week we explore the anatomy, muscle construction, and how to balance out working out the muscle. We hope that this will help you understand the various muscles in your body and the importance of keeping them maintained. That being said, I hope you had an excellent past couple weeks in the gym knowing how the muscle works and how you can develop strength and muscle!
I've been hearing back from many of the readers which is great, and some of you had some real intelligent and thought-provoking questions which is fantastic! Continue to share the questions and thoughts through any of our social media platforms because the conversation just started.
Let’s jump right into this week’s muscle in the GETBIG series: The Quadriceps
The Quads are one of the easiest muscles to target in my opinion. You should be doing a combination of heavy and light weight training to grow them. I’ve seen considerable size growth in my quads from doing strength and hypertrophy training. Quads should be worked at least 2x per week for growth. Leg day once a week will not cut it.
Anatomy
Trivia! How many muscles are in the QUADricep? Yes, 4, you’re so smart!
The 4 muscles that make up the quadriceps are:
Vastus Intermedius
Rectus Femoris
Vastus Lateralis
Vastus Medialis
Since the quadricep is such a large muscle, every exercise you preform will hit all regions of the quadricep. There are certain exercises which may target more of a specific region of the quadricep (outer sweep, “tear drop”, and inner sweep), however, as I mentioned before your entire quadricep gets worked in its entirety due to the composition and stretch of the muscle.
Here are my 3 exercises for quadricep development which I have used and have really contributed in forming stronger quads:
Front Squat
The traditional squat works your entire lower body whilst the front squat targets your quadriceps more. The simple variation of the bar in front of you rather than behind your head completely changes the angle and trajectory of your squat which puts more emphasis on your quads. I highly suggest high rep front squats and heavy back squats for fully developed and muscular quads!
The grip can be tricky. If you do not have great wrist mobility like I do, you can always place the bar over your upper chest near your throat with both your arms overlapping the bar for stability as shown above. It does not really matter how you hold the bar, its more for comfortability purpose.
Lunges
Lunges are a great exercise for putting on muscle mass for your quads. Especially weighted lunges. Bodyweight + weights places a lot of emphasis on your quads and surrounding leg muscles. It improves core stability, promotes better balance, and increases hip flexor mobility which is vital for so many other compound lifts. One key note to mention when lunging, do not extend your knee past your toes. This places more stress on the knee rather than the quadricep which is something you do not want.
There are so many variations of lunges. Bulgarian lunges, stationary lunges, walking lunges, reverse lunges. They all are great exercises. You just need to pick the ones which suits you and your form the best. I prefer walking lunges with a barbell behind my head. It helps with my balance and I get a great burn in my quads.
Leg Press
The leg press machine is one of man’s greatest inventions. It’s a simple yet very effective machine that can build your quads and other areas of your lower body if you know how to manipulate your foot placement. The higher your feet are on the platform, the more your hamstrings and butt will assist in pushing the weight. The lower and more centered your feet are, the more emphasis is placed on your quadriceps.
I have to say, please be careful on this machine. I have heard about some pretty scary injuries on this machine. Make sure your legs are not too close together as your knees will come under a lot of duress. Also, DO NOT, AND I REPEAT DO NOT, LOCK OUT YOUR KNEES when you fully extend. Push the weight till your legs are nearly straight, do not straighten them out as you can seriously injure yourself.
To Conclude…
There are so many great quad exercises out there but the three I mentioned above have shown me great progression and have become my favourite. Please also make sure you properly warm up before doing any leg exercises. I like to warm up with leg extensions followed by a 2-5 min bike warmup. Get the blood flowing, stretch out those hip flexors and ‘grease’ up those joints before doing any sort of leg exercise. You should warm up before every gym session but especially for legs. If you have underdeveloped quads, you need to hit them twice a week minimum. One strength session and one hypertrophy session should be more than enough to stimulate growth!
That’s it for this week, make sure to work your quads, with your s'quad. Stay tuned for next week’s blog!
Enjoy the rest of your week and continue to hit me up on Instagram for any questions, comments, concerns, or if you just want to say hi!
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Peace!
Hussain
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