1 – Train the Hard Way

There are some people out there who thrive on leg day. They train their legs with such passion and intensity that they can barely walk out of the gym. These people are extremely dedicated and generally have pretty amazing results – they are to be admired and emulated.

Unfortunately most of us are not like these people. For us, training legs is a pain in the ass – it’s hard, it’s not fun and if you could skip it you probably would. Having said that, we all know how important training legs is not only for a balanced physique but also for maximum testosterone release and overall muscular development.

When you go to the gym on leg day you just need to come to terms with the fact that it’s going to be tough. We all do things we don’t like and for many of us this is one of them. You just need to go in there, give it your all for 1 hour and reap the benefits.

It’s only once a week, surely you can muster up enough strength and energy to get through it!

One way a lot of people make leg day more bearable is to swap out squats for leg presses and extensions. Although all of these exercises work the leg muscles they have very different results in terms of muscle growth

2 – Watch your Feet

The placement of your feet is important in all leg exercises but particularly so in open-chain movements. These movements are ones where your feet are not planted against a solid surface like the floor.

Open-chain movements include leg extensions and various types of leg curls. By turning your feet slightly while performing these exercises you can help emphasize a particularly area of the legs that you want to hit.

However, when performing closed-chain movements like squats and leg presses you need to be careful how you place your feet. If you turn them too far inward or outward you can put a tremendous amount of strain on your knees. Therefore, in order to do these exercises properly you should point your feet out just a little bit. If you take a wider stance you can point them out a bit more.

If you currently turn your feet out a lot you might not feel the strain right away but when you start ramping up the weight you will be setting yourself up for a potentially nasty injury down the road

3 – Keep your Heels Planted

Whether you are doing squats, legs presses or hack squats – you need to make sure your heels remain planted against a solid surface.

People tend to raise their heels towards the bottom of these movements as a result of poor ankle mobility or bad positioning. Sometimes people feel that their feet are too low on the platform in the case of hack squats and leg presses, as a result they need to compensate by raising their heels and transferring the weight forward.

When you lift your heels off the platform or ground you give yourself a much smaller base of support. This leaves you unbalanced and gives you less control over your reps. It also limits the amount of force you can generate in the lift since you aren’t able to drive from your heels.

4 – Watch your Knees

People generally make this mistake while performing squats and leg presses. It’s important because when you let your knees fall inward during one of these movements you are opening yourself up to all kinds of injuries, particularly the dreaded ACL tear.

If this is happening to you it’s likely the result of weak hip abductors and happens when you are moving upward during the squat. If this is happening to you look up some exercises online to stretch out the abductors and strengthen them. If you work a desk job as most of us do the chances are that you are extremely inflexible.

Fortunately thanks to the internet there are tons of free videos online to help improve your flexibility.

5 – Improve your Flexibility

Have you ever seen someone squatting at the gym with a couple of tiny plates underneath their heels?

While this might help deal with flexibility issues in the short-term it actually sets the trainee up for a variety of long-term issues. Generally speaking the reason people squat with their heels on plates is because they don’t have sufficient flexibility in their ankles to allow them to get deep enough in the squat without their heels coming off the ground.

While the plates might help them keep their heels down while they squat it’s really only a temporary solution. Instead, they would be much better off buying a pair of weightlifting shoes as they tend to have better range of motion.

This allows the trainee to get deeper in their squat while keeping their chest upright which avoids putting stress on the back. Lifting shoes also have strong heels which allow you to transfer more force from the ground and move heavier weights more easily.

Another issue with squatting with plates under your feet is that it forces your knees too far forward. As a result the ligaments around the knee take a beating which over time can become serious – not to mention the damage it can do to an existing condition.

Now, people are different when it comes to just how flexible they are and how deep they can squat. As a result, it’s hard to determine the ideal depth you should be squatting down to. Depending on the length of your limbs you might be better off going below parallel or stopping right at parallel.

Studies show that you get most of the benefit of a squat once you reach parallel so if your body allows you to go lower without risking injury then go for it.

However, even if you pull back up at parallel you won’t be missing out on a lot by not going all the way down.