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Many bros going to the gym overlook the critical importance of training their legs. In their minds, they figure they can wear pants to cover up their puny thighs. Or just build an epic upper body and hope that nobody’s gaze drifts downwards toward their embarrassingly underdeveloped chicken legs.

The rest of us…we know better.

We never skip leg day. Some of us even hit our legs twice per week.

However, whether you’re training your legs once or twice per week, sooner or later you’ll run into an issue: the relative lack of variety of effective muscle-building leg exercises.

You’re tiring of squats and lunges

Don’t get me wrong. Squats, lunges, and straight-leg deadlifts (and their basic variations) should always have a foundational place in your lifting regimen. However, after a while, they start to get a little boring.

Wouldn’t it be better if you could swap out squats for another leg exercise every once in a while?

In this article, we’ll cover one of the more overlooked leg exercises to swap your squats out for the seated leg extension.

More than just a pointless gym-bro machine

The seated leg extension helps you target and train the four muscle heads of your quadriceps: the vastus medialis (the “teardrop” muscle), vastus intermedius, vastus lateralis and the rectus femoris. The first three help you extend your knee while the rectus femoris assists with both knee extension and hip flexion.

Perhaps the primary benefit of the seated leg extension is that it enables you to build extra volume for your quads while not training and tiring other joints and muscles, as would happen when you squat, for example.

When you squat you are activating just about all of the muscles in your lower body. On the other hand, the seated leg extension utilizes only your knee and quad muscles.

For this reason, it is difficult to use a lot of weight. When you are performing the seated leg extension it’s more likely that you’ll seek to increase the reps while setting the weight a bit lower. You should be aiming for 10-20 reps per set.

Speaking of which, just what is the correct seated leg extension technique?

How to do the seated leg extension the right way

To most people, the seated leg extension looks like an easy, hard-to-fail exercise. To be honest, it pretty much is. However, it’s still important to refresh and read up on form cues and insights to ensure you’re performing it with perfect technique.

First off, set the backrest so that your hips are at an angle greater than 90 degrees. This is to ensure you are able to activate your rectus femoris fully.

Next, use the handles. The handles are there to help you hold your butt in place and stop the weight from bouncing you around.

Finally, pay attention to your toe direction. Toes pointed slightly inwards helps increase the vastus lateralis activation, while toes pointing straight ahead provide the most all-round quad activation (Stoutenberg, et al., 2005).

When it comes to general advice for technique, remember to pay attention to your breathing. Inhale just before you begin each repetition and expend your energy while exhaling. Your legs should extend fully.

Hold the weight for 1-2 seconds at the top of each rep, before slowly returning it to the stack.

In terms of positioning the pad on your shin, it should be resting at a point above your ankle.

Common seated leg extension errors

When performing seated leg extensions, the most common mistake is in not fully extending your legs and only completing half-reps. If you think this applies to you, don’t worry; the fix is simple. Just lower the weight. Remember, you’re aiming for higher repetition volume with the seated leg extension, not necessarily the heaviest loads.

Another error is when you don’t grip the side handles strongly enough, and you end up being lifted up off the seat. In this case, the weight is in control of you as opposed to you controlling the weight. As a weight lifter, you must always be in control of the load. Again, reduce the weight and focus on perfecting a slow and controlled range of motion.

Continuing while you feel pain is definitely something else to watch out for. While the seated leg extension is a safe exercise for almost everyone, the only exceptions are those lifters who feel pain when they try it. Some of us just don’t have the flexibility or we have a unique anatomy that doesn’t allow for some movements. If this applies to you, consider speaking to a medical specialist before using the machine again.

Summary

For quad isolation exercises the seated leg extension is possibly the best movement you can choose. You can either make it the focus of your leg day or use it as a supplemental accessory exercise to help maximize muscle growth in your upper legs.

Not only is it a safe and comfortable exercise, it is also straightforward and easy to learn. It won’t be long until your quads are burning and just a little longer until they’re the envy of every chicken-legged bro at the gym!

References

• Stoutenberg, M., Pluchino, A., Ma, F., Hoctor, J., Signorile, J. (2005). The impact of foot position on electromyographical activity of the superficial quadriceps muscles during leg extension. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 19 (4): 931-938

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