| I personally start my leg workout with hamstrings. | | | | Go and sit on the machine and extend your knee to a |
| Doing hamstrings first allows me to do the exercise | | | | full locked out position. You really have to squeeze the |
| with full concentration and focus. I have noticed that a | | | | quads at the top of the exercise. If you do leg |
| lot of people have fantastic frontal quads but lack | | | | extensions before squats, you will pre fatique the |
| hamstring separation or mass. People who train quads | | | | quads so more results can be derived from the |
| firstly, usually give little to no attention to the hamstrings. | | | | pressing motion. Some people like to do this exercise |
| But anyway here are the best leg muscle exercises to | | | | one leg at a time but I prefer it with both legs. |
| build muscle mass: | | | | (Smith machine) squats |
| Lying leg curls | | | | For most people smith machine squats are better than |
| Lie down on the machine and curl the weight to the | | | | regular squats, it helps to balance the weight so you |
| gluts. If you like you can flex and squeeze the | | | | can concentrate more on the muscle at work. Too |
| hamstrings at the top of the exercise. Do not stop | | | | many people in my opinion squat with the help of the |
| when you reach failure, always to a few extra partial | | | | glutes and lower back. The smith machine takes away |
| reps. You can also put use a lot of weight and only | | | | some of the tension to these areas and also allows |
| use the partial repetitions, where the weight is only | | | | for better spotting. The position of the foot should be |
| brought half way up. | | | | shoulder width or maybe a bit wider. Bend at the |
| Stiff legged dead lifts | | | | knees first and only then add the hips. go down until |
| Keep the back flat, use moderate weights, lower the | | | | the legs from the hips to the knees are just short of |
| weights in front of yourself, until you feel the hamstring | | | | being parallel with the floor. Then return back to your |
| stretch. Then return to the starting position while still | | | | starting position. |
| keeping the back flat. Be sure not to round the back | | | | Leg presses |
| because otherwise the tension will be removed from | | | | If your goal is to build mass then this is the best |
| the hamstrings and placed on the lower back area. It is | | | | exercise for you. You don´t have to balance |
| very hard to use heavy weights with this exercise | | | | yourself and can concentrate fully to work the |
| because the extra weight leaves the lower back area | | | | muscles. The foot position should be at shoulder width. |
| exhausted instead of the hamstrings. If you want to | | | | Lower the weight as far as possible and you should |
| keep the back flat and tension on the hamstrings, look | | | | stop lowering if the lower back becomes too stressed. |
| up towards the ceiling during the exercise. | | | | and finally return the weight back to its starting position. |
| Leg extensions | | | | |