Leg Extension Exercise | Technique & Common Mistakes

By Myprotein Writer

Jamie Wykes Hobday

When looking at overall leg development; whilst the hamstrings, glutes and calves are at the forefront, it cannot be denied that the quadriceps really do steal the show!

Unsurprisingly, the quadriceps is comprised of four different sections (hence the ‘quad' reference);

1) The rectus femurs (The middle of the thigh and most predominant section)

2) The vastus lateralis (The outer side of the thigh muscle)

3) The vastus intermedius (The front top of the thigh)

4) The vastus medalis (The inner side of the thigh).

When combined together, the quadriceps muscle plays an extremely crucial role in knee joint flexion as well as hip flexion. Furthermore, the quadriceps contribute majorly to assist in everyday activities such as running, walking, skipping and of course, those brutal leg sessions.

Training Quads

Training your quadriceps does provide us with a host of benefits such as

? Improved athletic performance

? Significant amount of calories burnt

? Anabolic hormone stimulation

? Central Nervous System Activation

Throughout these quadriceps sessions, it is important to combine muscle building compound exercises along with a variety of isolation exercises. An isolation exercise is a resistance training exercise that will involve only one joint and very few muscle groups.

Whilst compound exercises such as squats, lunges and leg presses are perhaps seen as the ‘go to’ quad exercises, the following article will depict the isolation exercise; The Quad Extension, along with its technique and some common mistakes that you can expect to see in the gym when performing it.

The Leg 'Quad' Extension

The quad extension is an exercise that will uniquely isolate the quad muscle and can be used towards the end of a workout as a ‘finisher’ or right at the very start as a ‘pre-exhaust’ method of training. The reason why this exercise is so unique is because there genuinely are very few exercises that can isolate the quad extensions.

Typically, all quadriceps isolation movements are the quad extension or a variation of it, such as; single leg quad extension, cable quad extensions, partner assisted quad extensions. The benefits of the quad extension are endless, however, the highest regarded advantages include; its simplicity means that anyone of any ability can perform them, it is one of if not the only true isolators of the quadriceps and it can sometimes play a key role in injury prevention at the knee joint as it will strengthen essential knee joint attachments.

Some say that it can be used to replicate sports specific movements such as kicking in rugby, football and american football, however, various researchists and studies have disagreed with this view. Now that we have overseen the exercise and its advantages, lets take a look at how to perform the exercise;