Introduction
Strong, well-built chiseled legs are some of the most impressive features you can add to your physique. Quads, hamstrings and glutes are your body’s largest and most powerful muscle groups.
Several machines in the gym can be used to target these muscle groups when working out your legs successfully. In this blog, we will talk about the best leg machines at the gym for muscle growth.
The following machines are chosen by their effectiveness, ease of use, safety, weight adjustability and availability.
1. Leg Press Machine
The leg press machine is excellent for hitting the quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes. It enables you to safely lift heavy weights with your legs while sitting in a reclining position.
Unlike squats or deadlifts, which can place significant strain on the spine, the leg press machine reduces spinal compression by allowing you to keep your back supported against the machine’s backrest.
As the quads have four muscles, it’s the most voluminous muscle of the human body. The leg press, performed with a low foot position, elevated heel, slightly narrow stance and a great range of motion is one of the best quad builders you’ll ever perform.
You’ll want to place your feet as low as possible on the platform but only so low that your heels are still pushing through with tons of force.
The leg press machine also allows you to hit your hamstrings and quads more by making a small adjustment –
Place your feet at a wider stance and higher up on the platform. you’ll find out that because of this positioning of your feet, the tension will move away from the quads to the hamstrings and glutes.
Is it fine to lock out?
It is fine to lock your knees, make sure when you start reaching the lockout, you slow down just a bit. You don’t want to enter that position excessively rapidly, you have to be in control and not snap your legs.
Tip: Don’t let your lower back come off the pad. That way you can maintain the tension throughout the entire set.
2. Hack Squat Machine
I never enjoyed doing barbell squats as much as I would have liked to and because of that, I didn’t develop a good mind-muscle connection. But the second I started implementing hack squats, my legs blew up.
The hack squat machine replicates the form of a typical squat but lets you focus more on your leg muscles and gives your back extra support.
Implementing the hack squat machine in your leg workout will blow your legs up. No squat variation gives more bang for your buck. The hack squat is the squat hack.
The great thing about hack squat is that you can get close to or achieve muscular failure as it’s safe. The external stability allows for maximum quad loading and you can focus all your efforts towards pushing hard and less on technique.
A lot of people can’t get the full range of motion on conventional squats comfortably, so, doing a movement where you’re kind of locked in, able to get a full range of motion and get down deep much easier helps you with your gains.
Hack squats can be useful for hypertrophy training since they allow you to lift heavier weights while reducing the use of stabilizing muscles.
How deep should I go?
You only want to go as deep as you can with a straight lower back and your heel still on the platform. Make sure that you keep your lower back into the back support. If you let your lower back come off that back support when you go down, you will move the tension away from your quads.
3. Leg Extension Machine
The major cause of knee pain is the quads not being strong enough to handle your training. So, more stress is placed on the knee and it gets overloaded.
The leg extension machine targets the quad muscles at the front of your thighs. It involves stretching your legs against resistance while lifting a weighted bar with your foot. This machine allows you to isolate your quads without involving other muscle groups.
Just because an exercise is hard doesn’t mean it’s effective for muscle growth. Leg extensions are as easy as they get and still the ultimate quad isolation movement.
Tip: When you do leg extensions ensure that when you get to the top of the movement, you hold it for a second or two instead of just flinging it. Control the weight.
4. Seated Leg Curl Machine
In a study published in 2021, it was found that seated leg curls led to about 56% more muscle growth than lying leg curls across a 12-week training study. You can load the hamstrings with more stretch when you’re seated than when you’re lying.
The leg curl machine targets the hamstrings at the back of your thighs. Like the leg extensions, this machine helps isolate the hamstrings without excessively engaging other muscle groups. It offers a controlled movement pattern, lowering the chance of injury compared to free-weight exercises, which may require more stabilization.
The hamstrings cross both the hip joint and the knee joint so, pointing the toes in or out does seem to impact which area of the hamstring is emphasized.
EMG studies show that inner hamstrings activate more when the toes are pointed in and outer hamstrings activate more when the toes are pointed outwards.
You can play around with this information and if either position feels awkward or uncomfortable for you, just roll with the one you feel more comfortable with.
5. Calf Raises Machine
The calf raises machine specifically targets the calf muscles in your lower legs. It consists of lifting the weight with your toes while standing on a platform and lowering it back down.
Daily activities like walking, jogging, jumping, and stair climbing require strong calf muscles. Strengthening these muscles can improve your overall functional fitness. It also improves your ankle strength and stability which helps you avoid ankle injuries.
Similar to the leg curl, pointing your toes in different directions can impact which region of the calves is emphasized.
A long-term training study that measured muscle growth directly shows that pointing the toes out improves the medial or inside part of the calves better while pointing the toes in grew the lateral or outside part of the calves better. Pointing them straight ahead grew them both pretty evenly.
In simpler words, if you want your calves to look bigger from the back you should consider pointing your toes in and if you want your calves to look bigger and more visible from the front, you should try pointing your toes out.
Conclusion
These are the 5 best leg machines at the gym which can help you achieve thick and muscular legs without the need to indulge in free weight training. You can find these machines in almost every gym making them an even better option.
Just remember, Fitness is not a sprint, but a marathon. Take satisfaction in gradual progress and remember that the journey to strength is as important as the destination.
Thank you for reading! Comment below with your favourite leg machine.
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