If you need to define your quads, leg extensions must be your first choice. This leg exercises provide the load to your thigh muscles so you can shape it the way you want to. But leg extension requires a perfect technique in order to get a result.

For the starting position locate yourself on the leg machine with your hips don’t come over the edge of the seat and the angle of the knee joint is 90° or slightly more. If the machine has the back pad, put the waist to it. Then grasp the, so it’s easier to keep your back flat and immobile. Relax your feet and gently lift the lower leg, straighten your knees, so that the weight is slightly up from the support, and lower leg takes a vertical position. Now you are ready to start.

Take a deep breath, hold your breath and fully straighten your legs. Exhale. Feel the leg contraction and then carefully return to the starting position.

Performing leg extensions, keep your attention on some rules:

• the back, hip and ankle should be fixed Throughout the exercise, so all the work is concentrated only in the knee joint.
• In order to achieve the maximum reduction of all quadriceps muscles, feet should be parallel or slightly parted to the side.
• at the top of the exercise your feet should be completely unbent, this is the only way to achieve the maximum reduction of quadriceps.

Leg extension can provide too much load to the knee joints. To minimize this stress, do not let the leg went under the thigh, the lowest point of exercise in knee angle should be 90 ° or slightly more, but no less. Do not use too heavy weights – it could overload the knee joints and you will never fully straighten your legs, which is unacceptable. To load the quadriceps it is better to increase the number of repetitions, not weight.

Written by: Dennis Borisoff
© May  2010 www.gymper.com. All rights reserved. Reprint article with link only.