9 Exercises to Get Huge Quads at Home

Recently I got a call on the Get-Fit Guy hotline from Dionne asking:

I just have to know—what is the recipe for huge quads? I know you have to eat right and do resistance training but what exactly will make my quads huge?

While I am not a bodybuilder, nor do I think we need to have huge muscles in order to be fit and healthy, I do appreciate where Dionne is coming from. We all have bucket list goals that go beyond being healthy and fit. Personally, I have done more than 50 races of varying lengths between 5k runs to Ironman triathlons knowing full well that I was going too far (literally and figuratively). So, without straying too much from my own fitness for health raison d'être, let’s look at how to build some powerful (and perhaps huge) quads. 

We all have bucket list goals that go beyond being healthy and fit.

What is the quad?

The quadriceps (or quads) are the four muscles located on the front of your leg or thigh. Those four muscles contract together to either flex (lift) the hip or extend (straighten) the knee. Sounds simple right? Well, it kind of is. 

The four muscles that make up the quadriceps are:

1. Rectus Femoris

2. Vastus Lateralis

3. Vastus Medialis (which includes the often envied vastus medialis oblique, or VMO)

4. Vastus Intermedius

So, when we think about exercising the quadriceps, we focus on moving the hip from an extended to a flexed position by bending the joint and also moving the knee from a flexed to an extended position by straightening the joint.

Anatomically speaking, the quadriceps are the primary muscles that support your knee bone. So, if you have weakness in your quads, that can lead to knee instability. And if there is too much instability in your knees, that can lead to an increase of wear and tear within the joint. Not to mention that people who often exhibit quadriceps weakness end up also exhibiting these conditions (you runners may recognize a few of these):

• Patellofemoral stress syndrome

• Iliotibial band friction syndrome

• Patellar tendonitis or tendinosis

Why quad strength matters

The quadriceps are involved in several important daily tasks, like standing up from a seated position and also supporting your knees while you stand or walk. So, as I said earlier, if you have weakness in your quads, that can lead to knee instability. And too much knee instability can lead to excessive wear and tear within the joint.

In a 2019 study published in ...

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