8 amazing barbell leg workouts to build strength

Mar 24, 2024

Throughout the hustle and bustle of our daily routines, we try to take as much time as we can to dedicate to exercise. Many of us focus on cardio workouts and building our upper body strength. This is crucial to our fitness, but we should also give more attention to the importance of lower body strength as it relates to our skeletal health.

The muscles in your leg are activated more than any other muscle in the body. You’d be surprised about the wide range of functions that your leg muscles are involved in, and having stronger leg muscles can be beneficial for your overall fitness. To help get this into gear, you may consider doing a barbell leg workout.

The upper anterior muscles are located in the front position of the upper thighs and consist of the quadriceps. They provide balance and are responsible for bending and extending our knees. The five medial muscles, like the adductors, are located at the inner thigh and allow the flexing and extending of the thigh. The upper posterior muscles, known as the hamstrings, begin underneath the glutes and extend down to the knees and help move our legs backward and forwards.

The lower anterior muscles, like the extensors, for example, span from knee to foot and help with raising your feet up and down, as well as stretching your toes. The lateral muscles travel along the outer leg, starting below the knee and stretching down to the ankle, and offer stability to our feet when we walk and run. The calves and flexors are some of the posterior muscles located at the back of your lower legs that help with jumping and stabilizing the legs for posture support.

In addition to our focus on leg muscles, barbells can be great for the total body. Working out with barbells helps to build bigger muscles, like the lats or the back. The enhanced strength also benefits the torso and provides some great balance to the body.

To properly execute barbell workouts, your abdominal and pelvic muscles must be activated, as well as your glutes. Engaging all your muscles can upgrade your spinal stability. Possessing adequate neuromuscular control is necessary for proper range of motion, the ability to raise and rotate your legs, as well as preventing or reducing pain in the back and lower body.

Barbell workouts are advantageous for carrying out the eccentric and concentric movements like pushing, pulling, and resisting that we perform each day. These are the daily actions like pulling or pushing a door, going up and down a flight of stairs, and lifting your baby. Even just picking up an object from the floor requires both eccentric and concentric contractions, with the muscles lengthening in an eccentric contraction to bend down and shortening in a concentric contraction to rise back up.

Back squats are a great leg day workout for loading the glutes, developing strength, and building larger muscles.

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Walking lunges are an all-encompassing leg day workout. This workout provides ankle support and enhances your balance. Various muscles, like those in your hips, knees, and legs, will be engaged and strengthened.

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Conventional deadlifts are great leg workouts for men. The deadlifts are effective for maintaining function for daily activities. They’re also great for working the glutes and hips, as well as supporting your flexibility.

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Step-ups are a great leg workout for strengthening your quads and glutes while also working on the hamstrings and calves. This workout can be done with barbells for extra intensity, and you can do this on the stairs or in front of a chair or bench.

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If you want to give variety to your leg workouts with barbells, consider doing Good Mornings to work your hamstrings and glutes. This exercise is not only great for lower body strength, but it’s effective for core strengthening as well.

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The Reverse Lunges are another effective barbell leg exercise. You can do this exercise at home to maximize your glute strength and tighten up your lower body strength.

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An amazing leg workout at the gym is the Barbell Hip Thrust. This workout is efficient for increasing power and muscle size!

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The Farmer’s Walk, also called the Farmer’s Carry, is another type of barbell workout. This workout is great for leg strength while enhancing your core and overall functionality.

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