These are the 4 best isolation exercises for leg workout

Building Size with More Than the Big Lifts

Isolate your legs like a pro. Use these exercises in addition to the big lifts and you’ll make leg day far more effective.

Machine isolation lifts: The benefits

Machines that isolate your muscles don’t get much respect these days. They’re not “hardcore,” But they are certainly effective if your goal is to look good naked.

They can target your most desired muscles, improve your lagging areas, as well as complement large-lifting. They can be pushed a little closer to failure and can even help with injuries.

Here’s how to get the most from these go-to isolation lifts:

1. Leg Extension Machine

Squats can activate three quadriceps muscles but not your rectus. Why? Your rectus femoris is a quad muscle that acts not like your other quad muscles. It also acts as a hip flexor and knee extensor, unlike your other quad muscles.

Studies have shown that leg extensions stimulate this area more than squats (1). You can find out more “complete” Leg extensions for quad growth are an excellent addition to any workout.

Common Mistakes

• Paying little attention to hip flexion and remaining straight throughout.
• Too much momentum and weight.
• Don’t squeeze at the top.
• Too little range of motion at bottom of lift.
• It is not enough to lock yourself in the seat.

Grips supports are a good option for this last one. Versa Gripps Use the handles to hold you down. Game changer!

2. Seated Calf Raise Machine

You might not realize how difficult it is to add size to small calves. People who succeed often combine standing and sitting calf raise variations. They can see some growth by increasing their frequency and volume, but the results are often less than they expect. That’s when you need to take a look at how you’re actually doing your calf raises.

Push through your big toe. This will put you at a mechanical disadvantage since you’re pressing down more with the insides of your feet.

This will prevent your body from choosing the path of least resistance (pressure beyond your foot), and force your calves to work harder. It’s easiest to make this mistake when doing seated calf raises. This is a mistake. calf-building article This article explains how to use your big toe to create stubborn calves.

Common Mistakes

• You are wrong from the beginning.
• Don’t be too heavy
• You are moving too quickly
• Bouncing at bottom
• Don’t be too focused on the top-notch contraction.
• Do not press down on the wrong areas of your feet.

3. Hip Abduction Machine

It is often used by lifters to target the gluteus mediusThe upper portion of the glutes. When determining the effectiveness of your Glute medius activator, it is important to compare its activation to other muscles that contribute to hip abduction such as the Tensor Fascia latae.

The glute medius weakness can be linked to excessive TFL use. The imbalance in lower limb mechanics may be linked to several injuries and conditions. Exercises that allow you to target the glute medius the most – while also minimizing activation of the TFL – will, in the long run, stop other muscles from compensating and prevent your glutes from getting lazy.

There aren’t many studies examining the hip abduction machine. In a 2022 study that compared the machine with side-lying hip flexions and clamshells (both credible exercises), the researchers found the hip abduction system to be the winner. It demonstrated the highest ratio of activation between glute medius, TFL (2).

Common Mistakes

• Go heavy enough to lose tension in the target area, and other muscles will kick in to help you move the weight.
• Using a machine with cables that are too slack, and/or there’s a loss of loading as your thighs meet in the middle. This can cause you to miss the full benefits of the stretched posture.
• Thinking there’s only one way – the textbook way – to do them. To find the best position and angle for you, try different angles and positions at your hips.

4. Machine for Seated Hamstring Curls

You can keep your knees healthy by focusing on your hamstrings. This will help you look better. And if you’re after bigger quads, then having strong hamstrings is essential. You can build them by doing two types of exercise:

1. Deadlifts (barbell, dumbbell, Romanian, stiff-legged, etc.) Other hip hinges
2. Do ham curl variations or knee flexion exercises.

Except for the short head at your biceps foemoris, your hip extensors are also activated by your hamstring muscles. You can train your hamstrings differently for each of these functions. You can manipulate them to target your hamstrings at different lengths of muscle.

The most popular hamstring machine is the lying ham curl. It’s hard to do wrong as long as you’re positioned on the machine correctly and your hips remain braced down hard into the pad.

But it’s easier to do seated hamstring curls in a way that fails to maximize their effectiveness. Do them right and they’ll have an advantage over the lying variant. Why? Because they target your hips more than your hamstrings.

Your muscles will grow stronger when they are working at longer lengths. There are also benefits to training with shorter muscle lengths. Let’s make those seated hamstring curls work even better!

Common Mistakes

• Do not align your knees with the axis rotation of the machine.
• Your hips should be bent and your torso should be straight.
• Avoid locking your hands or grabbing the kneepad in front.
• Do not extend your knees too far to increase the active stretch of your Hamstrings.
• You may think that seated hamstring curls only require a stretch at the top, but you forget to fully flex your knees at the bottom.

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I would like to learn more about Gareth’s extra padding in the video. That is a great idea.

My wife has a pad that would be great for this!

Perille Grade’s “The Balancer”You can find, on insta.

We are grateful! I’ll have to check that out! I’m wanting to see what the advantages are for them on isolation machines like these because I have a hunch (which could be totally wrong). However, I found a YouTube video that made me curious.

For the abductor machine at least, it looks like the pads he’s using end up pressing your legs closer together, which seems like it could increase tension earlier on in the exercise… maybe?

My abductor machine at gym has the best range of motion. The first half of it has almost zero tension.

A balance pad made of airex is ideal for leg extensions. Foam cushion. You can also use the foam cushion for the abduction machine.

Thank you so much!