Whether your goal is to gain strength, improve endurance, or sculpt defined muscle, finding the right training frequency for your legs is key. Overtraining can stall progress, while too little effort slows results. In this guide, we’ll break down how often you should train legs based on your fitness goals, highlight essential muscle groups, and share the best exercises and techniques to help you get the most out of leg day.
Understanding the Major Leg Muscles
Understanding the major muscles is crucial for enhancing leg strength training, allowing you to target specific muscles and address imbalances.
Quads
The quadriceps are the largest muscles in the legs, consisting of four heads. Three of those heads are found on the inside, middle, and outside of the knee, where they help extend the knee. The fourth head, the rectus femoris, is attached above the hip, where it assists with hip function and helps lift you into flexion.
Hamstrings
The hamstrings are a major muscle group on the back of your legs, consisting of three sections. The biceps femoris on the outside lateral part of the thigh assists in knee flexion, hip extension (long head only), and lateral rotation of the lower leg and thigh. The semitendinosus and semimembranosus, located on the inner back of the thigh, assist in flexing and internally rotating the knee.
Adductors and Abductors
The adductors are an essential but often neglected muscle group on the inside of the thigh, which helps with rotation and flexion.
Like the adductors, the abductors are another often-neglected but essential muscle that requires targeting training. They help move your legs outward while stabilizing your body during single-leg workouts.
Calves
Finally, the calves are located at the bottom of the legs. While we tend to focus on the larger, more visible gastrocnemius that helps with leg flexion at the knee and plantar flexion at the foot, the soleus is equally essential. Located behind the gastrocnemius, when you work your soleus, it pushes the gastrocnemius out, making it appear larger, so both need to be worked.
Assess Your Ideal Leg-Training Frequency
How often you train your legs depends on your fitness level and goals. Generally speaking, you can train the same muscles 2-3 times per week, leaving 2-3 days between for muscle recovery and growth. Overtraining can create plateaus and stall progress, while undertraining robs you of gains.
When should you take a longer break? If you’re still sore from your previous workout, let your legs rest another day. Don’t worry about missing a leg day since it takes about 3 weeks of complete inactivity for muscles to start atrophying.
Tailor Training to Your Goals: Strength, Hypertrophy, Endurance
If you’re looking to improve leg strength, train your legs 3-4 times per week with 24-48 hours of rest between workouts for muscle recovery and growth. Perform 3-6 reps per set at an intensity of >85% of your 1RM, with 2-5 minutes of rest between sets.
For those seeking hypertrophy (growth), training 2-3 times per week is ideal, leaving 48-72 hours between workouts. Increase your reps to 6-12 per set, or up to 15, using an intensity of 67-85% of 1RM, with 1-2 minutes of rest between sets.
If you are looking for endurance, aim for four times per week, with a day of recovery between each session. You’ll want to use a lower intensity (<67% of 1RM), increase your reps to 12-20 per set, and use shorter rests of 30-60 seconds between sets.
Incorporate Core Leg Movements for Overall Strength: 4 Best Core Leg Exercises
Now, let’s look at some of the best at-home leg workouts for overall strength.
Cable Back Squats
This variation of the barbell back squat uses a cable machine like the Speediance Gym Monster 2. Cable back squats provide constant tension on the quadriceps, glutes, and hamstrings, resulting in more consistent muscle activation and growth while improving balance and core stability.
How to Do It
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Attach a straight bar to the low pulleys.
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With your back to the machine, place the bar across your upper traps like a barbell back squat.
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Grip the bar with both hands.
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Stand with your toes lightly pointed out and feet shoulder-width apart.
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Keep your back straight, chest up, and engage your core.
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Push your hips back and bend your knees, then lower your body as if you were sitting in a chair.
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Go as low as you can, keeping your knees in line with your toes throughout the movement. Ideally, your thighs should reach parallel to the ground.
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Push through your heels as you return to start, squeezing your glutes at the top.
Deadlifts
Deadlifts are an excellent posterior-chain exercise that heavily engages the glutes and hamstrings during hip extension, while also working the quads and core. Pay careful attention to your form to maximize leg muscle recruitment.
How to Do It
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Place your feet shoulder-width apart beneath the middle of the barbell.
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Hinge and push your hips back, bending the knees softly as you try to keep your back relatively flat and shins vertical, not letting your knees pass too far over the bar.
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Your hips should be low, with your arms straight and shoulders over the bar, with the middle of your feet underneath.
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Squeeze your armpits to create tension in your torso; keep your arms straight, grip the bar, and pull your hips down to receive the weight of the bar before lifting.
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Engage your core, take a deep breath, drive your feet into the floor, and push aggressively while keeping the bar close and controlling your hips and knees so they extend together to avoid doing all the lifting with your arms.
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Extend your hips until you’re standing upright at the top of the lift, without leaning back too far.
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Slowly reverse the movement, lowering the weight to the ground without dropping or bouncing it.
Split Squats
Split squats are unilateral bodyweight leg exercises that can be done with or without dumbbells. They work one leg at a time to enhance stability and balance, correct muscle imbalances on the weaker side, and improve strength in the quads, glutes, and hamstrings.
How to Do It
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Stand with a pair of dumbbells on the floor on either side of you (or use a barbell). Lean slightly forward and lower yourself onto one knee, creating a 90-degree angle with both legs.
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Keep your feet parallel to each other with the midfoot and toes of your back foot on the floor, neck neutral, looking straight ahead.
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Squeeze your shoulder blades, abs, and glutes as you grip the dumbbells.
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Engage your glutes as you stand up.
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Lower back down in a controlled manner, keeping your balance without slamming your knee on the floor, then fire back up to standing position.
Bulgarian Squats
This is a slight variation of the traditional Bulgarian split squat we all love to hate. However, it is one of the best single-leg exercises for addressing muscle imbalances while improving overall strength, stability, and balance.
How to Do It
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Stand facing away from a bench with your left foot on the floor, knee bending at a 90-degree angle.
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Rest your right leg on the bench behind you with a dumbbell in each hand.
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Keeping your upper body and torso upright, lower yourself down until the dumbbells touch the floor, then slowly return to the starting position.
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On the next rep, go down into a sprinter lunge position, meaning that you’ll lean forward. This fires up those glute muscles, giving them a deeper stretch as they fully engage.
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Continue alternating reps between the straight-down position and the sprinter lunge position, ensuring your core and glutes are fully engaged for strength and stability throughout the entire range of motion.
9 Tips and Mistakes to Avoid for Safe Leg Training
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Not performing the exercise through the full range of motion may allow you to lift more and do more reps, but it will rob you of your gains.
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Always focus on proper form with controlled, deliberate movements to build a mind-muscle connection.
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Avoid using momentum to lift your weights.
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Dedicate 2-3 days per week to your legs to see greater gains.
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Don’t neglect warming up and cooling down. Begin with light cardio and stretches to reduce the risk of injury, and stretch afterward for muscle recovery and growth.
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Don’t neglect single-leg exercises. These help with balance and performance while achieving a well-rounded physique.
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Avoid locking out your joints, especially on machines. Focus on slow, controlled movements.
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Focus on all muscle groups, rather than just the obvious quads, to avoid imbalances and reduce the risk of injury.
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Never rush your workout. Sacrificing control for speed makes it harder to isolate the muscles and increases the risk of injury.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Many Times a Week Should You Train Legs?
Ideally, you should train your legs 2-3 times a week, but it depends on your fitness goals. You need to give your muscles at least 24 hours between workouts to build endurance or up to 72 hours for optimal hypertrophy, depending on your fitness goals.
What Is the 3 3 3 Rule for Working Out?
The 3-3-3 rule is a weekly workout schedule that incorporates three days of strength training with weights, three days of cardio, and three days of recovery. The rule is also sometimes used to describe a workout structure involving three exercises, repeated three times for a total of nine sets.
What Is the 4 8 12 Rule?
The 4-8-12 rule can apply to a weekly guideline of gradually increasing workout time from 4 to 8 to 12 hours per week. However, in weightlifting, it typically refers to performing 8 to 12 repetitions of an exercise, repeated 4 times to achieve muscle hypertrophy (growth).
Discover Speediance Gym Monster 2 for Effective Leg Workouts
Leg training is about building a foundation of strength that supports your entire body. By understanding how your major leg muscles function, focusing on consistency, form, and recovery, and tailoring your training schedule to align with your fitness goals, you can achieve the ideal balance of power, endurance, and strength.
If you’re looking for a smarter, more efficient way to train your legs at home, explore the Speediance Gym Monster 2 to help you master leg day and beyond.
