4 Leg Day Tweaks for Firing Up the Quads, Glutes, and Hamstrings

Leg day is often filled with visions of hitting the squat rack and leg press machine to max out those muscles, but when the gym is jampacked, and there’s a line for the usual leg day stations, why not switch things up by focusing on the angles instead? Best of all, you can keep things fresh without a single machine or barbell in sight, as online fitness coach, Seth Wickstrom recently shared with his 200k-plus-followers Instagram followers.

“One small shift in your setup can completely change the way that your muscles fire,” explained the trainer. By performing 2 to 3 sets of each move, aiming for 8 to 12 challenging reps, you’ll beast those legs in ways that they may have never been worked before. Give these four epic exercises a blast and hit all the right angles to ace leg day.

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Dumbbell Goblet Squats: Raise the Toes for Glute Gains

“If you elevate your toes, and perform dumbbell goblet squats like this,” demonstrated Wickstrom by placing two weight plates on the ground and resting his front feet on the edge. “You’ll shift the focus more to your glutes.” This is because raising the toes requires greater force from the rear of the legs in order to keep stable and not fall backwards while controlling the load in a vertical motion.

Dumbbell Goblet Squats: Raise the heels to crush your quads

“If you elevate your heels and do goblet dumbbell squats like this, then you’ll feel it more in your quads,” showed Wickstrom. “Especially in the teardrop.” The mechanics of this movement basically work in the opposite way to elevating the toes because your body will need to adjust in order to prevent you from falling forward this time, so the quads come into play with more intensity.

Dumbbell RDLs: Raise the toes for a greater hamstring stretch

“If you elevate your toes and do dumbbell RDLs, you’ll stretch the hamstrings even deeper,” explained the trainer. “Making them do more of the work.” Of course, that’s the key to changing up the angles when you workout, the idea is to put the focus where you would like to level up your physique the most.

Dumbbell Sumo Squats with a pause for adductors and glutes

For his final demonstration, the coach puts his feet back firmly on the ground but still finds a way to challenge his body further. “You’ll bring in more adductors and glutes,” shared Wickstrom. “Especially when driving through the heels.” The best part of this session is that it requires little space but offers huge gains, so next time your leg day is met with lines for the traditional stations, give this workout a whirl instead.

To follow Seth Wickstrom on Instagram, click here.