Legs
70 pieces
- Exercise2 September 2026Rear-foot-elevated split squatA split squat with the back foot up on a bench. Raising it takes the back leg out of the equation almost entirely, so the front leg carries more of you through a longer range. It is one of the hardest things you can do with a pair of light dumbbells.
- Exercise2 September 2026Nordic curlKneel with your ankles held down and lower yourself face first toward the floor as slowly as you can. Almost nobody can do a full one at first, and that is expected: this is an exercise you scale rather than one you either have or do not.
- Exercise2 September 2026Machine hip thrustThe hip thrust with the setup taken away. You sit down, set the pad, pick a pin and go, and no part of that involves rolling a loaded bar over your legs. That is most of why the machine exists and it is a better reason than it sounds.
- Exercise2 September 2026Machine hip adductionSit down, put your knees against the pads, and squeeze them together. It is the most maligned machine in most gyms and it is the one piece of kit that lets you load the inside of the thigh precisely, in small steps, with no coordination required and no shin on a bench.
- Exercise2 September 2026Machine hip abductionSit down, knees against the pads, push them apart. It loads the muscles on the outside of the hip directly and in small steps, which almost nothing else does, and it is worth more than its reputation in most gyms suggests.
- Exercise2 September 2026Lying leg curlLie face down, curl your heels toward your backside. It is the leg curl most gyms have and most people learned first. It works, and if a seated machine is also available there is a good reason to use that one instead.
- Exercise2 September 2026Leg press calf raiseSit in the leg press, slide your feet down so only the balls are on the platform, and press the sled with your ankles. Your knees stay nearly straight, so it trains the calf the way a standing raise does while you are sitting down.
- Exercise2 September 2026Leg pressA machine that lets you push a heavy sled with your legs while your back is supported. Balance, bracing and bar position are all taken out, which is what makes it useful when you want to work the legs hard and what makes it a poor substitute for a squat.
- Exercise2 September 2026Leg extensionSit down, straighten your knees against a pad. It trains the quads and nothing else, which it shares only with the sissy squat in its group, and that is exactly what makes it worth having: there is one part of the quadriceps that squatting has repeatedly failed to grow.
- Exercise2 September 2026Good morningA hinge with the bar on your upper back instead of in your hands. The weight sits a long way from your hips, so the leverage against you is much worse than a Romanian deadlift and the numbers are much smaller. That is the exercise working, not you being weak at it.
- Exercise2 September 2026Goblet squatOne dumbbell held against your chest, squatted with. The weight out in front acts as a counterweight, so most people find a depth here they cannot reach with a bar on their back, which is the reason to start with it rather than the reason to stay with it.
- Exercise2 September 2026Glute bridge holdThe top of a glute bridge, held. There are no reps to count, so what is being trained is a position rather than a range, and that is worth understanding before you build much around it.
- Exercise2 September 2026Glute bridgeOn your back, feet flat, drive the hips up. It needs a floor and nothing else, which makes it the hip extension most likely to be available when nothing else is, and it is a better exercise than its reputation as a warm-up suggests.
- Exercise2 September 2026Dumbbell step-upPut one foot on a box and stand up on it. Simple to describe and easy to cheat, because the leg still on the floor can do most of the work without you noticing. Done honestly it is one of the most demanding things in the library for the glutes.
- Exercise2 September 2026Dumbbell split squatFeet split front and back, then squat straight down between them. Your feet stay where they are for the whole set, which is what separates it from a lunge: no stepping, no landing, no balance recovery. One leg does most of the work and you get to concentrate on it.
- Exercise2 September 2026Dumbbell Romanian deadliftThe same hinge as the barbell version with a dumbbell in each hand instead. The weights sit beside your legs rather than in front of them, which makes the path easier to keep close and makes it far easier to start with something light.
- Exercise2 September 2026Dumbbell reverse lungeStep back, drop the back knee, stand up on the front leg. One leg at a time, which means the dumbbells in your hands are carried by half the body they would be on a squat, and it means a side that is doing less has nowhere left to hide.
- Exercise2 September 2026Dumbbell calf raiseStand on a step with a dumbbell in each hand and press up onto your toes. It is the standing calf raise for a gym with no calf machine, and the only real limitation is that your hands give out a long time before your calves do.
- Exercise2 September 2026Copenhagen plankA side plank with the top leg resting on a bench, so the inside of that thigh has to hold your hips up. It is the hardest adductor exercise in this library and one of the very few that has a randomized trial behind it rather than a theory.
Exercise2 September 2026Conventional deadliftThe heaviest thing most people will ever pick up in a gym, and the lift that asks most of everything down the back of you. It moves more weight than anything else in the library and it costs the most to recover from, so what you do before the bar leaves the floor matters more here than anywhere else.
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