By Molly Magunga, MS ATC, CPT, CES
Hello everyone! This week’s “Fitness Tip of the Week” is about the quadriceps. Some people are very familiar with where the quads are and what they do, but a lot of gym goers aren’t really sure. Whether you are an anatomy wiz or not, this post will hopefully provide helpful tips to everyone!
Your quadriceps (quads for short) muscles are the group of muscles on the front part of your upper leg. They are often referred to as your thighs. The “quad” part of quadriceps refers to there being four separate muscles in this group. These muscles are the rectus femoris, vastus intermedius, vastus lateralis, and vastus medialis. All four of these muscles work together to extend or straighten your knee. The rectus femoris is the only quad muscle that crosses your hip joint and helps with hip flexion. They are a very powerful muscles group that helps you squat, lunges, sprint, and sit.
Tips on Quad Flexibility
Keeping your quads loose is so important! Tight quads can cause knee, hip, and/or back pain. Trying to work already tight muscles can also put you at an increased risk for muscle strains or tears. There are a ton of different ways to stretch your quads. If you don’t do much lower body stretching, I like to start with stretch A. By lying on your stomach and using a strap to help pull your heel to your hips, you are able to ensure proper hip and knee alignment and really relax your leg for the stretch. Stretch B involves a hip stretch and allows you to stretch the whole rectus femoris. Stretch C is good for when you have gotten comfortable with form and able to keep hips in a neutral positions all while balancing on one leg.
Along with stretching, foam rolling is also a great tool to use to keep your quads healthy. The foam rolling technique for the quads is pretty straight forward. Picture D below shows the start position. You want to start right above your knee cap and roll all the way up to the hip so you get the entire length of the quads. Roll up and down both with your legs straight and knees bent to help get different depths of the muscles tissue.
A. | B. | C./Verywell-30-2696366-StandingStretch-2106-5993552eb501e800127d38d3.jpg) | D. |
Tips on Quad Strength
Weak quad muscles can cause a lot of pain in the body, especially in the knees and hips. Along with straightening the knee, the quads play a huge role in providing knee stability. There are so many exercises that help strength your quads. Squats, lunges, step ups, and leg presses are all great for strengthening exercises. Because the quads all do the same movement, many quad focused exercises will target most, if not all four of the muscles with one move. There are a few exercises with a little more focus on one quad muscle over the others which you can see in the table below.
Big tip: if there is one quad muscle to focus on isolated exercises over the others, it’s the vastus medialis (VMO). This quad muscle plays such a huge part in knee stability and often is the weakest in the group. The other quad muscles have no problem getting big and strong usually. Focus on VMO specific exercises like the one I have below to keep your quads balanced.
Vastus Medialis Focus Straight Leg Raise with external rotation of the foot | Vastus Lateralis Focus Close Stance Leg Press | Rectus Femoris/Vastus Intermedius Focus Leg Extensions |
If you have any questions on this topic, you can email me at mmagunga@healthworksfitness.com or just comment below!
Molly’s Fitness Tip of the Week 