Best Exercises for Building Thigh Muscles

Building Thigh Muscles (and I don't mean bulking and hulking up) is very important for retaining youth. In fact, building thigh muscles is the Fountain of Youth and will fight aging and fight off the big fat belly that so many people get as years go by. I'm a certified personal trainer and have always emphasized strenuous leg training for my clients, whether they were young, old, thin or fat.

Don't let the words, "building thigh muscles," trick you into thinking that this is about bulking up or preparing for a bodybuilding contest. My own legs are rock-hard with muscle, but not the least bit bulked up or thick looking. The best exercises for building thigh muscles revolve around barbell squats, leg press machines, leg extension and leg curl.

There are other miscellaneous exercises for building thigh muscles, but the chief exercises, and best exercises, to build the thigh muscles are clearly 1) Barbell squats, either with a Smith machine or free barbell, 2) Leg press, either a decline machine or upright machine, 3) Leg extension, also known as leg lift, and 4) Leg curl, also known as hamstring curl.

In my opinion, the leg press is the best exercise for building thigh muscles because it keeps the sensitive muscles of the lower back pretty much out of the routine. However, barbell squats require more lower-back work, and this can be problematic for some people. They may have strong thigh muscles, but due to a tweaky lower back, are unable to use a barbell weight heavy enough to challenge their thigh muscles.

Barbell squats work great if your back is conditioned enough so that you can challenge your legs and buttocks with a heavy barbell weight, without threatening to throw out or injure your lower back. Otherwise, if you have low back problems, focus more on the leg press, but you can still do barbell squats -- but don't go too heavy.

Leg extensions help build thigh muscle in a unique way, and add shape and form to the thighs. Hamstring curls hit the back of the thighs hard, and heavy, strenuous hamstring curls will turn the back of your thighs into steel.

Many people swear by dead-lifts for building hamstring mass. However, even though the back thigh muscles here do get recruited, keep in mind that the hamstring muscles do maximal work when they bend the knee to at least 90 degrees. In dead-lifts, not much bending occurs. The best exercise for hamstring muscles is the hamstring curl, either lying down or seated.

Lunges with heavy weights will help build thigh mass, and so will sprinting sessions. This is why competitive sprinters have well-developed thighs and butt muscles. Walking up hills will do little to build thigh muscles. Remember, there are two types of muscle generally: fast twitch, and slow twitch. Walking up hills is a slow-twitch activity. Slow-twitch fibers do not grow in size or "build up." Only fast-twitch fibers do. Walking up hills, however, is a great cardio exercise.