The leg extension exercise is the most common and widely used quadricep isolation exercise done in the gym.
And, even though it does have potential to put stress on your knees, especially when done heavy, it CAN be an effective way to train the quads.
This weird-looking exercise is going to help avoid those downsides.
- #1 - It's perfect if regular leg extensions bother your knees or if you just don't have a leg extension machine at all.
- #2 - Besides being a great alternative to the leg extension, this exercise will burn your quads to cinders. It will challenge your ability to function with massive amounts of lactate (the actual stuff that causes the burning sensation... not lactic acid) building up in your quads.
One of the biggest benefits of accumulating lactate is the Growth Hormone response you get from it. GH allows your body to access stubborn fat by essentially "unlocking" the receptors that keep your stubborn fat cells closed. This allows your body to get at the stored fat out and burn it off.
- #3 - The continuous muscle contraction that happens here is essentially "occlusion training" that you may have seen done with arm training where you wrap a band around the upper arm to prevent waste products from being removed from the working muscles. When the muscle doesn't relax, it prevents waste products from exiting the muscle. This can help with muscle growth.
Basically, it's a weird-looking "secret weapon" type of exercise.
It functions best as a burnout/finisher for your leg training...because once you've done a few sets, your quads will be shot.
How to Set Up Cable Quad Burners
To do this one, you'll need a low pulley weight stack and a short handle (straight or cambered are both fine). If you have a short length of chain, that will make the setup easier as well.
My low pulley is inside my power rack, but you don't need a rack for this (though it does come in handy to give you something to grab onto when you finish the set and almost fall down).
Put a moderate weight on the stack. I'm using 100 lbs here...how much you use will depend on the leverage of your stack. Start light then you can work up from there.
Set the bar behind your knees, just above your calves. This is where having the short length of chain helps.
If you don't have the chain, you can use an old trick where you leave the stack pin out, pull the handle out a bit, THEN put the pin into the stack where you want it. This gives you some extra cable to work with.
Once the handle is behind your knees, squat down then step your feet back a little, then grip onto the handle with both hands. Definitely watch the video for this part - it'll help a lot.
Make sure that the stack is lifted when you're in the bottom of the squat. If it's resting on the stack, you'll lose the continuous tension, which is a primary goal of this exercise.
When you're in this position, you're already getting tension in the quads...not only from being in the bottom of a squat position but because the weight stack is pulling you forward. You're using your quads to resist that pull.
Now straighten your knees, keeping your grip on the handle.
This is knee extension, which is what the leg extension machine does...just in a differently-resisted way. This pushes the handle backwards and raises the weight stack.
I find that because the resistance is almost right in line with the knee joint, it dramatically reduces the potential knee stress on the extension movement.
With a leg extension machine, the resistance is down at the ankles, which can create a lot of torque in the joint.
At the top of this exercise, the cable is STILL pulling your forward and you're still using your quads to resist that. It means your quads get NO rest in this exercise from top to bottom.
Come back down to the bottom squat position, then come back up again.
Keep going, cranking out reps until you can't handle the burn anymore and the lactate shuts you down.
And because of that occlusion effect where the lactic can't exit the muscle, this can happen surprisingly fast.
I recommend at least 2 to 3 sets of this one, for as many reps as you can get.
Another excellent quad burner exercise is Barbell Cursing Walking Lunges. It uses the same back-of-leg resistance positioning as this exercise but with free weight.
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Want more unique and challenging exercises to work your entire body with simple equipment? All you need is just a barbell, dumbbells and a bench. Check out The Best Home Gym Exercises You've Never Heard Of!
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