Love’em or Hate’em the barbell squat is one of the best leg exercises you can do…
In fact the squat is arguably the Single Best Exercise you can do for building muscle throughout the entire body.
However, there are times when you’ll need to train your legs without squatting.
Squats place a lot of stress on the muscles of the back in addition to the legs. So if your back is already sore from it’s respective workout, than you probably don’t want to break it down further by putting a loaded barbell across your shoulders when training legs.
And not everyone can do barbell squats. If you have a pre-existing injury that involves back, neck, or shoulder problems than you may not be able to place a loaded barbell on your back and you’ll need to find other exercise alternatives that will allow you to work your legs without squatting.
That’s the purpose of this workout. It’s a complete “No Squat” Leg Workout Routine that is intense and demanding, but safe and doesn’t require any squatting at all.
Click PLAY To Watch The “No Squat” Leg Workout:
Note: if you are on an iPad and can’t watch the embedded video clip above,
you can watch it right on my YouTube Channel by Clicking Here
Here’s the workout overview:
Leg Press – 3 sets of 10 reps
*walking lunges
Leg Kick Backs – 3 sets of 10 reps per leg
*walking lunges
Leg Extensions – 3 sets of 12 reps
*walking lunges
Leg Curls – 3 sets of 12 reps
*walking lunges
Inner / Outer Thigh – 3 sets of 15 reps each
*walking lunges
Calf Raises – 3 sets of 15 reps
*Do a set of walking lunges in between each exercise.
**The sets listed are “working sets”, but you can do as many warm up sets as you feel you need to get up to your top working weight sets.
So the next time you need to train your legs hard, but give your back a rest, give this “No Squat Leg Workout” a try for yourself and leave me a comment below…
9 Comments
Carlos Haro
Lee Great workout and i agree you need to give your back and neck etc.a break every once in awhile…i am 59 years old and i have a couple of old injurys so i do a lot of Body weight Squats instead with similar workout..thanks again.
leehayward
Thanks for your comment, glad you like the workout!
Brandon wilson
Thanks Lee for the video. I had back surgery and I can’t put any barbell rack on my back. It’s nice to know there are alternative to leg workouts.
leehayward
For sure, I know of a lot of advanced bodybuilders who have built big muscular legs without doing barbell squats.
John Wright
I did it today and really liked it. I like breaking the lunges up between each 3 sets
leehayward
Awesome, glad you enjoyed the workout!
Lance Smith
Great, work out, something you might want to try that I have been doing is reverse lunges off of a a step/small block.I’ve had great success with these so far. Thanks for the content.
Gabby Rabe
Wow.. this is great.. can this program replace the leg workout (intermediate program on the app)? Is there another option for walking lunges? I have this knee injury that makes it painful to do lunges.
Thanks..
leehayward
Sure, you can do this workout in place of the Intermediate Leg Workout from the TFB workout app. As for Lunges, if you find they bother your knees you can try doing Step Ups instead. This is an easier movement on the knees and it works the same muscles as lunges.