The Hack Squat The forgotten exercise that builds muscle in your legs fast!

One of the most overlooked muscle groups in a beginning bodybuilder’s training program is the legs. They don’t impress like the chest and arms, so beginners make a common mistake and avoid training them, not realizing the high overall growth effect the leg muscles have on the whole body. It has been shown in recent research that performing an intense leg workout before the arm workout in a training session magnifies the overall growth effect on the arms. This is the result of the release of human growth hormone due to the size of the leg muscles.

The best way to capitalize on this benefit is to build your training sessions so that your ‘difficult’ body parts are trained immediately after you train your legs. There are quite a few good exercises to develop your legs, such as squats, front squats, leg extensions, leg curls, and stiff-legged deadlifts. Hack squats aren’t as popular as these other exercises, but they are an effective muscle builder.

This elevator is named after George Hackenschmidt, a strongman, fighter, and writer of the early 20th century. He advocated this exercise because of its ability to quickly build leg strength and prevent overdevelopment of the hip, common in barbell squats. In his book The Way To Live, he mentions that the exercise is named after him. In North America, the name Hack Squat is the most commonly used term to describe this exercise.

Steve Reeves of Hercules and Mr. America fame began using the hack squat to develop a sweep in the thigh muscles while avoiding hip enlargement and even developed equipment that allowed him to perform the movement more effectively. Several photos I’ve seen show him training at Vic Tanny’s gym in California, near the famous Muscle Beach.

But what is the best training program to use with hack squats? First, let’s take a look at proper exercise technique. There are some really great hack squat machines on the market that eliminate the balance problem encountered when using a bar. But let’s say you don’t have access to them and you train with barbells and dumbbells. After choosing to use a barbell or dumbbell, place your heels into a block, keeping your legs together. Hold the weight behind you and lower yourself until your buttocks are close to touching your heels. Press up with your legs as you exhale. Avoid locking up at the top of the movement. Repeat until reaching muscular failure.

As mentioned above, there are numerous hack squat machines on the market. Most have bars to carry weight plates, but a couple have selected weight stacks for easy weight shifting.

The reasons I like hack squats are the lack of great back and shoulder resistance compared to regular squats, the ability to train the thigh muscles while limiting overdevelopment of the hip, and the lack of weight balance when using a hack squat machine. Another great feature of this exercise is the stimulation it gives to the hamstring muscles, which is a result of the deep descent that I recommend. Try this exercise and you will add a new tool for rapid development of leg muscles.

Below is a sample workout routine for legs using hack squats. The routine is based on the HIT, high intensity training protocol, so make sure you push yourself 100% on each set, bringing them to complete muscular failure and resting minimally between sets:

heating

barbell squats 1×15

hack squats-1×12

leg extensions-1×15 (3 forced reps at the end of the set to be done every other training session)

leg curl-1×15

Standing Calf Raises-1×20

Seated Calf Raises-1×15