Can You Build Big Legs Without Squats? Best Exercises & Workouts

Key Points:

• You do not have to squat to build big legs.
• As long as you train hard and consistently, recover, eat enough protein and calories, and progressively overload your alternative exercises, your legs will grow.

Can You Build Big Legs Without Squats?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Heck yes.

Squats have been crowned the king of not just leg exercises but all exercises for the better part of a century. And yes, they are fantastic for strength, athletic performance, and, indeed, building big legs.¹

However, they are not mandatory. In fact, if you have long femurs, back issues, or mobility issues, standard squats might be a less-than-ideal exercise for your anatomy.

I’d go so far as to say that the only time you really need to squat is if you’re a competitive powerlifter.

Many bodybuilders have built huge legs with minimal to no squatting.

Muscle growth doesn’t know what exercise you’re doing. Your quads don’t have eyes. All they know is mechanical tension, metabolic stress, and progressive overload.

As long as you give them those three things, they have no choice but to grow.

Here’s how you can build big legs without setting foot in the squat rack.

Squat-Free Leg Exercises

To build complete legs, we need to hit the main muscle groups: quads (front), hamstrings (back), adductors (inside), and glutes (butt).

With squats, you hit three out of four in a single exercise (they’re not useful for building your hamstrings).

However, there are plenty of equally effective squat-type movements you can do instead, plus several that cover what squats miss.

Quad Exercises

Since barbell squats are out, you need movements that allow you to get a good, deep knee flexion to work your quads through a long range of motion.

1. Leg Press

The most popular squat replacement, and for good reason. The leg press trains the same muscles as regular squats, and the added stability allows you to focus more on simply pushing the weight, which tends to be good for hypertrophy.

Place your feet a bit lower and closer together on the platform to hit your quads more. Using a weight you can handle for a full range of motion (as deep as your mobility allows) will always beat loading the machine with half a ton and doing quarter reps.

2. Hack Squat

The hack squat sits somewhere between squats and leg presses. You get the upright squat-type movement pattern plus the stability of the machine.

Hack squats are arguably better than squats for pure quad growth because your back is stabilized, so your lower back won’t give out before your legs do. And you can push to absolute failure safely, at least with modern hack squats where you can rerack the weight at any point.

3. Bulgarian Split Squat

I’m sorry to bring Bulgarian split squats up, because they are pure misery, but at the same time super effective.

With dumbbells in your hands or a barbell on your back, elevating your rear foot forces your front leg and glute to do all the work. Step forward further to hit your glute harder, or take a shorter step to focus on your quads.

Bulgarians are very effective for leg growth (quads, adductors, and glutes), plus you get a very nice balance and coordination bonus from the single-leg action.

4. Leg Extension

Leg extensions are actually a more complete pure quad exercise than squats because they hit all four parts (squats aren’t very good for the rectus femoris quad muscle).

They are great for isolating the quads at the end of a workout to squeeze every last drop of juice out of them, or you can do them first in your leg sesseon to pre-exhaust your quads so they have to work even harder when you hit them with compound exercises later.

The Posterior Chain (Hamstrings & Glutes)

If you want big legs, you have to make sure the back of your legs gets plenty of attention.

Squats are pretty mediocre hamstring builders, so that goes whether you’re squatting or not.

1. Romanian Deadlift

The Romanian deadlift is a tremendous exercise for both the glutes and hamstrings. Use dumbbells or a barbell. Push your hips back until you feel a deep stretch in the hamstrings, then squeeze back up.

If you have the flexibility and want to activate both your butt and your hams maximally, try doing them while standing on a platform. The extra range of motion really lights up your posterior chain.²

Of course, you need the flexibility to actually lower the bar further—if you’re up on a platform but can’t go any deeper than usual, there’s no difference.

2. Leg Curl

Leg curls are like biceps curls for your legs. Do them strictly, control the negative (lowering) portion, and watch your hamstrings grow.

Leg curls hit the hamstrings slightly differently than Romanian deadlifts, so it’s a good idea to do both for optimal development.³

If your gym has a seated leg curl, it is a bit better for hamstring growth than the lying leg curl.⁴ Lying leg curls are still great (and can feel more comfortable if you have tight hips), and I like to do both to hit the hamstrings through several joint positions.

3. Hip Thrust

Squats are undeniably awesome for building a big, strong, and round butt. However, it’s quite possible to get the same great results without them.

Perhaps the single greatest glute-builder of all is the hip thrust (it’s as effective for pure growth as squats and it’s superior for glute isolation).⁵ If you want to build your butt without loading your spine heavily, it’s the way to go.

Barbell hip thrusts are the classic, but machine hip thrusts might be even better because 1) they remove the stability requirements so you can push 100% with your glutes, and 2) you avoid the setup hassle where you have to squeeze yourself into position under a bar.

Top Tips for Building Big Legs Without Squats

With the best exercises in the rotation, it’s time to apply the right training principles.

What you want is other movements to stimulate the same growth signals that squats provide. Here are my top training tips that get the job done.

1. Push Close to Failure

Most lifters underestimate how hard leg sets need to be to stimulate real growth.

Without squats in the picture, you want high effort on other exercises. Research shows that muscle growth improves as you get close to muscular failure.⁶ Try to finish most working sets with 0–2 reps in reserve (RIR).

Now, pushing to failure on every single set might be too much and make it harder to recover. Practical approach:

• The last 1–2 sets of an exercise should feel very hard.
• If you could do 2+ more reps, the set probably wasn’t stimulating enough growth.

One of the biggest benefits of dropping barbell squats is that you remove the fear of reaching failure under hundreds of pounds. When you replace squats with machines, you can use that safety net to your advantage.

2. Use Partial + Full Range Combos

Muscles grow best when they experience both full-range-of-motion overload and a loaded stretch.^{7 8 9}

What I like to do is:

• Do a normal set to near failure, full range of motion.
• Immediately add bottom-range partial reps.

This method works best on machines, particularly leg extensions and leg curls. For example:

1. 10–12 full leg extension reps, squeeze at the top.
2. Then 4–6 short partial reps in the stretched position (bottom).

The burn and pump are out of this world. Going beyond failure with partials this way is a “superior option” for muscle hypertrophy, according to research (admittedly on calf training, but the mechanisms should be the same).¹⁰

Again, don’t overdo this method, but as an intensity technique for the last couple of sets, it works really well.

3. Train Legs More Frequently

Training frequency in itself doesn’t really matter much for muscle growth.^{11 12} You get roughly the same results from one, two, or even three leg sessions per week, provided you get the same total high-quality work done.

The key words here are “same total high-quality work”.

If you’re not squatting, you probably have to do more exercises to cover all aspects of leg day. And it’s not easy to do 20 high-quality sets for legs, especially if you take the majority of them close to failure.

Instead of one brutal leg day, try 2–3 leg sessions per week.

Example structure:

• Day 1: Heavy quad-focused with some hamstring/glute work
• Day 2: Hamstring/glute focused with lighter quad work

You want 10–20 hard weekly sets per muscle group for optimal growth.^{13 14} With many leg exercises, you have overlap where you train quads, glutes, hamstrings, and adductors in one, but you’re still looking at plenty of total sets.

Legs can handle high weekly volume, but if you want high-quality volume, splitting your leg training into more than one session makes sense.

4. Track Your Training

Without squats as your main benchmark, tracking progressive overload becomes even more important. Make it measurable by tracking every workout and try to do:

• More reps at the same weight
• More weight for the same reps
• More total sets

Although be careful not to go overboard with the last one. More volume over time can help you build more muscle, but too much volume too fast is an effective way to grind your progress to a halt.

If your numbers aren’t improving every 1–2 weeks, your legs probably aren’t growing optimally. Although for really advanced lifters, progress might come slower without cause for concern.

Workouts That Build Big Legs Without Squats

Before we close this one out, here are two great workouts you can do on leg day, and not a single barbell squat in sight.

Free Workout: Big Legs Without Squats

This is a simple leg workout for intermediate-level lifters who want to build bigger legs without squats.

Do this workout twice per week for best results.

Exercise	Sets	Reps	Notes
Leg Press	3	8–12	Increase the weight and lower the reps each set.
Leg Extension	3	12	Squeeze your quads at the top.
Leg Curl	3	10	Seated or lying.
Hip Thrust	2	8	Try machine hip thrusts if your gym has one.
Romanian Deadlift	2	8	Barbell or dumbbells, whichever you prefer.

This workout is free in the StrengthLog app.

Premium Workout: All Legs No Squats

This is a complete leg workout without squats and a bit more advanced than the free workout. In this one, you train calves, too (which are, admittedly, part of your legs).

You can do this workout once or twice a week. Once is enough for most lifters, but you can add a second session if you’re focusing on leg growth.

Exercise	Sets	Notes
Leg Press	6	Increase the weight each set, pyramid-style.
Walking Lunge	3	Good long steps to hit the glutes.
Romanian Deadlift	6	Barbell or dumbbells.
Leg Extension	4	Superset with leg curls.
Leg Curl	4	Superset with leg extensions.
Standing Calf Raise	6	Full ROM, pause for a second at the bottom.
Seated Calf Raise	3	Push through your big toe and squeeze at the top.

This is a premium workout. You can see the full set and rep details in StrengthLog.

Track These Leg Workouts in StrengthLog

These are two of the many workouts for every body part and muscle group in the StrengthLog workout tracker.

StrengthLog remembers what weights you used in your last session, and automatically loads them into your next one. And trying to improve on your last workout is the key to getting bigger and stronger over time.

Download it and start tracking your gains today!

Note that StrengthLog is free, but you’ll need a subscription to follow some of our more advanced workouts and programs in-app. We offer a 14-day free trial (no strings attached and no funny business) that you can activate in the app, so you can check it out before making a decision.

Final Rep

Are barbell squats great for building big legs? Indubitably.

Are they the only way? Not even close.

Find the exercises that work for you, try one of these workouts, track your progress in your StrengthLog app, and the gains will follow.

If squats aren’t your jam, you have options to do it without them, your way.

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Last reviewed: 2026-03-23

References

1. Strength and Conditioning Journal 45(1):p 58-66, February 2023. A Brief Review on the Effects of the Squat Exercise on Lower-Limb Muscle Hypertrophy.
2. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(3), 1903. An Electromyographic Analysis of Romanian, Step-Romanian, and Stiff-Leg Deadlift: Implication for Resistance Training.
3. J Strength Cond Res. 2015 Jan;29(1):159-64. Regional differences in muscle activation during hamstrings exercise.
4. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2020 Oct 1. Greater Hamstrings Muscle Hypertrophy but Similar Damage Protection after Training at Long versus Short Muscle Lengths.
5. Front. Physiol., 09 October 2023. Hip thrust and back squat training elicit similar gluteus muscle hypertrophy and transfer similarly to the deadlift.
6. Sports Med. 2024 Sep;54(9):2209-2231. Exploring the Dose-Response Relationship Between Estimated Resistance Training Proximity to Failure, Strength Gain, and Muscle Hypertrophy: A Series of Meta-Regressions.
7. International Journal of Strength and Conditioning, 3(1), 2023. Partial Vs Full Range of Motion Resistance Training: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
8. J Strength Cond Res. 2023 May 1;37(5):1135-1144. Which ROMs Lead to Rome? A Systematic Review of the Effects of Range of Motion on Muscle Hypertrophy.
9. SAGE Open Med. 2020; 8: 2050312120901559. Effects of range of motion on muscle development during resistance training interventions: A systematic review.
10. Front Psychol. 2025 Feb 10:16:1494323. Resistance training beyond momentary failure: the effects of past-failure partials on muscle hypertrophy in the gastrocnemius.
11. J Sci Med Sport. 2019 Mar;22(3):361-370. Resistance training frequency and skeletal muscle hypertrophy: A review of available evidence.
12. Front Sports Act Living. 2022 Jul 4;4:949021. Resistance Training Variables for Optimization of Muscle Hypertrophy: An Umbrella Review.
13. J Hum Kinet. 2022 Feb 10:81:199-210. A Systematic Review of The Effects of Different Resistance Training Volumes on Muscle Hypertrophy.
14. International Journal of Strength and Conditioning, Vol 1 No 1 (2021). Resistance Training Recommendations to Maximize Muscle Hypertrophy in an Athletic Population: Position Stand of the IUSCA.