7 Best Barbell Leg Exercises to Build Strength & Mass

Stop wasting time with little exercises.To build massive legs, all you need is the barbell. This single piece of equipment allows you to do the best leg exercises for total lower body development.

Even better, you don’t need dozens of exercises to choose from. You just need the best 7 leg exercises and we have them listed below.

7 Best Leg Exercises

1. Back Squat
2. Deadlift
3. Front Squat
4. Hip Thrust
5. Split Squat
6. RDL
7. Front-Rack Reverse Lunge

The Benefits of Barbell Training:

The advantage of barbell exercises really comes down to one main point - heavier loads. Barbell leg exercises generally consist of big, compound lifts that can be performed with heavy weights.

Extra loads means;

• Greater loads for increased neuromuscular drive
• Increased volume for greater muscle growth.¹

With that said, here are some reasons why we love training the lower body with the barbell.

• Center of Gravity: The biggest advantage the barbell has over other free weight equipment is the ability to move the barbell in a straight line over your center of balance. This means you can load fundamental human movements like the squats, hinges, and presses with progressively heavier weights, allowing you to get bigger and stronger.
• Progressive Overload: When it comes to progressive overload, barbells are king - they allow for smaller increments and heavier maximums. The same cannot be said for other gym equipment like dumbbells and kettlebells. They only go so high, and their weight is set. Plus, you need to hold onto them with your hands, which limits you on exercises like squats.
• Stability = Strength: With the barbell locking you into a range of motion, you’re less likely to deviate from this ROM, unlike dumbbells which give you more freedom of movement (which is great in its own right too). When you're lifting with a fixed ROM you’re able to lift heavier as you have more stability. You also have more stability since your limbs are moving in sync.

Whether your goal is performance, strength, fat loss, or muscle mass, the barbell will get you there the fastest. More strength = more muscle building potential, and vice versa, and maintaining muscle mass and doing heavy lifts = higher calorie burn and thus easier fat loss.

All that said, the barbell is more of an advanced training tool. Beginners can use it, but they should go light to learn proper movement mechanics before adding load. From there, use progressive overload, incrementally going heavier over time.

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The 7 Best Barbell Leg Exercises

Without further ado, here are the 7 best barbell leg exercises to add to your lifting selection. Note: You will need a squat rack for many of these exercises, especially if you go heavy.

1. Barbell Back Squat

Want bigger thighs? Then you need the barbell back squat, king of all the leg exercises. You can load this exercise up heavily because of the stability that the upper and lower back provide. It's important that you play around with rep ranges with back squats too.

Low reps with heavy weight is good, but lighter rep squats can cause the body to produce growth hormones to help increase your size and strength too.² This is a great exercise to include in any leg workout, including this legs and shoulder routine.

Muscles emphasized: Quads, Glutes, Hamstrings

How to do the Barbell Back Squat:

1. Step under a barbell and place the barbell on your upper traps and unrack it and take 2 steps back.
2. Set it either high or low on your upper back and pull the bar down onto your upper traps.
3. Set your comfortable grip on the barbell which allows for your shoulder mobility.
4. Then set your feet in your preferred squat stance.
5. Keep your chest up and take a deep breath in and squat down to a comfortable depth.
6. Drive your feet through the floor and squat back up.

Best rep ranges: 4-8, 8-12, and 12-20

Related: High Bar vs Low Bar Back Squat

2. Barbell Deadlift

While the barbell is the king of leg exercises, the barbell deadlift is the king of exercises.

The deadlift is a monster of a movement, allowing a huge load to be placed on every muscle in your body, including your legs. Specifically, the deadlift is going to target your posterior leg muscles, your glutes and hamstrings. However, there’s also heavy quad involvement, especially at lift off.

When we program the deadlift and squat, we will usually program them as the primary movement for two different training sessions.

For load and reps, we like using lower reps. High reps, even if load is lower, can be fatiguing and result in poor form. Therefore, we rarely do more than 6 reps.

How to do the Barbell Back Squat:

1. Place your feet around shoulder width and the bar over your midfoot.
2. Put your hands on the bar outside your knees and sit back. 
3. Your shins will come forward slightly and touch the bar.
4. Maintain a neutral spine and neck with chest out and shoulders pulled back.
5. Take the slack out of the bar by pulling up on the bar slightly.
6. Be sure to engage your lats.
7. Drive your feet into the ground as you pry the barbell up.
8. Slowly lower the bar back down.

3. Barbell Front Squat

If barbell back squats are the king of the leg exercises, the front squats are the queen and rule reign over your quads.

You’ll use less load due to the front rack position, but it has a few advantages to make up.

• Targets your quads
• Provides a killer core exercise
• Puts less stress on your back due to your vertical torso
• Better transfer to athleticism 
• Improves mobility

Front squats can be very challenging when you first start, this is one reason you don’t see many people do them.  Trust us, put in the work and you’ll see a difference.

Muscles emphasized: Quads

How to do the Barbell Front Squat:

1. Assume your preferred front rack position by putting the barbell high up onto the shoulders.
2. Make sure the barbell is supported by the shoulders and upper chest.
3. Whichever grip you use, make sure you keep the elbows high during the entire movement.
4. Keep your shoulders down and chest up and take three steps back from the rack.
5. Lower into a squat while minimizing the forward lean of the torso.
6. Once you have hit your preferred depth, push through the whole foot and squat up.

Best rep range: 4-12

Related: 3 Types of Front Squat Grips

4. Barbell Hip Thrust

The barbell hip thrust is one of the best exercises to isolate the glutes hard and heavy. 

Hip thrusts are unique as they’re one of the heaviest movements you can perform yet are actually a single-joint exercise. It just so happens that the joint is the hip, which is powered by the strongest muscle in the human body, the glutes.

Another unique factor is it’s the only exercise where the load is placed directly on the joint. This direct force is what allows such a powerful movement. 

While the glutes are the main focus, it will also hit the hamstrings.

Muscles emphasized: Glutes, Hamstrings

How to do the Barbell Hip Thrust:

1. Sit with your back up against the edge of a bench that is behind you.
2. Have padding across your pelvis and then roll a loaded barbell into the crease of your hips.
3. Secure the barbell and drive your feet and back towards the bench.
4. Your shoulder blades need to be on the bench with your upper body and hips in a straight line.
5. Keep your upper body stable as you hinge your hips toward the ground
6. Then drive your feet through the floor and extend your hips until the lockout.
7. Squeeze the heck out of your glutes at the top, then lower back down and repeat.

Note: The wider your foot positioning, the more glute activation. 

Best rep range: 6-15

Related: Hip Thrust Exercise Guide

5. Barbell Split Squat

Split squats reduce muscle imbalance between sides, focus on your quads and glutes, and lead to better muscle development between sides. Do they suck? Yes, but they are good for you.

If you were to choose one exercise to improve your barbell squat and deadlift split squat would be it. The barbell split squat allows you to load this movement heavier to improve your leg drive for squats and deadlifts.

Muscle emphasized: Quads, Glutes

How to do the Barbell Split Squat:

1. You can place the barbell on your back or front rack. This is your choice. The back allows more load and the front rack has more anterior core strength and quad engagement.
2. With your chest up and shoulders down set up in your split squat position.
3. Then drop your back knee towards the floor until your front leg is almost parallel to the ground.
4. Push your front foot through the floor to return to the starting position.
5. Reset and repeat for reps and then switch sides when you’re done.

Best rep range: 8-12

6. Barbell Romanian Deadlift

RDLs differ from the conventional deadlift as they start in the standing position. This means you begin the movement by letting the barbell down which places emphasis on the eccentric portion of the movement. 

Further, there’s more emphasis on hip flexion/extension with less knee flexion/extension. This helps target the glutes and hamstrings to a greater degree while also increasing time under tension. Collectively, Romanian deadlifts provide awesome posterior development.

Muscles emphasized: Hamstring, Glutes

How to do the Romanian Deadlift:

1. Stand upright with your feet hip-distance apart.
2. Grip the barbell with an overhand grip in front of the thighs.
3. Keeping your chest up and shoulders down, take a deep breath in, and hinge down until the barbell is just below your knees.
4. Pause for a second and exhale and use your hamstrings and glutes to hinge back to a starting position.

Best rep range: 6-12

Related: Romanian Deadlift Exercise Guide

7. Front Racked Barbell Reverse Lunge

Reverse lunges are probably the easiest of all the lunge variations because stepping back makes it a hip-dominant exercise, and this puts less stress on your knees than other lunge variations.

A great reverse lunge variation is the front racked reverse lunges. You set up as you would for a front squat and then perform a reverse lunge. This will help decrease muscle imbalances, increase injury resilience, and builds anterior core strength.

Muscles Emphasized: Quads, Hamstrings, Glutes, Core

How to Do the Front Racked Barbell Reverse Lunge:

1. Set up as you would for a barbell front squat in the squat rack using your preferred front rack grip.
2. Unrack the barbell and stand tall with your feet hip-width apart.
3. Then take either a small or large lunge back with your left foot and lower your hips so that your right thigh becomes nearly parallel to the floor.
4. Keep your chest and elbows up, and shoulders down. 
5. Push through your right foot and return to the starting position.
6. Either alternate sides or do all reps on one side.

Best rep range: 8-12

Warming Up for Barbell Leg Exercises

Before you start lifting heavy with your working sets, you need to prep your legs and activate your legs muscle fibers. To this, you need to perform some ramp-up sets.

Ramp-up sets help grease the groove and can also help you judge how you’re feeling that day. This is very convenient for those who use any form of autoregulation such as RPE. As you’re warming up, you can feel if weight is feeling heavier than usual, or lighter, and adjust accordingly.

Use ramp up sets for the main lifts in your workouts, after that your muscles will be warm and you won't need to use such an extensive ramp up. 

Here’s an example using barbell back squats:

• 10 reps with an empty barbell
• 8 reps at 50%1RM
• 6 reps at 60%1RM
• 5 reps at 70%1RM
• 3 reps at 75-80%1RM

Barbell Programming Suggestions

While we gave you the barbell exercises, you still need to know how to program them. Here are the guidelines you need to follow.

Exercise Order:

Barbell exercises that train the most muscle and require the most energy should always come first in training. For example, barbell back squats and deadlifts are generally the first exercise of the session.

When you’re fresh you’re more likely to lift with good form and use more weight. When performing barbell exercises back-to-back use your best judgment on what comes first.

As you descend, you should also alternate exercises based on the targeted leg muscles. With the barbell leg exercises above, you’re going to train your entire lower body with each exercise. 

However, some are geared towards the quadriceps while others are geared towards the posterior. For example;

• Back Squat (Quads)
• Barbell Hip Thrust (Posterior)
• Split Squat (Quads)
• RDL (Posterior) 

Also, try to avoid putting two exercises together that put too much shear and compressive load on the spine.

Barbell Sets & Reps for Strength and Mass

Muscle and strength are built in a variety of set and rep ranges.³ However, certain loads and reps are optimal depending on your goal.

• Strength: 85% and above of your 1RM // 1-5 Reps
• Muscle Growth: 60%-80% of your 1RM // 8-15+

When we perform barbell leg exercises, we will generally keep the reps below 10. Further, we keep 8-10 reps for the “smaller” barbell exercises such as the RDL

We feel other, more specific exercises are better for using higher reps.

Training Frequency 

We really like training the legs twice a week. For one. This frequency has been found to be optimal for most trainees.⁴

Secondly, we find that training the squat and deadlift on the same day can be brutal. Of course you can, and people do, but beginners (and many intermediate lifters) do better splitting them up. Therefore, one session starts with squats and then starts the other session with deadlifts.

If you have questions about barbell leg exercises and workouts, leave a comment below!

Sample Barbell Leg Workout

BEST STRENGTH PROGRAM

SFS Strength Program

Prepare to maximize your strength with our exclusive 13-week strength training program. 3, 4, and 5 day per week programming options.

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More Leg Training Resources:

• Best Hamstring Exercises
• Best Gluteus Maximus Exercises
• Best Quad Exercises
• Best Gastrocnemius Exercises

More Barbell Exercise Resources:

• Barbell Back Exercises
• Barbell Triceps Exercises
• Barbell Shoulder Exercises

References

1. Schoenfeld BJ, Ogborn D, Krieger JW. Dose-response relationship between weekly resistance training volume and increases in muscle mass: A systematic review and meta-analysis. J Sports Sci. 2017 Jun;35(11):1073-1082. doi: 10.1080/02640414.2016.1210197. Epub 2016 Jul 19. PMID: 27433992. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27433992/
2. Wilk, Michal, et al. “Endocrine Response to High Intensity Barbell Squats Performed with Constant Movement Tempo and Variable Training Volume.” Neuro Endocrinology Letters, vol. 39, no. 4, 1 Oct. 2018, pp. 342–348, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30531700/.
3. Schoenfeld BJ, Grgic J, Van Every DW, Plotkin DL. Loading Recommendations for Muscle Strength, Hypertrophy, and Local Endurance: A Re-Examination of the Repetition Continuum. Sports (Basel). 2021 Feb 22;9(2):32. doi: 10.3390/sports9020032. PMID: 33671664; PMCID: PMC7927075. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33671664/
4. Schoenfeld BJ, Ogborn D, Krieger JW. Effects of Resistance Training Frequency on Measures of Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sports Med. 2016 Nov;46(11):1689-1697. doi: 10.1007/s40279-016-0543-8. PMID: 27102172. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27102172/