Knee friendly leg exercises

[Smont]

What's everyone's favorite leg exercises that don't bother there knees. I can do pretty much every exercise if the weight is light enough but I don't wanna be doing 25+ rep sets all the time and my legs are definitely suffering from not being able to get full leg workouts in. I can go very heavy on stiff leg deadlift and that's been my only heavy leg work lately. I've been getting into split squats and Im not strong at them yet but there pain free on my knees so there's lots of room for me to make progress on that lift.

Traditional squats are bothering my knees and lately even the leg press feels bad on my knees unless I go super high and wide on the platform which I feel like it's not doing much quad work from that foot position.

So I guess a better question would be knee friendly quad exercises.

So far I'm doing
stiff legs for 8-10 reps
Split squats for 8-10 reps
High wide leg press for 15-20reps
Leg extensions for super high reps 25+
Before I start legs I usually do a the adductor and abduction machines.

And suggestions for quads?

 

[TheMrMuscle]

Yeah this is hard as we dont really know what your knee pains stem from. But ill throw in some that feel great on my knees.

• Walking lunges (split squats as well but you are already doing them)
• Pendelum Squat
• Belt Squat

As for not doing high reps or high weights id say try occlusion training. You wont barely need any weight and the quad pump when applying it to say leg ext, hack squat, leg press etc are beyond imagination.

 

[xR1pp3Rx]

i remember watching polquin describe some things.. one being "tethering the knees together" do your leg pressing with the knees together with a light band. while the band holds you together you should be putting force to the outside of the knees through the ROM.. thats another thing.. stay in the ROM that doesnt hurt for awhile.

 

[Smont]

i remember watching polquin describe some things.. one being "tethering the knees together" do your leg pressing with the knees together with a light band. while the band holds you together you should be putting force to the outside of the knees through the ROM.. thats another thing.. stay in the ROM that doesnt hurt for awhile.

Ya I can do partial range of motion on Squats and legpress but I hate looking like I'm being a bitch and half repping it lol. I was thinking box squats might be a good idea because you literally can't go lower than halfway down so it doesn't look like I'm cheating

 

[Smont]

Yeah this is hard as we dont really know what your knee pains stem from. But ill throw in some that feel great on my knees.

• Walking lunges (split squats as well but you are already doing them)
• Pendelum Squat
• Belt Squat

As for not doing high reps or high weights id say try occlusion training. You wont barely need any weight and the quad pump when applying it to say leg ext, hack squat, leg press etc are beyond imagination.

I don't have access to a lot of equipment most of the time, that's part of the problem. I should have mentioned this earlier but I'm limited to anything with a barbell or db, leg ext, laying ham curl, leg press, adductor/abductor machine and a Smith machine.

No pendulum, hack or anything fancy.

I can replicate a hack squat with the Smith machine by basically doing a deadlift with the barbell behind my back while I'm standing on a plate or two. But that's about it.

 

[Smont]

So I guess more so I'm looking for variations of exercises that are knee friendly if that makes more sense. I've never tried any form of occlusion training so that might be worth a go

 

[xR1pp3Rx]

also check out smashwerx on youtube. hes got good stuff for your knees and shoulders n back n sh17