 First question is for from PB for the soul. What are the best exercises to build mass in the quads? Yes, quads. We love building them quads The one you're not doing. Yeah, well, that's always a good answer, right? Whatever you used to oftentimes changing it up will get your body to Respond like it's a like you did the first time you start working Well, this reminds me of just the recent debate that we had on the show about the whole hip thrust and squat thing And you know this back-and-forth of which one's technically better and you know I would make the argument that if somebody squats all the time Introducing hip thrust would be the best thing for the butt if someone always hip thrust and never squats I would say go do squats and I bet you that will give you the greatest results now generally speaking though Right generally speaking if you're comparing all the lower body exercises I really don't think there's anything that can compare to a back squat or front squat in terms of quad development Now I'll tell you just for myself Personally and for my clients, but I'll speak for myself first You know I might my legs my upper legs respond quite quite well to exercise the one body part I have that I feel like is you know a little bit genetically gifted the rest of my body Gotta work really hard to get to respond my legs just seem to grow and I've gone through stints of Not barbell squatting, but still doing lots of other exercises still doing lunges still doing You know leg presses and sissy squats and you know hack squats and everything out and keep in the volume high And then I'll go back to doing squats and nothing my quads just explode They're just nothing my quads don't respond to anything Like barbell squats now for my clients. It was very same thing Barbell squats and comparison anything else they nobody saw results like they did with the squats They just didn't absolutely. No, I could make the case for Bulgarian split squats I I now but here's the thing though is I had already been squatting for a long time when I introduced Bulgarian split squats So you could argue my argument that I was just making see I like hearing your your Your experience because you had said for a long time your legs were a hard body part You develop yes, and so I like to hear what worked for you. Yeah, well, I mean for sure. Well a couple things actually Getting to a deep full range motion a squat was a big difference too. So just squatting was great I mean that was obviously built some of the the foundation of my legs getting starting to do that Because before that I was the leg extension leg press kid avoided squats like to plague Then I started squatting consistently Notice my legs really start to develop Then I got into like Bulgarian split squats Really saw my legs blow up then I got into a place where I was working on my mobility and my deep squats And I've never had to do less work to keep my legs the size they are when I deep full range of motion squats Develop my legs more than anything that I've done by themselves. And again, this is you know my experience I still think though that if worse who I'm talking to really matters if I'm talking to somebody Who's like a fresh clean slate? You don't really train at all I would I'm with you Sal I would make the case that you know squatting is probably the quickest best way that we can develop your core You're just your legs in total legs. I mean, I think I mean, I even feel I told you guys that when I started squatting really deep I saw my calves come up. Of course that blew my mind away Especially at the bottom. Yeah, because I was I was starting to get into really deep heavy squats And I started to notice that my I was getting some calf development from it and hamstring development from it So I don't think anything is a bigger bang for your buck than just getting it affects the entire leg Yeah, I can totally echo that I think You know in terms of like what specifically blew my quads up even more was when we would actually elevate our heels We did front squats, but we still kept it like it was all about keeping that heavy load So if you started to work on it as a skill of front squats, you know Challenging for a lot of people because they just don't do it, you know And so that was something that you have to kind of work your way into then Being able to add a substantial amount of load like you could in a back-loaded squat for it to have those types of gains and results But the majority of clients in general like it was not hard to build their quads In fact, they were more likely to be quad dominant than they were You know to have more development in their glutes or hamstrings, right now There's camps and we have friends that are in these camps that hack squat is the best way to develop your quads I mean from in terms of machines just in general that that that would get behind trying to isolate it that way Yeah, because of because a hack squat mimics a squat a normal squat more than the leg press. That's for sure Yeah, oh, I yeah press is a very short range of motion Even if you do a deep leg press, it's a short range of motion in comparison And because of the lack of ankle mobility in most people most people can't actually squat deep full range of motion And so they can in a hack squat and so that's where I can get behind like I know our good buddy Coach Eugene towel like he's he definitely touts this a lot That the hack squat is better for leg development for most people and where I can get behind that argument Is that case is that most people can't do an ass to grass? Barbell back squat and so if that same person who can't you can't break 90 degrees on their their barbell back squat You go to a hack squat and get all the way down because of the way your feet are positioned relative to where your back and hips are And it doesn't take very do you don't have to have any ankle mobility really to do a hack squat Are your feet are in front of you. Yeah all the way down to the floor for that reason It's it's a basically a squat with full range of motion So I would argue it's it's superior right now now for me There was actually a period of time where I was having a lot of fun developing my legs And I wanted to compare training styles and I went through a period where I did my this was my workout It consisted of leg press hack squat leg extension leg curls And then I compared that to a period of time where I would just go and do ten or twelve sets of just squats The squats one I did the same thing. They build my legs. I did the same thing I did the same thing with deadlifts. I've talked about this about deadlifting from my back and not doing all the other You know, you know top exercises that people say and nothing did compare to that's why I think we're I think we're so adamant about pushing people in that direction that Squatting and deadlifting are just a big five. They are it's consider them always. Yeah, it's just there All things equal right mobility is fine You know level of training all that But and this is why these sometimes these questions are hard to answer because it is nuanced if you have a client who? Limits ankle or they have a very poor ankle mobility Then you can make the case that some other exercise might be or if you have a client who is actually got great form But it's been they've been squatting for years and they've never done a Bulgarian split squat or they never do a hack squat Yeah, or assist I mean if you've never done some of these movements then right away as a coach and a trainer Yeah, I'm gonna and they're saying to me Adam I want to keep developing my quads and I squat three times a week and I've been doing that for the last four years And they go how long of you was last time you have squatted or was last time you did a Bulgarian split squad They go oh, I never do that. I'm gonna go well those exercises gonna build your quads more than anything else Yeah, and I want to add one more thing all things being equal and I love heavy lifting Everybody knows that right if I if I have a tendency to go five reps or lower when I'm working out Just have a lot of fun doing it, but I'll tell you when I do sets of 12 or 15 reps in the squat And I'm consistent blows my legs up the muscles just just explode I get a lot of hypertrophy from that relatively high rep range Well, this is the stan efforting camp, which I love that he talks about the 20s Yes, you know and to me that's just because the novelty of it probably because most people even if you are a Regular squatter very few people like to squat 12 15 reps No, I don't know very many people that are you need I need personally a couple hours of nothing after most people That are the most people drawn to squatting and that are good squatters They like to squat because they like to increase the weight and get stronger and stronger and stronger And that doesn't play very well into 15 20s But for for gains for for hypertrophy for building your legs building your quads If you've never done 20s if you've never gone in front squatted 20 or done a backs barbell backswap for 20 Have fun with that. Yeah, I mean yeah I mean you're gonna have to reduce the weight significantly, but your legs will blow up from that