Rear Leg Raises

Muscles worked

The muscles under tension are the quadriceps across the front of the thigh, which straighten the knee and, just as importantly, control it on the way back down.

A stretch loads them at the far end of the range they normally work in, so the position you hold is itself the resistance.

Every exercise for:Quadriceps

How this movement works

Force goes away from the body: the muscles press against the floor, a wall or your own opposite limb rather than drawing anything in. There is no weight to add, so the position you can reach and keep is the whole variable.

It is filed under stretching, so the target is range of motion rather than force — a position you can settle into and breathe in, held long enough for the tissue to give.

What you need

No equipment at all. The resistance is your own bodyweight, so you progress by changing leverage, range or tempo rather than by adding plates — and you can do it anywhere.

Every exercise using:Body only

These train the quadriceps too, using equipment this one does not:

• Rear Lunges with Barbellbarbell
• Rear Lunges with Dumbbelldumbbell
• Recumbent Bikemachine
• Smith Machine Hack Squatsmith machine + machine
• Squats with Exercise Bandsband

Difficulty

Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.

Of the 173 quadriceps exercises in this database, 70 are listed at beginner level.