Top Leg Exercises for Strength & Tone (No Squats Required)

With social media and SO many leg day workouts and ideas being shared, no matter what you choose to do or follow, it seems like someone is always sharing the missing piece. And I get stuck in that too.

Even with training off and on in the gym for over 15 years now, I still get distracted and want to change up my leg routine constantly!

But I always come back to these 5 leg day exercises. And looking back over the years, these have really been the baseline that built my legs for me.

So here are my top 5 leg exercises to strengthen and tone, without any squats! I’ll also give some variations to spice things up and keep leg day interesting and changing, even with just a few exercises.

• Leg Extensions

• Leg Curls

• Leg Press

• Walking Lunges

• Split Squat

Bonus Exercises:

• Single Leg RDL

• Kickbacks

• DB Snatch

• Box Jump or Step Up

Double Bonus, cardio to add to strong and toned legs:

• Walking and weighted walks

• Stairmaster

Now let me break down how you can add variation to each exercise because none of these are ground breaking, but consistency is key here! And after 15 years, even simple changes can help you get stronger and more defined legs year after year with these exercises.

For most workout programs, the best starting point for exercises I go with is 3 rounds of 8-12 reps, where the last 2-3 reps are a challenge. So doing the exercise 3 times, super-setting or pairing it with another exercise for more of a challenge, and then moving onto the next exercise or group of exercises. And if you’re able to get to 12 reps easily, then start increasing the weight.

Welcome to simple weight lifting!

What I’ll share for each exercise next is how to change it up from that simple example. If you’re new or just getting back to the gym, just start there! Otherwise, here’s how to have a little more fun with simple leg exercises and spice it up.

I love leg exercises, and I remember this exercise specifically is why none of my roommates or guy friends ever wanted to train legs with me.

Option 1

Drop sets on leg extensions are great! This can be on the last set. Going for your 8-12 reps, then dropping the weight stack by 1-2 pegs, doing 10 more reps, and then drop it 2-3 more times. It’s terrible but SUCH a good pump. If your leg extension machine is weight loaded, just make sure you have weights ready to use for the last rep if you do this.

Option 2

Another option is pointing your toes in different directions. What that means is normally when doing leg extensions, you have your toes pointed up. Try pointing them either towards each other or opposite each other. This just hits your quad muscles differently with a slight rotation of your legs to accommodate where your toes are pointing. I like to do all 3 directions for 10 reps back-to-back. In total, each set is 30 reps so keep the weights light for this. 

Option 3

Another fun one going more for high reps, lower weight. You can easily work on this by starting with a light weight, doing a max of 20 reps, then slowly increasing the weight until you can’t do more than 12. Once you’ve hit that weight, you drop back down the way you increased it.

This one does take longer so be prepared for that, but it’s still a great variation to change things up. 

Option 4

The other variation I like to do is single-leg extensions. It isolates your muscles more, and especially helps you find out if one leg is overcompensating for the other when working both legs together.

If this seems difficult or strange, try sitting farther to one side of the machine if you can. We had a leg extension machine where the weight stack was behind you, and it’s really the only way this works.

But if you’re working your left leg, you sit farther to the right side and have your right leg bracing on the ground. Then switch for the other side.

Leg curls I like to do basically the same breakdowns I do for leg extensions. These are also great exercises to pair together as a superset. So you start with your leg extensions, jump to leg curls after, then rest before doing your next sets.

Leg curls, however, usually have a couple different options for machines that you can rotate through either each leg day, or every few months switching up the machines. Those would be the lying leg curl machine, upright seated leg curl machine, and sometimes a standing single leg curl machine. All those variations I’ve tried I love for different reasons. So if your gym has them, I’d recommend rotating through them for an easy variation.

Option 1

I still recommend drop sets on the last set of leg curls, and this one can be a 1-2 drop. For me at least, I feel I can get to a higher weight on leg extensions more than leg curls, so that’s why I recommend a smaller drop for leg curls. Otherwise drop sets are always to failure, or until you can’t do a full rep anymore. 

Option 2 & 3

The other 2 variations I recommend are high rep, low weight build up rounds. Again, similar to leg extensions, you start out at a smaller weight that you can do 20 reps at, and then slowly start adding more weight until you can only do 12 reps. To make this even harder, for either exercise really, don’t take any breaks! Go all the way up in weight, then drop right when you hit that difficult weight. You can do this for one round if you’re short on time, or take longer breaks and do it for 3 rounds.

Option 4

The last variation could be lying single leg curls. Normally this is done with both legs curling at the same time, but if you’ve strengthened your legs enough to where you can do single leg lying curls at one of the lower weights, this also helps strengthen the muscles differently.

This was always my favorite exercise, because at one of my first gyms in college, they had 100 pound plates and people could consistently leave them on the leg press machine. But I got strong enough to where that could be my warm up round and I was SO excited when I first tried it after being annoyed at the previous person.

So make sure you put your weights back!

Option 1

There are so many fun variations to the leg press, from different machine variations depending on your gym, to food placement during the exercise. You can either have your feet closer together and work your outer quads, have them wide for inner quads. If you have them at a neutral stance but maybe a little lower on the foot pad, it will be overall quad work and I find a little more challenge and support to strengthen your knees. And then having your feet a little closer together but higher on the foot pad will work more of your glutes. So one machine has so many options to work on!

Option 2

Another variation just using those options alone is doing 10 reps of one foot placement, 10 reps of another, etc until you’ve hit all 4 or just alternate through the ones you want to focus on first. So for example, I like doing a wide stance for 10 reps, a close stance for 10 and then wide stance again to really warm up my legs and get blood flowing as I usually don’t do those stances if I’m doing a squat exercise or anything else really. I prefer those stances on the leg press.

Option 3

Another great option on the last set of leg press, is dropping weight. Not only are you making it easier to put the weight away if you’re using a plate loaded leg press, but it also gives you a small break when you have to get up and take plates off. Unless you’re working with a partner, then they can run around and unload the bar. If you’re using multiple 45 pound plates, I recommend when taking a plate off, adding a 25 in place of it to still make it more of a challenge and last a little longer. Then take the 25 pound plate off, do your reps that that weight, take off the next 45 pound plate and replace with the 25 pound plate again, etc. 

This one definitely burns after, so be careful when you go to stand once it’s done.

Option 4

The last variation I like to add in is single leg press sitting normally, or sitting slightly to the side. So angling yourself to one side of the machine and placing your foot at that angle too always works my inner thighs and glutes in a way no other stance or variation on the leg press does.

This is a great exercise to superset with any of these exercises, either weighted or just body weight to get an extra burn going. And honestly, if you really want to challenge yourself, I’ve done a couple days where I did 10 lunges after each exercise. So that’s an option too!

Option 1

Otherwise, I’ve been at gyms that had tracks and I would do weighted lunges on the long ends of the track, walk the short, and then lunge the long potion again. That would either be my finisher, or I would do that for 3-4 rounds each. They were always indoor and smaller tracks, so don’t think outdoor ¼ mile tracks! Although, doing that alone would be a great workout! No gym or weights required. Just a mile of lunging the straits and walking the curves.

There you go!

Option 2

I also like to switch up my step length. So the longer your step, the more glute you focus on, the shorter the step the more quad focus. You can also keep it really low where you don’t stand all the way up and that just burns your legs no matter what.

I always try to stick with walking or forward lunges just because it helps with balance and really just ankle mobility and stability. Reverse lunges seem too easy for me, but feel free to try it out! All of these are just options to make something “simple” harder or more varied so you don’t get bored or tired of the same thing over and over again. 

I’ll be honest, this is a newer addition for me. The gym I’m currently at, District 507, has an AWESOME machine that I use for this. It stabilizes me and takes a lot of pressure off of my lower back, which depending on work, how I slept, if I twisted wrong or have been trying to strengthen it more, can be really grumpy when it comes to some leg day and squat work (hence the no squats leg exercises).

But if you don’t have this, that’s totally fine! There are plenty of machines and freestanding ways of going about this. 

Balance will be the biggest challenge with this exercise if you aren’t using a machine, and that’s even better! Balance and core stability are a fun bonus when doing this exercise. So start out light with weight or even just bodyweight goes a long ways.

But for muscle focus, keep in mind, the more upright you are going down and up, the more quad focus the exercise will be. If you lean slightly forward and focus more on sending your hips back going down and pushing them forward with your glute coming up, it’s a lot more glute focused. 

So choose your challenge!

This is your workout, your life, your goals. The workout that brings the best results is one you stick with and continue to grow and excel at.

Check out my blog The Best Workout For You to help set up that plan and mindset around fitness if you need a change or refresh.

If you can’t get yourself to stay consistent, that’s where the growth and change happens.

So drop weight, keep it simple, do a couple sets and just keep going.