Leg day workout: a gym session and a dumbbell version

Leg day is the lower-body session in a split: the "legs" in push/pull/legs, or the lower days in an upper/lower week. (Which split fits your days.) It has four areas to cover: the quadriceps at the front of the thigh, the hamstrings at the back, the glutes, and the calves. A squat trains some of that, not all of it.

Below: a gym leg day, a dumbbell version, why each exercise is there, the glutes, and how often to train legs. Technique for the big lifts is on squat form and deadlift form.

The gym leg day

Six exercises, in this order, about an hour with warm-up sets:

Stop every set with a couple of reps still in you, two or three on the first two lifts. (Here's how to judge reps left.) The longer rests go to the big lifts: a 2021 review advises shorter rests for exercises that train small muscle groups and longer ones for demanding multi-joint lifts with free weights.¹

The rep ranges are wide on purpose. The American College of Sports Medicine's 2026 position stand found that muscle growth didn't depend on the load, from light (30% of your max) to the heaviest, while loads of 80% of your max and up helped strength.² So the first lift can run heavier and the rest higher. At the top of a range with reps to spare, add a little weight. (Progressive overload, explained.)

Why these six

1. A squat or a leg press, not necessarily both. Pick the one you can load well; a front squat fills the same slot. The ACSM's 2026 overview found strength gains didn't differ between free weights and machines.²
2. A hinge, because squats leave the hamstrings. In a nine-week trial, 34 untrained young men and women trained twice a week with either back squats or hip thrusts. Both grew the glutes, and the squat group's front and inner thighs grew more, but the hamstrings showed little to no growth in either group.³
3. One leg at a time. A split squat holds up as a main lift. In a five-week trial, 18 academy rugby players trained twice a week with either the back squat or the rear-foot-elevated split squat, better known as the Bulgarian split squat. Both groups got stronger on both lifts, with no difference between them.⁴
4. A seated leg curl over a lying one. In a 12-week trial, 20 young adults who hadn't done any systematic lifting in the past year trained one leg on a seated leg curl and the other on a lying one. The seated leg's hamstrings grew more, 14% against 9%. Sitting bends the hip, which lengthens most of the hamstring muscles, and the authors suggest that training them at longer lengths is why.⁵
5. A leg extension for the front of the thigh. One quadriceps muscle, the rectus femoris, works relatively little in multi-joint lifts: in 15 men, it was more active in the leg extension than in the leg press, while the other quadriceps muscles were not.⁶ In a 12-week trial of 49 physically active people, the whole quadriceps grew similarly in every training group, but only the groups that varied their exercises grew all four of its muscles.⁷ That's one trial: the ACSM's 2026 overview found too little data to say whether varying exercises changes muscle growth.²
6. Standing calf raises. In a 12-week trial, 14 untrained adults (seven women, seven men) trained one leg with standing calf raises and the other with seated ones. The two gastrocnemius muscles grew 9% to 12% on the standing side and under 2% on the seated side, while the deeper soleus grew about the same either way.⁸ Seated raises still train the soleus; standing ones train all three.

The dumbbell version

One pair of dumbbells and a bench or a sturdy chair. The same four areas, in the same order:

The leg curl and leg extension go, and the two Romanian deadlifts take over the hamstring work. The split squat gets a third set, because one leg at a time is how light dumbbells keep up with your legs, and the rugby trial above, which used a barbell, found it held its own against the back squat.⁴ Lighter loads aren't a problem for muscle, per the ACSM finding above;² just keep each set hard. (How the dumbbell and barbell versions of a lift compare: dumbbell vs barbell.) The three-day dumbbell plan spreads these exercises across a full-body week and covers what to do when the dumbbells run out.

Leg day for glutes

The glutes work through most of the session already. A 2020 systematic review of 16 studies of glute muscle activity rated step-ups and their variations highest, followed by loaded exercises such as deadlifts, hip thrusts, lunges and squats.⁹ Activity during a lift isn't the same as growth over weeks, though. In the nine-week trial above, hip thrusts produced more glute activity than squats in the first session, but that didn't consistently predict glute growth, and the two exercises grew the glutes by similar amounts.³

So a leg day for the glutes needs a different mix, not new exercises:

• Keep the squat deep. Squat form covers why.
• Swap the leg extension for a hip thrust, three sets of 8 to 12.
• Swap the lunge for a step-up onto a knee-high box, dumbbells at your sides.
• Keep the hinge. Deadlifts are on the review's high-activity list too.

In the same trial, strength rose most on whichever exercise each group trained,³ so if one lift matters to you, make it the one you train.

How often to train legs

Once or twice a week, depending on your split; the weekly total matters more. The ACSM's 2026 overview found muscle growth was enhanced by ten or more sets per muscle group a week, and that training frequency, from one day a week to more than five, didn't change it when total volume was matched. For strength, two or more sessions a week helped.²

• Twice a week (upper/lower): the gym session above is the first lower day. Make the second hinge-first: a Romanian deadlift or deadlift, then leg press, seated leg curl and calf raises, three sets each. That's ten hard sets a week for the front of the thigh and twelve for the hamstrings.
• Once a week (three-day push/pull/legs, or a body-part split): it works if the sets are there, but ten hard sets for each area in one session is a long day, one reason twice a week is a common default.
• Full body: no separate leg day. Each session takes a squat, a hinge and perhaps one more leg exercise from the tables, the way the college routine does.

Put a day between hard leg sessions where you can, and if your back day has a heavy hinge too, plan the two together (the back workout covers it). Sore after your first leg days? Muscle soreness covers whether to train through it.

Common mistakes

• A leg day that's all quads. Every leg day needs a hinge or a curl for the back of the thigh.
• Calves and curls only when there's time. Whatever comes last gets cut. If those areas matter to you, move them earlier.
• Depth that shrinks as the weight climbs. Keep the range and let the weight wait.
• Grinding every heavy set to the last rep. Leave two or three reps in the squat and the deadlift, and push the small exercises closer.
• Training through pain. Sharp pain is not soreness. Stop, and see a doctor or a physical therapist.

If you'd rather not plan it alone

A leg day on a page doesn't know your gym or the rest of your week. Coaching is the version where your workouts live in the Trainerize app, built around the days you actually have, and a weekly call looks at the week you just had and rebuilds the next one. Coaching to build muscle explains how that works, and here's how to apply. Otherwise: pick the gym table or the dumbbell one, and run it twice before you change anything.