How to build my quads at home?

Question

I am scrawny. I've always been scrawny. But a few years ago I've lost the muscle tone in my hips and I developed intermittent knee pains before of that. In the passing year I lost my lower back muscles definition as well, and about a month ago I decided it's time to get back into shape.

So I'm doing daily routines (+twice a week an extra and longer workout) for the past month and things are much better now. Everything I do is just body weight exercises (push ups, all sort of stomach exercises, back hyperextensions, squats).

But I'm running into a problem, and I hope that you can give me some guidance.

Most people have their quadriceps end at the knee on both sides of the knee. So right above the knee you usually see two bulges of muscle. I only have one, on the interior side of the knee. On the exterior side the muscle ends up rather high above the knee, and you can see the ligaments and tendon stretched out when I lock my knee.

As my quads improved in the past two weeks, I feel that the one "head" is applying some pressure on my knee; and whereas most people would have this evened out by the vastus lateralis that reaches all the way to the knee, I don't have this privilege.

Is there any reasonable way, which does not include going to the gym or using lifts, to increase the length of my vastus lateralis so it can even out the pressure?

I will also add that I am quite careful in my work out, and if I feel that I'm doing something wrong, I will probably look up a few videos online and practice in front of a mirror in order to get the proper technique (e.g. after a couple of days I realized that I'm doing something wrong in my squats; but I quickly corrected it and now they are far more effective).

Answer 1

You might consider

• body squats or body jump squats
• burpees for full body involvement
• stair steppers or step ups (or a similar lunging motion)
• Leg press machine or hack squats

Then you could begin to add dumbbells to your body squats or lunging exercises. If you get to a place where you're starting to utilize heavier dumbbells, you could then consider the gym and using a barbell through a squat rack.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

Well you can try air squats(google it ) in front of a mirror for example .As far as the shape is concerned , the number of 'heads' of the quad depends on how shredded you are . The first two visible are the two you already mentioned . My opinion is that squats are the best workout for quads.