Quadriceps Exercises

The Westside program does not incorporate many quadriceps exercises, due mainly to the fact that the squat stance is super wide limiting quad interaction. I noticed that when hiking in Yosemite, my quads took a real beating.

These exercises below should be worked in for 3-4 sets of 8-15 reps. Not sure if they should be put on Me, or De day or both??  

Additional Information (as per ifpa-fitness.com)
The wide-stance-squat provides greater leverage and therefore is used to increase overall strength. The wide stance shifts the center of gravity slightly backward, this allows the powerful hip and gluteal muscles greater muscle activation, while decreasing stress on all but the vastus medialis muscle of the quadriceps. This exercise is best used to increase overall strength and to increase stress on hips, gluteals and vastus medialis. This wide stance squat position is referred to as the Powerlifter Squat. To optimally perform the Powerlifter Squat follow the IFPA Rules – except: position the feet fairly wide apart with toes pointed outward between 10 – 30 degrees. It is imperative that you maintain the “weight-lifters-arch” (Rule #4). During the descent, allow the hips to come back and down as if sitting in a chair and shift the weight naturally to the heels. During the ascent drive the weight through the heels while driving the hips up and forward.

The narrow stance squat is referred to as the “bodybuilder squat”. This is not recommended for the ordinary athlete because the barbell is positioned higher on the neck with much of the weight coming down on C-7 (Cervical vertebrae – 7). C-7 does not like this! The narrow stance makes it difficult to maintain a “weight-lifters-arch” and impossible not to exceed “knee-toe-line”. Bodybuilders use this high-risk exercise to move the stress load from the gluteals and hips to the quadriceps and primarily the vastus lateralis in the quadriceps group.

Similar variations are performed with similar results in the leg press, dead lift, hack squat, etc…
In the leg extension machine, you can also change the stress on different  muscles of the quadriceps by rotating the position of the feet:

1. internally rotating (pointing the toes-in) increases the stress
    on vastus lateralis.
2. externally rotating (point the toes-out) increases the stress
    on the vastus medialis.