Your legs perform many functions that are crucial to your daily activities. Simply walking from place to place involves the large and small muscle groups of your hips and thighs. There are a multitude of exercises that are designed to increase your strength in these areas as well as increase the size of your muscles if that is what you desire. Most of these exercises can be done on machines at your local gym or fitness club.
Hip Flexors
Your hip flexors are a collection of small muscles that surround your hip and move the joint. Muscles included in this group are the iliopsoas, sartorius, pectineus, rectus femoris, and the tensor fasciae latae. There are many exercises that can target your hip flexors due to the diversity of movements that these muscles control. The most common exercises can be done on the hip abduction and adduction machines, which make you move your legs outwards and inwards against weighted resistance, and standing leg raise machines, which have you raise and lower your legs against resistance.
Quadriceps
Your quadriceps are the large muscles that cover the front of your thighs. There are four muscles that comprise the quadriceps, and you can exercise them all at the same time. These are some of the strongest muscles of your body, and contracting them helps straighten your leg. You can exercise your quadriceps by performing seated leg curls, lunges with dumbbells, step-ups onto a bench, or squats with a barbell.
Hamstrings
Your hamstrings are the muscles that cover the back of your thighs. Hamstrings work in the opposite direction as quadriceps, so contracting your hamstrings will bend your legs. Hamstrings are underdeveloped in many athletes, because running and jogging exercise your quadriceps more than your hamstrings. You can correct this muscular imbalance by performing seated leg curls and straight-leg deadlifts.
Glutei
Your glutei are the muscles that make up the buttocks. There are three muscles in the glutei group: gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus. Your gluteus minimus and gluteus medius can be exercised with the same hip adductor machines that you utilize to exercise your hip flexors. Your gluteus maximus can be strengthened with a number of exercises, including squats, lunges, deadlifts, step-ups, and hip extensions.
Muscles Gain and Loss
Due to the small size of your hip flexors, you should not be able to see any change in the size of these muscles. However, your quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutei will become larger if you lift heavy weights for only a few repetitions. Lift light weights with many repetitions to strengthen these muscles without a great gain in muscle mass. Exercise will often cause you to lose body fat, so you may see a reduction in the overall size of your buttocks and thighs if you are just beginning an exercise program.
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