Are squats enough to train legs?

Squats are a fantastic lower-body builder, they work the whole leg musculature!

That being said, the degree to which they hit different muscle groups makes me think that you should incorporate hamstring work in addition to squats.

The quads are responsible for knee extension and hip flexion while the hamstrings are responsible for knee flexion and hip extension with the glutes.

During squats, the most active muscle groups are the quadriceps and glutes with some degree of activation in the hamstrings.

When you squat, you do a knee extension combined with a hip extension to get back up.

Consequently, we could say that squats work your quadriceps, glutes and hamstrings.

The problem is that the muscle that is the most active during a movement is the one that is directly perpendicular to gravity.

Due to the position of your body, you will put more emphasis on your glutes that on your hamstrings.

Furthermore, you only work hip extension during the squats.

Adding at least leg curls of some kind will definitely be useful to optimise hamstring growth!

When it comes to the quadriceps, all 4 heads are responsible for knee extension, as a result, you don’t need to incorporate hip flexion work.

The only context during which I would recommend doing so is when you have some hip and/or lower back pain or if you are an athlete who needs to run and/or do kicks.

To conclude, I would also mention that I am not a big fan of doing only one movement to develop certain muscle groups.

Adding some variety to your training by rotating exercises or simply doing more of them will help prevent overuse injuries.