Does Back Squat Exercise Lead to Regional Hypertrophy among Quadriceps Femoris Muscles?

Abstract

The present study investigated effects of squat resistance training on intermuscular hypertrophy of quadriceps femoris muscles (i.e., rectus femoris, RF; vastus intermedius, VI; vastus medialis, VM; and vastus lateralis, VL). Eighteen university students (age: 24.1 ± 1.7 years, 9 females) underwent 7 weeks of parallel squat training (2 days/week) preceded by a 2-week familiarization period. Squat strength (1RM) and cross-sectional area (CSA) of four quadriceps muscles were assessed at baseline and at the end of the study. At posttest, 1RM and CSA of quadriceps muscles significantly increased (p < 0.01), with moderate-to-large effect (ES = 1.25–2.11) for 1RM (8.33 ± 6.64 kg), VM CSA (0.12 ± 0.08 cm2), and VL CSA (0.19 ± 0.09 cm2) and small effect (ES = 0.89–1.13) for RF CSA (0.17 ± 0.15 cm2) and VI CSA (0.16 ± 0.18 cm2). No significant differences were found in the changes of CSA between muscles (F = 0.638, p = 0.593). However, the squat 1RM gain was significantly associated only with the changes in CSA of the VL muscle (r = 0.717, p < 0.001). The parallel squat resulted in significant growth of all quadriceps muscles. However, the novelty of this study is that the increase in strength is associated only with hypertrophy of the VL muscle.

The effects of squat variations on strength and quadriceps hypertrophy adaptations in recreationally trained females

“…Emerging evidence has shown that variation in exercise selection can influence nonuniform skeletal muscle adaptations (Kassiano et al., 2022; Zabaleta‐Korta et al., 2020). Previous studies that investigated interventions with squat training on regional hypertrophy among quadriceps muscles found similar increases between proximal to distal portions, similar to our findings (Kojic et al., 2022; Merrigan et al., 2019). It should also be noted that the BS may not optimize hypertrophy of all the quadriceps heads.…”