Who experiences similar? My hamstrings and glutes get decently sore from lunges, deadlifts etc. but quads mostly get a little numb now and then, even though I leg press a lot too. All in all, my quads have been getting more action than the posterior chain lately but the posterior chain gets the DOMS.
I’ve also tried leg extensions but can’t sort of figure them out. All the pain is in the negative portion of the rep and it seems all my strength is wasted on the agony of the negative. Don’t get much of a pump either way.
I also cannot feel my left leg working in the same way as my right, and my left is noticeably smaller though I do incorporate unilateral a lot.
Second, my triceps just don’t get sore unless I do tricep extensions a lot and I do military and bench, as well as some cable work.
I’ve experienced similar with the lower body, I have overpowering Glutes and Hams, to the point that I had pain in my hip flexors since they were so comparatively weak.
My suggestion, try to replace squats (if you do them) with front squats. Regarding the leg press, play around with your foot positioning until you find one that hits the quads nicely, as I do not know your build thus can’t give a blanket statement.
For your right leg working more than your left and regarding the unilateral work you do. Are there any imbalances that could be preventing maximal recruitment? (As in for me, my left hip flexor was injured for a long time, resulting in that final ‘push’ on squats coming mostly from my right leg, which made a small quad imbalance) Also, are you doing the same amount of work for both legs, or are you (let’s say, for extensions) focusing and putting more effort on the weaker one in order to bring it up to speed?
Why do you care about DOMS? It doesn’t mean that you got a great workout or that you’re going to grow from it. It might mean that your hams and glutes are taking the brunt of the work. However the exercises that you’re doing are not quad dominant one anyways (lunges and deadlifts). They’re meant to target the hams and glutes mostly.
You said your quads are getting the most action lately. What does that mean exactly? That your doing more exercises for quads or that they seem to get tired the most but you just don’t feel the DOMS in it the next day?
Try front squats with your heels elevated. If you must, for a while (like 4 weeks) pre-exhaust your quads with leg extensions and then head right over and do front squats. Then after doing that for 4 weeks, do post-exhaust, where you do an isolation exercise right after your front squat. This should increase your mind muscle connection. After that squats, leg presses and the like should be fine all on their own.
Same principle with triceps too.
Just make sure that you really do have a mind muscle connection problem, and not just a lack of DOMS. DOMS means nothing, and if you concentrate on that, you’re gonna waste many years of training.