When you stop a set of leg presses, you did it because your quads failed you. You don't have to stop a set prematurely because your lower back, feet, ankles, or wheezing lungs gave out before your legs did.Leg presses are a much better muscle builder for the following reasons: Leg presses, however, are an excellent tool for making the quads grow, but again, they're not that great for building overall strength. True, plenty of lifters would argue that point vociferously, but most of them are short-legged Hobbit-like fellows who need a stepstool to climb onto their high horse. That being said, the almighty squat is a great strength-building exercise, but it isn't necessarily the best muscle-building exercise. Coaxing your muscles to grow involves an entirely different recipe than making them stronger. Hypertrophy, on the other muscular hand, is largely a combination of increased muscle glycogen, protein synthesis, increased myofibril size, and hormonal milieu. The more muscle fibers you can recruit and how fast you can recruit them translates to the amount of stuff you can forklift off the ground. Strength is largely a manifestation of nervous system efficiency. And there are also a fair share of muscular guys who have trouble opening the occasional pickle jar. There are plenty of guys who look perfectly average who can hoist enormous amounts of weight, relatively speaking. There's a difference between strength and hypertrophy. – Tony Gentilcoreīefore you all start droning on about how the leg press doesn't transfer to sports performance and how it doesn't build strength, let's draw some distinctions here. Breaking with the knees first is fine so long as the heels don't come off the ground. I often cue my athletes to break with their knees first and then to simply squat down. Instead, for the bulk of people, the squat is a motion that should be equal parts sitting back AND knees coming forward. And yes, relax internet warrior guy, I understand plenty of powerlifters have big quads. Moreover, it's not my first choice to coach a squat if someone is looking to grow their quads. But their backs will hate them over the long haul. It champions an excessive arch in the lower back which can put you into a poor, unstable position (hence the squat suit).Ĭan people lift a boatload of weight this way? Yes. Thinking "sit back and arch" is a poor choice for most non-geared lifters anyway. How do we do that? By making the squat look like a squat. It's about building a set of quads the size of Nebraska. But this isn't about lifting the most weight. Most lifters have been brainwashed into thinking they HAVE to sit back when they squat, that it HAS to be a posterior chain dominant movement.Ĭan we make the case that a more posterior chain dominant squat pattern (where you sit back into the hips and maintain more of a vertical shin angle) will allow someone to handle more weight? Sure. We've shoved the importance of posterior chain training down everyone's throat so much that a lot of guys have either lost the ability to use their quads to a high degree, and/or they have no quads. I've noticed a trend in the past five or so years and it's our fault. Stop overemphasizing the posterior chain.
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