Squats and leg press and stress relief
And training longevity
This post was brought to you by Dunkin Donuts Iced Coffee, and a double serving of Neurovolt this morning.
During this saga of life with building Athanor, I find myself returning to fitness subjects for a comforting familiarity. Recently I changed my training schedule recently to a bodypart split recently and Ive been enjoying it immensely. It made me consider my perspective on lower body training after the most recent leg day.
What you will learn today
The dumb trend I fell for when I started personal training (and what you shouldnt fall for either)
Why I consider free weight squats to still be essential, but…
Why the leg press is probably the real size builder
The power of the leg press for longevity
On the subject of leg training
When I got started a personal trainer in 2010, there were two dominating trends
-Powerlifting, which encouraged everyone to squat bench press and deadlift, and these lifts were all anyone really needed to be fit strong healthy muscular
-Functional training, which discouraged machine usage, isolation training, and emphasized “stabilizing” exercises, balance movements, single limb training, and what I later came to dub “trainer trick exercises” which look cool but serve no real purpose other than wasting peoples time.
Being a novice personal trainer, I fell into the powerlifting camp. I didnt use machines, I did not have my clients use machines, and I was critical of machine based training of any kind.
I trained my clients exclusively with free weights, the barbell, and bodyweight movements.
This was not bad, dont get me wrong, but the my exclusion of an entire set of tools left me with limited options at times.
My stubbornness also led to poor training decisions with my own workouts. Ive said many times, Ive got terrible structure for powerlifting with with long arms, long femurs, shallow rib cage, a short torso, and congenital Spondylolisthesis.
Over time and way of experience, I became far more open minded and dropped the dogmatism about exercises.
Everything is simply a TOOL. You can use it, not use it, and all tools have their place, some are more powerful than others, with broader use. Others more specific.
Arguing over exercises are arguments between weak egos.
In particular, the Leg Press
When you squat, the limiting factor in the weight you can use is typically NOT the legs, but the TORSO.
Its your low back, your spine, your shoulders, maybe your arms. Its not the pelvis and thigh muscles.
This is intuitive for anyone who has ever lifted. You can get on a leg press and move FAR more weight than you can on a free weight squat. The leg press is only loading the hips.
At the same time you have this increase in intensity and loading on the legs, there is also the removal of stress and fatigue from the spine/torso.
This allows you to go HARD on your legs, arguably harder than you could squatting. But with no risk of spinal fatigue and injury.
You can safely do high rep sets. You can do drop sets. You can experiment with tempo. You can go to failure. You can pyramid up or down in weight.
And all without the risk and fatigue limitation that comes with free weight squats.
This is all to say that the leg press is a fantastic tool for building size and strength in quads and glutes.
Especially as you AGE-Applying intensity requires intelligence. I want you to do things that challenge the energy capacity of your legs and stimulate the maximum amount of muscle fiber. The leg press allows you to do this.
To be clear, the leg press is NOT a substitute for squatting.
Its a common refrain in the health and fitness world that you need to do SQUATS.
And this is correct.
The ability to have your knees and hips bend together from a standing position is a fundamental human movement. This trains the quadriceps and glutes. Humans are a bipedal organism. There are no disadvantages to having strong legs. Only advantages.
Squats can be done many different ways
The past few years in particular, pendulum squats have become popular. But having used them and compared them, Ive still come to favor some kind of free weight squat that you have to stabilize your torso.
The old school adage of “free weights build more strength” I partially agree with. The ability to internally stabilize and control your bodyweight in space under load MUST be trained directly. The core stability and overall recruitment of muscle cannot be matched.
What kind of free weight squats?
That can be a back squat,
A front squat
A goblet squat
or a bulgarian split squat.
you also have unloaded bodyweight squats, and Hindu squats as well.
and if your spine for whatever reason cannot tolerate any kind of heavy loading on the torso, then use a belt squat.
Stabilized squats are great too
Smith machines, pendulums, and hack squats remove the need for stabilizing and allow you to often use heavier weight and be more targeted with where you emphasize muscle tension.
That said
Free weight squats and leg press should have equal priority in your training
With free weights you can focus on perfect technique, not take sets to failure, and stick with your 5-10 rep range.
With the leg press following, you can go higher rep, go for a pump, and thrash your legs as hard as you want. I would not do less than 10 reps in a set. Its a leg press. I would say do 10-30 reps for your working sets.
A workout I am enjoying right now
Front squats, 5 sets of 8-10 reps
Leg press, 5 sets of 10-30 reps.
Leg curls, seated or stability ball. 4 sets of 10-20 reps
Leg extension, 4 sets of 10-20 reps
Dumbbell romanian deadlift, 4-5 sets of 8-12 reps
Thanks for reading friends, until next time