The Leg Press

[Mark Rippetoe]

Are you being sarcastic here? Isn't the low back pretty much unloaded in a leg press?

Have you watched the video? Do you know what a 45-degree leg press is? The low back is being smashed into the pad at a 90-ish degree angle, in flexion.

[anticausal]

Are you being sarcastic here? Isn't the low back pretty much unloaded in a leg press?

I can attest to this. About 7 years ago, when I had no idea what a real squat was, I walked into a gym fat and completely untrained and started leg pressing. It felt "easy" so I kept increasing the weight, and I ended up herniating a disc or something the very first day I went to the gym. I didn't actually get it checked out, but my back was really shitty for a few days and iffy for a couple of weeks.

Now how likely do you think something like that could happen to a day 1 squatter? I can almost guarantee you they wouldn't be throwing extra plates on like a retard, since most of their energy would be focused on trying to actually learn the movement.

[obelix]

I did watch the video. It seems that the kinetic chain ends at the hip joints and none of the weight is loading the spine axially, similar to the bar weight not loading the arched or not back in a bench press. Is this not the case? I might be missing something obvious.

[ForbiddenDonut]

Are you being sarcastic here? Isn't the low back pretty much unloaded in a leg press?

If you asked this question in person, Rip's foot might have found itself leg pressed up your ass

[amsgator]

By vertical they mean perpendicular to the ground? Why Rip I think these a brilliant idea, what better way to cleanse the gene pool.

It's not any more dangerous than any other leg press.



On the other hand, you could always just use a smith machine to leg press.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I did watch the video. It seems that the kinetic chain ends at the hip joints and none of the weight is loading the spine axially, similar to the bar weight not loading the arched or not back in a bench press. Is this not the case? I might be missing something obvious.

It is not loaded on the spine axially. It smashes the lumbar spine in moment after the position at the bottom rounds it into flexion. You are missing something obvious.

[MBasic]

What are your thoughts on the vertical leg press? The vertical ones are ~1/3 the price of the traditional angled ones ($350 vs $1000+). Would these be a sufficient alternative for smaller gyms that aren't using the leg press for typical training, but only for the use you describe in the video?

. . . probably even more dangerous than the 45 deg model.

I've noticed the vertical ones (or when someone uses a smith machine this way: inverted), the person in there seems to go even 'deeper': knees to chest.
The amount of hip angle is increased from the get-go, because they're already smashed in there at 90 deg from the very start.
So I'd imagine even MORE 'forced' lumbar flexion at the bottom of a rep.

[brkriete]

It's not any more dangerous than any other leg press.



On the other hand, you could always just use a smith machine to leg press.

There is a woman at my gym who does these. She also uses the assisted dip / chin station to do leg push-downs. She is a master of finding creative ways to (mis)-use the equipment.

[obelix]

Well, my line of thinking was that flexion is not a big deal without axial loading (eg. tying your shoes), but I guess that doesn't mean it's OK to mash arbitrarily hard into an immovable surface. So is the back rounding at the bottom inherent to the leg press? Is it because it's hard to get tight at the top without something to get tight against (eg. a bar on your back)?

[Mark E. Hurling]

The vertical leg press was and is a potential back wrecker and death trap. Back in the earlys before the 45 degree leg sleds appeared, they were all over the gyms of the day. It was very easy to misalign yourself and not get a good connection of your lower back and butt underneath the overhead platform. Plus, sometimes the apparatus had no padded surface underneath and you were on the hard floor. Very unpleasant. Then there was the whole potential for positional asphyxiation from having your quads pushed into your midsection. Because the mantra of the day was not to keep your knees out for the outer quad sweep so treasured by the body builders of the day. At the bottom of the concentric portion of the vertical leg press, it could be hard to breathe. Along with that, it must have really spiked my blood pressure, because my head felt like it was going to explode.

The newer variants of the leg press don't have quite the other hazards inherent in the vertical one, but from my own experience they all had the same potential for rounding of the lower back at the bottom. The only design I ever tried that didn't seem to do that with the lower back was a plate loader put out by Hammer Strength. But then the motion arms for each foot moved on separate platforms which could present some really odd differentials at the lock out.