Any Love for the Leg Press?

[Daverin]

Yeah, the other thread with Cody and gator. Realized I walked right into something. Pretty standard obliviousness on my part, really.

[perman]

IMO
Leg press > front squats
for quads

Quad size perhaps, but quad strength for squatting? I would assume the carryover from front squats to increasing your squat numbers would be greater (as a light day exercise), I may be wrong though...

[Cody]

Quad size perhaps, but quad strength for squatting? I would assume the carryover from front squats to increasing your squat numbers would be greater (as a light day exercise), I may be wrong though...

Muscle CSA -> strength potential. Bigger muscles have greater potential for strength. So, if leg presses get you bigger quads than front squats, and the competitive movement is the back squat, which you're training simultaneously, why would you assume the movement that gets you bigger muscles is inferior to the one that doesn't get your muscles as big?

[Mark E. Hurling]

Imo Belt squats suck ...based on thier appearance.
Too hard to set up.
Pendulum effect.
Can fit only 5-6 plates on the Tee apparatus thingy.

Maybe if you had that fancy machine with the cable (westside thing?)...

Not so long ago, people doing the Olympic lifts appeared strange to many if not most denizens of the gym. But they do look odd. I'm old enough to have ceased to care about what other people in the gym think what with me staring 67 in the face in a few weeks.

You get quicker, better, and more skilled at the set up through several iterations.

The pendulum effect is minimized with an ez-curl bar. It can limit the number of plates you use, granted.

Cable stacks work quite well. The problem is that most of them don't go over 250 lbs. I've never seen one that has as of yet. The other problem is finding a low enough pulley. Thus, you have the same issue of getting more elevation.

Never been tempted to try the Tee apparatus. But if the gym has 100 lb. plates, the loading issue can be overcome.

[perman]

It seems common that this is forgotten.

Massive bodybuilders don't use "heavy" weights all the time, but on random (not really) runs they work up to big lifts like Ronnie Coleman would do.

It's why most intermediate and advanced lifters need hypertrophy blocks.

Outside SS circles, it seems to me the 2 big sources of lifting theory nowadays is RTS and Juggernaut Training systems, and they have 2 slightly different ways of doing it, with RTS going with concurrent programming with some elements of DUP thrown in, while Juggernaut go distinct block programming with hypertrophy ->strength ->peak.

With the concurrent route, it's squat variations, whether it's pause squats, tempo squats or front squats that you do outside the competition squat. With hypertrophy blocks however the leg presses have a more natural spot.

It's not apparent to me that block programming is necessarily better, cause you can temporarily lose some of the ability to lift heavy squats even when your muscles get bigger.

So I guess this boils down to how your programming works more than leg press > front squats or leg press < front squats.

[Cody]

Outside SS circles, it seems to me the 2 big sources of lifting theory nowadays is RTS and Juggernaut Training systems, and they have 2 slightly different ways of doing it, with RTS going with concurrent programming with some elements of DUP thrown in, while Juggernaut go distinct block programming with hypertrophy ->strength ->peak.

Mike uses both the leg press and front squats in his personal programming. Also, RTS programming is block periodization (he's got videos on YouTube about it, and how block is really just linear programming if you look at it over time).

Also, JTS block programs undulate intensities and reps within the training week (using an HLM or MHML rotating setup). So yes, they do block, but they also do DUP. JTS uses a lot of belt squats for their powerlifters, but they will also program leg presses and front squats.

The only major difference with RTS and JTS is RPE. Juggernaut does adjust for fatigue as necessary, they just don't use that rating system.

[perman]

Mike uses both the leg press and front squats in his personal programming. Also, RTS programming is block periodization (he's got videos on YouTube about it, and how block is really just linear programming if you look at it over time).

Well, even if it's technically block programming, I haven't seen him split up his programs into distinct hypertrophy blocks and strength blocks like they do at Juggernaut. Never seen a program from Mike where he starts with exercises in the 6-10 range for an hypertrophy block, while the next block is a strength block in the 3-5 range for instance, he tends to be a lot more concurrent.

Also, JTS block programs undulate intensities and reps within the training week (using an HLM or MHML rotating setup). So yes, they do block, but they also do DUP. JTS uses a lot of belt squats for their powerlifters, but they will also program leg presses and front squats.

The only major difference with RTS and JTS is RPE. Juggernaut does adjust for fatigue as necessary, they just don't use that rating system.

Not from what I've seen (then again, I don't know what Mike's programming looks like technically nowadays since apparently he doesn't use shit like fatigue percents much anymore), RTS programs seem a lot more concurrent and without the use of escalating volume and scheduled deloads like JTS use.

But whatever, they both use DUP, front squats and leg press, I still maintain this is more of a programming issue than leg press > front squats...

[MBasic]

Not so long ago, people doing the Olympic lifts appeared strange to many if not most denizens of the gym. But they do look odd. I'm old enough to have ceased to care about what other people in the gym think what with me staring 67 in the face in a few weeks.

You get quicker, better, and more skilled at the set up through several iterations.

The pendulum effect is minimized with an ez-curl bar. It can limit the number of plates you use, granted.

Cable stacks work quite well. The problem is that most of them don't go over 250 lbs. I've never seen one that has as of yet. The other problem is finding a low enough pulley. Thus, you have the same issue of getting more elevation.

Never been tempted to try the Tee apparatus. But if the gym has 100 lb. plates, the loading issue can be overcome.

. . . for the Tee belt thing, I guess you could use thin red calibrated 25 kg PL plates too . . . .

[silachoo]

Where do you guys place your feet and how wide on leg press? I want some yack't quads.

[Mark E. Hurling]

. . . for the Tee belt thing, I guess you could use thin red calibrated 25 kg PL plates too . . . .

Is this the Westside thing of which you spoke? Oooooo, nice.

The only downside I can see is getting low enough to attach the carabiner. If you start too deep at the outset, it can limit the opening concentric starting weight. But it does eliminate the pendulum factor nicely. I managed to find something of a compromise on these matters by using a smith machine to clip into.