Would you recommend using the leg press machine, or are there better alternatives?

Question

Matt Eiden · Answer

I want to preface this answer by saying all exercises are good if they're done for the right reason. So if we know why you're losing a leg press machine, it's great. It's a good alternative for taking pressure, off your spine and pretend to giving your body and your nervous system, a little bit of a break. If you work with athletes that are in a long season 2. Good way to build leg strength, without putting too much stress on your spine or lower back your entire system. So like presses are good. A really good in the rehab setting, they're good if you're trying to achieve something specific with a range of motion or with your patellar, your BMO or if you're doing different causes. So the very good. I wouldn't use it as your main leg strength movement, but if you have some things going on and that's what you need to do, then, yes, it's a very good option. But I do believe that squatting, deadlifting single leg work doing lunges step-ups, that kind of thing. Is more effective a little more athletic, you kind of get more out of your whole body when you have to organize and manage the weight, if it's in front of you or on your back or wherever it may be, so I like other Alternatives better. If I can deadlift, if I can squat, if I can reverse lunge, if I can do things on my feet, holding weights, kettlebell racking front rack back. Rex lots of other options just to be a little more athletic and engage my whole system as opposed to doing a lie. Aggressive. But again, leg presses are very good if you're doing them for the right reasons, but for myself and my ethics of my clients, I don't use them unless I need to

Gina Grain · Answer

Would you recommend using the leg press machine, or are there better Alternatives? So the leg press machine, you are basically taking out like, your the use of your your back core musculature, right? Because you're supported on your back and you're using, you know, you're focusing mainly on your legs and glutes. And so, I think that using the leg press machine is a great way to work on pure maximum leg strength. Like, you know, if you want to load heavy through your legs without having a core involved, Said that, you know, the squat is a great exercise because then it does incorporate your whole your whole body and it's more of a complex complex exercise. So I think that there there's no better leg exercise. That depends on what your main objective is. So you know, single leg exercise is also a great way to build leg strength. So, you know, take a look at your goals and say, okay, well do we want a nice complex strength exercises like squats? It's to work the whole body and, or are you just looking for a leg strength phase where the leg press could be a great tool to help you through that to either get over a plateau or? And, or if you're, if you're injured, if you do have some sort of a back injury, the leg press can be a good a good good way to work, your legs without involving your back. So, a couple things there, I don't think there's a better exercise than being all exercises are great. If you have a certain reason for using them,

Paul Edmondson · Answer

Hi folks, would you recommend using the leg press machine or are there better Alternatives? Now I would always start every conversation by saying there is no such thing as a bad exercise. May be only a wrongly prescribed exercise, so if you think about it, every exercise is better than no exercise. So the real question is, what do you want specifically? And then maybe we can prescribe The better recommended exercise, but if you think about it, a leg press machine is an exercise that develops quad strength or quad hypertrophy along with other muscles like the calves and the glutes and hamstrings this secondary muscles so on and so forth. And yes there are alternatives like lunges and squats and things like that, that are more functional. You may say But if you think about it, those functional exercises squats and lunges as well as their transference, the life and Sport, proprioceptive lie, they recruit more muscles and for the client that's looking for aesthetic benefits as well as functional outcomes training more muscles in an exercise increases lactate build-up. So for the client wants a hypertrophic outcome that build-up of lactic acid in the muscles. Come With it as an anabolic secretion of hormones. Like igf-1 testosterone, human growth hormone in more abundant amounts compared to its leg press counterpart. However, that more stable exercise trains. Those fewer fibers to a higher degree and harder and Taps into an opens up. Those high threshold motor units that are very hard to stimulate so you can access more More individual muscle fibers in that muscle and secrete, local paracrine hormones like MGF or mechano growth factor which also builds muscle so they both do the job but in a slightly different way. So is there a better exercise? Maybe that's person dependent but both exercises are good. It's just for who we talking about? What's the goal here? Hope that helps

Blair O'Donovan · Answer

Would I recommend a leg press machine or are there better Alternatives? Absolutely, look, you can get stronger on any modality, really, you know, you can pick up a barbell dumbbell. You know, any machine as long as you're, you know, applying and appropriate stimulus and having you know, Progressive overload over time, you can get stronger with anything. Just depends on what your goals are, you know, what is your trainable menu look like Snot? Every athlete can can back squat, very well, not every athlete can Dead lift off the floor very well in some cases, the leg press, maybe a safe alternative as it requires very little technique and and learning curve, you know? So just for me and my, in my in my toolbox leg, press is a great, great way to isolate and really load up. You know, the legs pretty hard and heavy and do it in a relatively safe Manner, and we're tracking and progressing that with with a good portion of my athletes. Even the ones that Can Squat and deadlift but I'm absolutely, you know, a big fan of the leg press for sure.

John Sinclair · Answer

So what I recommend using the leg press machine or there better Alternatives. Well, you may be asking this question because maybe you have tried to squat before and you maybe have some discomfort in your lower back when you're squatting or in your knees and, and you choose to use a leg press, but you've maybe heard that some people don't say very nice things about the leg press. And if that's the case, then I'm sorry. Because like coach Paul said, there's no bad exercise or bad piece of equipment it It might not be the right one for you. So if the leg press is right for you and you don't get any discomfort doing the leg press then I think that's fantastic because it's a great way that we can take load away from the spine where it's not an axial, load where that load is going straight down the spine, it is in a different position relative to the spine. So if you are on a 45-degree leg, press with your feet elevated above you and you're pressing a sled away from you, then that's going to Have a little bit more compression in the lumbar spine, than say, a leg press, that is a carriage chair, so you sit in in the chair and then your feet are about, you know, below the height of your shoulders, but that platform is still and you're pushing the chair away from you. That's going to have less compressive force in your lower back. Some of the Alternatives that I choose. I don't have a leg press in my garage gym here but I do have what we call a J-Squad, or a belt. Squat, a lever belt Squad. So this one's by Sauron X. I'll just do a couple reps here for you and what that does is it allows a little bit of traction. I put the belt around, my waist, attach it to the unit, and then I can do a leg pressing or squatting type of activity without the axial, compressive load. So I kind of get the best of both worlds of a squat and a leg press in one. So I attach it here. Stand up and go through my squatter leg press. So now I can squat add weight onto here without having the compressive load in my spine. That is what we call it. J, squat or a belt squat.

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"Would you recommend using the leg press machine, or are there better alternatives?"