Why not front squat or buy a safety squat bar? Or, fix your shoulder. Deadlift and leg press are just not quality substitutions, they are different exercises all together.
And considering the amount of weight being used one would be likely to presume this is an exercise done on a regular basis.
There are world class coaches on this forum that use leg press with there sprinters.
As stated by many others, there is almost always a time and a place for any training mean- including leg press
I think he was just saying that straight up subbing a leg press for a squat isn’t suitable, something I would agree with. But there is no question that a leg press can be a tool.
I dont understand.
If you have a sprinter whose primary goal is SPEED, and there are safety issues with the squat why risk injury? Strength is Strength and after all strength is a general training tool. Like I mention earlier the leg press has been used in recent day to train successful sprinters; some are members on this forum.
DC had a messed up lumbar spine that prevented squatting. it’s not like all the people kk had spent 30 minutes loading and unloading the leg press everyday.
obviously leg press is a viable sub, as are deadlifts, but if squatting is imminently feasible then its probably the way to go.
I am not talking about kk, pure short sprinters.
All weight lifting is a general stimulus for sprinters. With that in mind, you have to ask yourself, what is the marginal benefit of a heavy step-up compared to a squat versus the marginal increased risk of injury. It doesn’t hit me as a good tradeoff, even assuming you could show an advantage of step-up versus squat (which I doubt).
allow me to go sit in the corner and feel stupid.
Ok lil johnny go sit in the corner for time out.
who are you talking about not squatting?
someone in charlie’s group?
Do you high bar squat? Do you have the same problem with a low bar position? If so, and you have access, safety bar squats may be the best alternative as long as they don’t cause the same problem.
Yes, thank you.
There are some powerlifters who use leg extensions does that mean leg extension machine strength is a viable tool? Point is, just because someone uses some tool and they are successful does not mean that tool made them successful.
Strength is not a general training tool. Weight lifting is a general training tool. The amount of force (strength) you put into the ground and how quickly you generate this force is, in a nutshell, your ability to sprint. I’d venture to say most would prefer to use an exercise that measures and increases the amount of force they put into the ground (squatting) rather the amount of force they can put into a moving machine (leg press).
Anyways, all I was suggesting was that if there are injury issues present with back squatting use a different bar or bar placement and you can still squat. Rather than pick a completely different exercise that, whether whoever uses it or not, is inferior to squatting. Either that, use common sense and fix the injury problem.
I remember James Smith saying we are athletes and everything we do in the weight room is general so who cares if we full squat, half squat, leg press, hack squat etc its going to get the organism stronger. “I am not in love with any certain lift”!!!
Point is, just because someone uses some tool and they are successful does not mean that tool made them successful. Wrong, it make them even better in my book because they are able to adapt to there current athlete situation and not be stubborn just because they are in love with a certain exercise. Once again strength is general and can be develop many different ways using many different tools.
tamfb, not to migrate the contention between James and myself over into this thread, but those kind of broad, baseless statements are what bother me. It’s simply not true. It is true that all the exercises James mentioned are general, not specific, to the sprint, but not true that they are all equal in terms of the benefit they provide a sprinter or jumper. Yes, the “organism” will get stronger doing any of the exercises, but not necessarily at the same rate or to the same extent. If an exercise or exercises will ultimately enable you to run faster or jump higher, that’s the exercise(s) you use.
This is James thought on the leg press; also please dont turn this thread into a James bashing.
the leg press is a fine means of strengthening the legs regardless if the athlete is injured or not.
While the squat is a superior means relative to its neuromuscular coordination demand, structural demand, and closed kinetic chain dynamics that much more closely support ground based activities-the leg press must not be discounted as a valuable leg strengthening exercise.
In my view, however, the single leg press is a wiser alternative to double leg pressing as most leg press devices cause the pelvis to go into posterior tilt the deeper the hip and knee flexion