Our coach has us doing a lot of leg curls and other hamstring weight training exercises like dead lifts and hammer leg curls. He does not have us do any leg extensions to strengthen the quads because he said that the quads are already strong enough from all the running and plyos that we do.
My question is, is it bad or good to not do any leg extension exercises and let all the other forms of activity, running, sprinting, jumping, etc. to strengthen the quads.
I wouldn’t worry about leg extension, but you would benefit from squats. The quads (and glutes) will obviously become more powerful with sprinting and plyos, but even moreso with weights also.
from what i hear quad extensions are bad for the knee, due to the sheering force put upon them while doing the exercise
Correct. Stay away from leg extensions!!
While most people know about the sheer forces on the knee…many don’t know about the adaptive shortening of the exercise if done too much. One olympic athlete that anchored a 4x100 relay at sydney (not US’ss) did so many that when tested at the clinic, he couldn’t let this leg hang relaxed sitting on the massage table. Instead of letting drop from gravity and hang vertically while sitting…it stuck out there like the end range of a patella tendon reflex test. It was almost completely extended.
Quad extensions tend to aggrevate the patellar tendon. However, would they be suitable for soccer/football types, who are likely to be stronger in this area, as the extension movement is quite similar to kicking?
What performance increases can you see from extra quad strength? Why not let the compound movements enhance performance of the kick as well as the kicking? While at USF Bill Gramatica did no leg extensions and his kick was far enough to go to the NFL. Also he did plenty of olympic lifts and squats…what can be said of the support leg and hip explosion?
I never say any piece of equipment is bad. Everything has it’s place. To say leg extensions are horrible is a little over the edge. Remember when squats were horrible. Like Ian say’s" Generally, most things are an over-reaction in the short term and an under-reaction in the long term". Balance is key. quad to ham needs to be balanced, therefore both need to be worked.
Great post.
“I follow Ian King philosophically”
Well, maybe you should start following Dr Mel Siff and other erudite sports biomechanists literally.
You also made the following statement :
“Balance is key. Quad to ham needs to be balanced, therefore, both need to be worked.”
Almost all assessment of “muscle imbalance” has been based upon the archaic use of isokinetic joint torque measurements like seated knee extensions which totally imobilize the hip joint (this alone corrupts the analysis because running and jumping relies heavily on hip involement).
Imoblization of the hip also significantly increases patellofemoral and soft tissue forces because it prevents the hip joint from sharing the loading and offering protection to the knee.
Isokinetic dynamometers make assessments under constrained isolated single joint conditions which bears absolutely no relationship to the multi dimensional and multi articular world of sporting and daily life activities.
While there may be genuine muscle imbalance caused by some pathology, this concept is being bandied about with great and unwarranted abandon, especially since imbalance in motor output generally has far more to do with central nervous factors than local muscle imbalnces.
Therapists and coaches should not strive to achieve ‘perfect’ balance or ‘near perfect’ balance in athletes, as research has shown that asymmetry is more the norm in elite athletes than the exception.
For example, Dr Michael Yessis writes in the Soviet Sports Review, “Recent research by the Soviets analysed the symmetry of leg strength in sprinters and concluded that striving for perfect symmetry is inappropriate. Interestingly, leg strength asymmetry was found to increase as sprinters increase in proficiency!”
Research at the US Olympic Weightlifting Training Center in Colorado Springs using dual force plates, failed to find any lifters who had symmetrical force profiles in both legs. Not one of the 27 athletes tested had even a remotely symmetrical strength balance between each leg. Since these apparent “imbalances” did not appear to be causing any decrease in performance, they decided to leave it alone and chalk it up as ‘the norm’.
Trying to create close to exact muscle balance may increase the risk of injury because the person concerned may well have optimized those specific torque and strength ratios to suit his/her structure.
It’s high time that this deeply embedded myth about exact balance of contralateral and agonist-antagonist muscle groups was dispelled.
everything had to be perfectly balanced. I do however feel that people screw themselves up more through their training than competition. I will not bag on Mel Siff, but I think Ian trained more high level athletes. Mel was more a theorist. I do not say I am right or wrong. I just tend to agree more with Ian. His philosophy is more towards injury prevention. If you follow a diferent mindset, that is your right.