Leg Press for Back Squat Improvement?

[kiloamp]

Any lifters include them in your workouts? I started doing them last Summer because my hip was bugging me and needed a break from all the squating. Anyway, by December I had added 50Lbs to my normal working set of back squats but didn't put two and two together at the time. I stopped doing the leg presses because the hip was feeling better and 4 months later, my squat has dropped back to my normal working weight. I guess I had always discounted the potential benefit of leg presses but I see now that I probably was wrong and missed out on a great training aid. Well I'm doing leg presses again and hopefully I'll get the squat back up again by Summer.

 

[coolcolj]

maybe you just need a different stimulus from the same old backsquats over and over, I mean change the width of stance, sit back more or less, etc change things up

change tempos, use pauses or not, add chains and bands and so on

 

[Madcow2]

yeah, could be the variety. Could be something in the way that particular machine hits something that is otherwise holding you back. If you can narrow down where you are weak in the backsquat it's probably more efficient to work from that point and then see if the leg press had anything to do with it. I don't really understand the weights dropping back down so much but then again I don't know how much effort you really spend hammering away at your squat poundage - basically, how big of a focus has this been in your life and can you really draw strong conclusions from it.

 

[kiloamp]

CCJ, Madcow2,

Yeah, I'm still not 100% sure that the leg presses were the root cause to my backsquat improvement but it sure seems to be more then just a coincidence looking back at it now. Also, I was doing better at the power clean and snatch as well at that time so the movement definitely seemed to be working something that I wasn't through normal training. I do mix up the squats fairly well doing i.e. fronts, backs, with OL shoes and w/o, narrow, wide etc. I don't use chains or bands but certainly would give them a try given the chance. I've been competing for over 20 years now so a 50Lbs shift in training weight certainly is worth taking note of especially when you've made a change such as adding a new exercise. I was wondering if anyone else had had a similar experience with leg presses or similar exercise helping a core lift that normally wouldn't be trained to any extent. Anyway, just for science, I've added the leg press back in to the routine to see if I can repeat last years gain. Certainly doesn't hurt to try something different for a while.