Start with goblet squats to learn the movement with a light weight. Once you get comfortable with those, you can start playing around with the barbell.
If you are going to do anything more than body weight squats then make sure that your trainer is competent at teaching you perfect form and has you doing it with an unloaded bar until (s)he is completely convinced your form is perfect. Also resist the urge to advance the weight too quickly. Squat is an excellent compound move but being a compound move, using multiple muscles, may expose you to risks secondary to poor form caused by muscle imbalances. Your leg strenth may tempt you lift more than you can safely handle: *don’t do it. *
I understand what ultrafilter is saying (and the points of starting at low weight, and the value of the goblet squat as a low risk introduction to the squat are very well made) but at no point should you be “playing around with the barbell.”
Sorry to doublepost but another slightly safer/easier to learn than squat approach is the parallel grip dead lift. (At heavier weights some use a trap or shrug bar. Same idea.) Dumbbells lined up parallel to each other on each side of your body lifted up from a squat position to full standing. Drive from the heels, face forward, and keep a natural curve to your back.
With all due respect, your legs are likely not as strong as you think they are. The leg press is a serious ego booster because you get to pile the plates on, but the laws of physics ensure you only lift a portion of it.
Also (I’ve never seen you leg press before, so I’m not necessarily talking about you), many people do not execute the leg press through the full range of motion.
I am further puzzled that your personal trainer has you doing leg press, and not some squat variant. From a trainer standpoint, that is a huge red-flag for me.
I would recommend that you find a trainer who will teach you how to squat (high-bar, low-bar, or front squat). The goblet squat, mentioned above, is a great way to work your form without any risk to your back.
Failing that, bulgarian split squats will make you cry for your mama with surprisingly light dumbells.
Congratulations on your progress, and keep working to get stronger.
I think the reason he defaults to the leg press is that I’m 55, and the reason I’m in there is really overall fitness. Of the 50 minutes or so I have with him 15 is stepper and 10 is bicycle which leaves 25 minutes for everything else and he does keep you moving. There is almost no rest between sets and the upper body workout does wring me out.
My upper body strength goal is to bench press (at least once) 300 lbs by September. He quite pointedly tells me I need to focus on the overall scenario and that additional strength will come with time and I need to stop worrying about max weight goals and focus on overall fitness.
He has over 20 years experience and has been a strength and conditioning coach for pro football players so I’m pretty sure he knows his way around a squat rack. I’ve asked him about doing squats in the past, (and there’s a squat rack in his gym) but he doesn’t seem to think that’s the way I need to go. I suspect my age is what’s making him cautious.
He insists on a full range of motion in the leg press, but I see your point re this article.
That article made me all warm and tingly inside.
See what your trainer thinks about Bulgarian Split Squats:
If you think you’d like to try squatting, ask him to mix some goblet squats into your circuit:
I know that those are both linked from the same suplement website, but Dan John and Ben Bruno are both very reputable trainers.
In your trainer’s defense, if you’re doing circuits to get your heartrate up, this is not a safe environment to learn to squat - you need to focus on form. However, the customer is always right, and if the customer wants to learn how to squat…
It sounds like you’re near a threshold of breaking into serious weight training. I encourage you to step through that door. It’s a lot of fun.
Wow! Sneakbrag squared! (“Of course, I’ve never really worked out-I’m just playing, and using the 700lbs to amuse myself until a real challenge comes along…Is there anybody here who is even close to my level and can help me? Yawn.”)
Lunges and stepups is what I was going to say. I have strong legs (nothing like yours!) and step ups make them buuuuuuurn. They may not be good for your knees though.
(Can I sneakbrag too? Or just straight up brag. I’ve been working out for quite a while now too, swimming, cardio, and just added strength training to the regimen. I’m quite proud of myself.)
I use to ride bicycles with Olympic weightlifter Derrick Crass. He rode to keep his knees feeling good plus good cardio.
As another poster suggested, do intervals on the bike.
Consider getting a fixed gear bike where you can’t coast.
While you may not have hills there, I bet you have wind. Ride hard into the wind.
Have you considered doing squats while holding the celestial spheres on your shoulders, jumping into low Earth orbit to reposition satellites, or kickboxing thousands of Philistines?
This is incorrect. People always suggest running stairs as a good excercise…HOW?
It is a TERRIBLE exercise. If you get tired and pass out, enjoy the ride. If you trip, enjoy the ride. You’re max, assuming you are 200lbs, can’t be that great.
You need to squat and deadlift. It is that simple. If you are afraid for your back do Front Squats. Front squats force you to have good form and, once mastered, provide more strength building for the entire body.
Squats are by far the superior exercise. Just don’t think you are going to put 700lbs on THAT bar and lift it…
Why did you stop at a puny 700 lbs? A good leg press should go up to 1200 - 1400 lbs, mine does. Stealth brag? not hardly.
Not really. If granny aged Madeline Albright can do 400 lbs 700 lbs is hardly a feat. If you have big legs, leg pressing big weights is honestly no big deal. See the “lame exercise” article link in my last post.
Some people have certain strengths. Heavy cardio will beat me to death past 20 minutes or so. Look at this medium sized athletic woman in the vids below. She can close the COC # 2. I can get 1/8 off but I can’t do it and I’m sure I have 80-100 lbs on her. This woman could tear your ear off your head if she wanted to.
Here she is in action!
Interview here
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The ones in the local gyms use stacked square plates operated with little toggle switches or metal keys and they max at 400 lbs. The one at my trainers gym you load up with barbell discs.
Since your legs are strong, now its time to make them invincible. Pick a tree. Keep kicking it until it breaks.
I would, but well… Gaia and all that.
I have strong legs, and I’m not at your age yet, but the idea of aiming for a single rep max is certainly not a goal you should have. If you’re training for power lifting, by all means, but it doesn’t translate as well to general fitness and all. I haven’t maxed in any exercise in years. What good is that but for bragging? Back when I was doing moving while I was an undergrad, I worked with someone who was open about using steroids. Yes, he could lift anything, and his max bench was something like 430, well above mine, but when it came to picking up and carrying things, he was borderline useless because he didn’t have any endurance to do with it. I’d much rather have a much lower max, and have practical strength with endurance at a high level, and be one-and-done. Plus, it’s less stress joints.
Further, leg press just isn’t all that great of an exercise for the lower body; you NEED to do squats. Sure, 700 lbs looks and sounds like a lot, and when I do leg press, and I do more than that, I often get asked how much it is and people seem impressed, but it’s really less than half of that that your legs are actually feeling, and it’s heavily on the quads, and with all of the stabilization taken out as well. So, ultimately, you’re looking at maybe at something like 30-40%
And sure, squats are dangerous with bad form, but I’d also argue that leg press is actually more dangerous. The very first thing I learned about squats when I started doing them in high school was how to fail safely. No matter how much weight or where in the rep I am with squats, I can always safely fail and either avoid injury, or at least avoid making it worse. With leg press, there isn’t really a safe way to fail, just hope you get it racked quickly enough. Even with pins to avoid getting crushed, they have to be low enough to allow a full rep, which can still potentially result in getting pinned or, worse, failing at the top of a rep, failing to rack, and then getting in that pinned position with all the force behind it.
Also, you don’t need to go heavy on squats either, nor should you start heavy even if you can do the weight. With squats, you’ll find that your glutes probably aren’t as strong as you think, you probably need to work on all the stabilization too. Chances are, even squats as light as 135 will give you some fatigue you’re not getting now.
And on top of that, there’s plenty of other exercises you can do, tons of variations on lunges, extensions, curls, adductors, abductors, deadlifts, cleans, snatches, etc.
You just have to find an evil tree. Box elders are evil, I think.
How not??
Afraid of passing out??? I suppose you are also afraid to ride a bike or swim for fear of crashing or drowning if you get tired and pass out.
For our op running upstairs means lifting his over 250 pounds up with each leg and eccentrically slowing it down on the descent too. Going two at a time, using a weighted vest and/or carrying dumbbells or a sandbag will hit all of the the legs hard and more. And proper form is much more easily mastered than with the squat.
If our op is looking for a leg burn and definition then combining high intensity stair running with box jumps and rear foor elevated split squats (a.k.a Bulgarian squats - advised both by me and Chiliwack) will amply do it. Without risking his back.
Bottom line is that there are MANY exercises and options for the op. Squats are great, no debate. But amazingly many are strong and fit with powerful and defined legs without doing them.
His point is that climbing stairs is more risky. You probably won’t literally pass out, but it only takes a slight variance to create a big problem. With biking, at least, you could probably catch yourself with your feet. With swimming, you have life guards.
Long flights of stairs are usually sectioned off from everything else and thus rarely have anyone watching. And there’s not much they can do if they notice you slip.
And because people will ask: my experience is in running up and down stairs when I was a bit younger (in college). And, yes, I actually fell once. Luckily, I was on the second step going down and I landed on my well-cushioned butt.