None of the free weights I have at home can give me a work out like the 400 lb leg press machine at the YMCA can, and I have to do 4 sets of 30 reps each before that starts to burn. Picking up a 120 lb curl bar off the floor and trying to use that for squats doesn’t sit well on my shoulders, doesn’t really stress my hamstrings and gluteus, and is difficult to use safely till exhaustion since you need to be able to hoist it off after exercising and place it back on the floor.
A female friend was telling me about how she gets a tremendous muscle workout from holding yoga positions. Is this a viable alternative? What’s a good exercise to really punish my legs and rear end?
It’s unclear from your post, have you tried squats and lunges? Even a little added hand weight can bring the burn on. Try stepping up and down from different height steps or benches. Forgive me if you’ve tried this already.
The main problem about doing them at home is that you need to find something to weigh your ankles down while doing them, like a bed or something (probably with something heavy on the bed).
Besides doing lots of bodyweight squats, you could also try stair-step type exercises or plyometric stuff.
Oh, and training specifically for a burn isn’t really a good thing–“burn” isn’t a good indicator of what makes a good workout. Progress is a good indicator of what makes a good workout. Are you getting better at the things that matter? I’m thinking concrete goals like appearance, speed, strength, jumping ability, whatever.
I mean, if it takes you 4 sets of 30 on the leg press to get a good burn with 400 lbs, it seems like you’d be much better off dropping the reps down to 4 set of, say, 10 or so and trying 500 (or possibly more).
While Astro contemplates hordes of young women oogling and ahhing over his [future] buns of steel, I’d like to observe that you and Slotar frequently sing the praises of deadlifts, squats, and possibly lunges–exercises one rarely sees in your garden-variety Lycra repositories, though I understand why. I’ve heard other weighlifters endorse them with similar zeal.
Questions:
Which muscle groups do deadlifts exercise–and not exercise?
Do squats work on the same basic areas?
How do lunges compare/contrast?
Which is least hard on knees or back?
I think you’ve said that deadlifts or squats are the best all-around single exercise.
Also, I don’t know what they’re specifically called, but I’ve heard them called “wallsits” or “chairs.” Put your back against the wall with your knees at a 45 degree angle like you’re sitting in an invisible chair. Hold that position from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. I promise you will feel it.
Because they hurt and make you all tired and stuff.
Back, traps, glutes, hamstrings, primarily. Abs. To a lesser extent than squats, quads. And to a lesser extent than that…everything else in your body save…triceps, basically. Deadlifts rock. I swear those things even make my eyebrows sore the next day.
I recommend them all the time because they work–not only do I have an ass now :), but physical labor, like shovelling snow or whatever, just does not tire me out any more. Before I got into heavy deadlifting, I’d also had problems with my back–tightness, soreness, aches, pains, and so on–deadlifting basically fixed that.
I sort of see them as the anti-deadlift in terms of what they emphasize. Heavy emphasis of quads and glutes, and to a lesser extent back, abs and hamstrings. They both hit roughly the same target areas, but in different ways.
There’s a pretty good amount of synnergy between the two in terms of strength development–working on deads will help improve your squats, working on squats will help improve your deads. Two great tastes, etc.
I don’t do them much, actually. Okay, I don’t do them at all. They strike me as rather dangerous to do with any sort of useful weight–the chance of missing a rep and doing a faceplant with 200 lbs of weight landing on the back of my head doesn’t appeal too much.
If I had to do something like that, I’d probably do a split squat instead, or maybe a single leg split squat to work unilateral strength.
Everybody’s different. For me, deads are easier on knees, harder on the back. Ask another person, with completely different biomechanics, and you’ll probably get a different answer.
Yep, or close to it. In the end, though, the best exercises are the ones you stick with, can progress on and don’t mess you up.
Just for a different perspective, here are my answers to Carnac’s questions.
Pretty much everything. Your quads, calves, hamstrings and glutes have to contract to move the weight. Your upper/lower back, obliques and abdominals have to contract isometrically to stabilize your torso. You have to maintain a grip on the weight, and the barbell even places enough stress on your biceps and triceps to get them to contract (slightly, and isometrically). Pretty much the only bits that aren’t involved are your chest and shoulders.
Not so much your arms or upper back, and there’s a much stronger emphasis on your quads. Like slortar said, the two go great together.
If one of your legs is weaker than the other, lunges are a good way to fix that imbalance. They’ll also have a positive effect on your hip flexor flexibility. Because they’re one-legged, you don’t use a lot of weight.
I think they’re about the same. YMMV.
I’d give that honor to the snatch, but that’s not something I recommend for most people because it’s pretty technical.
