What do Fitness Trainers know?

[lefty]

Go to the gym. Hang around the leg press. Watch guys load it up with 15 plates and do a few half reps. Pick one guy and bet him he can't parallel squat 1/2 of his leg press weight. Collect your money and go buy Rippletoe and Kilgore's book.

You want to do leg presses, knock yourself out. I do them for depletion purposes as 12 sets of 15 reps is a little much for a squat. But the idea that they are in any way useful for strength purposes is silly.

The majority - probably well over 90% - of the trainers you'll find in your neighbourhood gym are idiots. Well-intentioned, but nonetheless, idiots.

lefty

 

[Eason]

Originally Posted by odoreater

You guys might want to actually read the book before telling someone to throw it out.

Look at the quote. If the book is written at a specific audience, then what business does it have to overextend it's advice to everyone? That's my beef.

 

[Young Scrappy]

Originally Posted by Tarmac

I presume there are some fitness trainer certifications that most trainers get. Are they similar? And what do they learn? Are they always right?

The reason I ask is that I've been using the Starting Strength book on my own lately. But at my gym I see the trainers helping the members there, and they are telling them different information. Teaching them leg press on the machine etc, when Starting Strength says no one should ever be doing leg press.

Unless, you go to a real high end gym where trainers require a 4 year education. Otherwise, most of these cats go to 6 month training program and hunt for clients. They're advice may not be wrong but I would use second or third sources.

 

[offline100]

Leg presses are useful to rowers - the movement is very similar, and the weight/repetitions ratio can be adjusted to whatever you need.

So there you have it, leg presses aren't useless. It depends on what the goal of your workout is.

 

[Gradstudent78]

Originally Posted by offline100

Leg presses are useful to rowers - the movement is very similar, and the weight/repetitions ratio can be adjusted to whatever you need.

I'm not entirely sure thats true. With a squat your legs are stabilized and your pushing your body away from a surface. With most leg presses your upper body is typically stabilized and your pushing your legs and a surface away from you. I'm not a rower but in most rowing circumstances aren't your legs stabilized with your upper body moving? Of course there are a variety of leg press type machines, some of them trying to mimick the squat movement more then others.

You can also adjust the weight/rep ratio to the squat just as easily

 

[offline100]

Originally Posted by Gradstudent78

I'm not a rower but in most rowing circumstances aren't your legs stabilized with your upper body moving?

The main difference is orienting the body horizontally (rowing and seated press, at least the press machines I've used) versus vertically (squat). Because of the vertical orientation with a squat, your body weight seems to play a different role in the exercise, as do other muscles that stabilize your upright posture.

Originally Posted by Gradstudent78

You can also adjust the weight/rep ratio to the squat just as easily

(i) What if you want to do one leg at a time, or weigh the legs separately?

(ii) What if you want to do very low weight but loads of repetitions? To my knowledge this may not be as easy with a squat, which starts with a big bar and then quickly goes up in difficulty from there (someone in this thread already noted that a press with X weight is easier than a squat with 1/2*X weight).

(iii) What if you want a rower do very high weight, but they don't have the form to handle a squat without risking injury? Ideally yes, they'd know it or learn it, but if you were a rower or coach, you'd know this is only an idealized fantasy world. Ensuring with certainty that a crew of eight lads, let alone novice college girls, can all do squats with the utmost safety and precision is not easy.

I may not be correct about all the above -- but this is the perspective of someone who has definitely lent a hand coaching rowing before, yet is definitely not a personal trainer

 

[Gradstudent78]

Originally Posted by offline100

(i) What if you want to do one leg at a time, or weigh the legs separately?
You can do one legged squats or variations like split squats that will work each leg seperately.

(ii) What if you want to do very low weight but loads of repetitions? To my knowledge this may not be as easy with a squat, which starts with a big bar and then quickly goes up in difficulty from there (someone in this thread already noted that a press with X weight is easier than a squat with 1/2*X weight).

You don't need to use a bar to do squats, you can use dumbells. The typically barbell weighs 45lbs, and you can go up in increments as small as 5 lbs or smaller depending on your gym.

(iii) What if you want a rower do very high weight, but they don't have the form to handle a squat without risking injury? Ideally yes, they'd know it or learn it, but if you were a rower or coach, you'd know this is only an idealized fantasy world. Ensuring with certainty that a crew of eight lads, let alone novice college girls, can all do squats with the utmost safety and precision is not easy.

They can do body weight squats or dumbbell squats or squats while holding medicine balls. There's alot of variation you can do with squats many of which don't have any more increased risk of injury then the leg press.

 

[whacked]

Agree on everything gradstudent78 said. Once you learned how to do squats properly, you should never look back.

 

[drizzt3117]

I agree that squats are the best exercise but the biggest issue with them at many gyms is availability. There's usually only 1-2 cages, and maybe a power rack, and the power racks can be used (and usually are) for things other than squat. That's at least one reason while personal trainers will head for the leg press machine.

 

[offline100]

Gradstudent, thanks for the info. The learning curve on some of this still seems a bit higher than just telling someone to use a machine, but I'll start using some of this advice.

 

[Tarmac]

well now that I've turned this into a Squat vs. Machine thread, I'll participate.

When you do a proper squat, you can tell how much more natural it feels over a machine. You bottom out, there is a very slight bounce, and you can feel the full range of motion and muscles working to get you back up. As opposed to when I am on a machine, it feels like an exercise of breaking out of a wooden crate. Totally contrived and very limiting.

Still, it's hard for me to recommend *explicitly* to people to stop doing those machines and do the squat. I feel like there are so many things that can go wrong, like am i gripping the bar right, am I leaning too far forward, too far back, are my feet too far apart, am I bouncing too much, etc.

I use very little weight, either just the bar or the bar plus 20 lbs. I see guys doing high weight squats who are not even going below parallel on their thighs. I wonder if they are doing this intentionally or what.

 

[marc237]

Odor Eater-

If you go back to the original post and to my response, you will see that I did not need to have read the book to have responded as I did. The OP said that the book set forth an absolute - - that no one should ever do leg presses. I believed that type of generalization to be silly, i still believe it by the by. Accordingly, I said that IF - note the IF, the book said that, it is gargage. I still believe that to be true.

However, I am delighted to hear that the original poster grossly over-stated the advise of the author. If, however, the author was suggesting that leg presses have no place in the routine of a strength athlete, I would still argue he is wrong. However, I heartily endorse the superiority of the squat.

Finally, as to the OP's modified question: A qualified trainer or experienced fellow lifter can be invaluable is assisting you to apply the generalized knowledge in book to your unique physique and level of training. For example, I read books on golf and watched videos, but a much more experienced friend indentified a slight hitch in my swing.

 

[Gradstudent78]

I'd say it's pretty hard to judge a book by one sentence, taken out of context and paraphrased. Even if the statement was written as said I don't think it invalidates the entire book. Very rarely have I read a fitness book (or a book on clothes) that I agree with every statement 100%. I haven't read the book myself but I've seen it recommended over and over again by fitness professionals, so it can't be all bad.

I would agree that generalizations that makes clear cut definitive statement are rarely 100% that clear cut or definitive. More then not there's at least one exception to every rule.

 

[odoreater]

Originally Posted by marc237

Odor Eater-

If you go back to the original post and to my response, you will see that I did not need to have read the book to have responded as I did. The OP said that the book set forth an absolute - - that no one should ever do leg presses. I believed that type of generalization to be silly, i still believe it by the by. Accordingly, I said that IF - note the IF, the book said that, it is gargage. I still believe that to be true.

However, I am delighted to hear that the original poster grossly over-stated the advise of the author. If, however, the author was suggesting that leg presses have no place in the routine of a strength athlete, I would still argue he is wrong. However, I heartily endorse the superiority of the squat.

Finally, as to the OP's modified question: A qualified trainer or experienced fellow lifter can be invaluable is assisting you to apply the generalized knowledge in book to your unique physique and level of training. For example, I read books on golf and watched videos, but a much more experienced friend indentified a slight hitch in my swing.

I got you, I just want to make sure that someone doesn't just take the book and throw it away based on people telling him it's garbage if it says don't do leg presses. In fact, it's one of the most useful books for beginners (as someone said, it comes highly recommended by many people in "the game") when it comes to learning the fundamentals.

 

[drizzt3117]

Originally Posted by Tarmac

I use very little weight, either just the bar or the bar plus 20 lbs. I see guys doing high weight squats who are not even going below parallel on their thighs. I wonder if they are doing this intentionally or what.

The answer to your question is that certainly squatting to parallel is best for the full range of exercise on your body but also that the further you go down, the harder it is on your knees. I can squat over 450 lb but I typically don't do that level of squats to parallel (at least not any more after two knee surgeries) For my normal workout I rep @ ~315 lb and go to parallel, but I only do legs one day a week now because I can feel the strain in my knees still.