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ok. how bout this:
I squat heavy every week, I havent done a leg extension in almost a year, and I have 27 inch legs.....Whats that say about the squat?
I would suggest to just hit the legs hard all in one day... I mean real hard.
It says that you got leg hypertrophy from squatting, as have some other people. These people are outnumbered, however, by the people who've made progress with machine training.
These arguments are won by logical reasoning, not statistics.
NP may be right that squats are not right for some people. But he's obviously just trying to get a rise out of people, as many Pro's squat or have squatted.
Actually, I'm obviously just doing what every other poster on this thread has done: Offering my opinion, based on my own experience.
How come I can't do that without being accused of "trolling"?
Also, to my knowledge, nearly all pro BB'ers who squat regularly do it in the smith machine, though the majority are using the leg press.
brauny96 wrote:
Shoulda seen the troll post coming....
still OP, squats = huge legs
You will find lots of people on this forum who call me a "troll". You will not find a single person who can articulate a clear, convincing argument as to why I am a "troll".
It is not my fault that I happen to think differently from most of you. It does not make me a "troll".
As regards your comment of "squats = huge legs", I'll respond by pasting what other people have written on the subject:
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"A guy writes to me complaining about his shitty leg development. He's totally frustrated. He thinks he's doing everything right, but after leg day all he ever has is a sore back and aching knees.
So I get him to send me a copy of his training journal and, sure enough, it's a mess. All he records is insignificant ""data"" but nothing about immediate and residual biofeedback cues. (I'll explain that stuff below.)
First mistake: 5 sets of 3 reps starts every workout. I knew I had a lot of re-educating to do.
I met him in the gym and explained to him what's wrong with his training log and also how to ""target train."" I told him to switch his thinking to ""train the muscle"" not ""train the movement.""
In other words, don't do squats to see how heavy you can lift; use the exercise to work the legs. It's totally different thinking because bodybuilding is not strength training. -Scott Abel"
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Finally, muscle dominance will naturally influence the relative efficacy of an exercise for a specific individual. For example, someone with a very strong posterior chain â?? lower back, glutes, and hamstrings â?? will tend to get very little quadriceps development from squats. The posterior chain will tend to take over much of the workload, and thus receive more stimulation. This guy needs to do exercises where the lower back, glutes, and hamstrings can't take over the exercise and perform a greater proportion of the work.
Leg presses are such an exercise, especially when they're performed with a close stance and the feet in the middle or bottom part of the pad. Believe it or not, leg extensions would also be a good choice in that situation, assuming the only goal is to build quadriceps size. -CT
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"There are many ways to improve performance without improving dramatically on the load:
Training with heavy weights is a systemic experience and will often cause growth in other places then the muscle targeted.
Personally, I am like MiketheBear and gained inches on my legs just pushing my squat well over 500lbs. However, when injury stalled my strength training, I resorted to this kind of training and made similar gains in size BUT with better separation and detail showing.
There are several guys I trained with who simply could not, for whatever reason, push the load up consistently. If you fall into that catagory you might want to check this out a bit more.
But the author IS claiming that you can get big legs with this program.
I can attest that this style of training can get your legs big.
I prefer to hoist heavy weights when training but have to admit, I do not really look like a bodybuilder, I look more like a big athlete. - IamMarqaos, T-Nation"
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I am a person who has the problem of continually getting stronger, but not really looking like it! I have to gain a lot of strength to add a little muscle size. This article came at the right time for me b/c I just started doing higher reps. for lower body instead of trying to get stronger and stronger. It seems to be working. -Heartandsoul317, T-Nation
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"Scott Abel: What seemed at the time to be a curse actually led me to an insight: strength is only mildly related to hypertrophy and muscular development. The ability to build strength has a lot to do with tendon length and thickness â?? genetic traits that a person can do little about. Once I let go of the idea that ""getting stronger"" was synonymous with ""getting bigger,"" my physique took off, and I achieved a successful career as a bodybuilder and bodybuilding coach.
There's no equation that says increased load equals increased muscle development. Focusing too much on it results in diminished returns, limiting your ability to enhance your physique. That's why any good bodybuilder who's been at it more than eight or nine years lifts less weight than he used to, not more. "
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â??Then, squatting on a Smith machine, I could position my body so it was much more isolated on the quads, less glutes and lower back involvement, didn't have to worry about the balance aspect. Actually my legs improved a lot when I was doing Smith squats, hack squats, leg presses â?? I could isolate the thighs a lot more. So actually I used the Smith machine quite a bit for squatting.â?? -- Dorian Yates
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Training with heavy loads and low volume (sets x reps) is the best way to get hard and strong, but not big. Muscular hypertrophy is generally a response to a high volume work output; therefore, by keeping the sets and reps low with heavy training, you wont have to fear getting overly big. - John Berardi
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Exactly. But the young kids typically are going by heavier weights = huge muscles bullshit they get from others at school. Once a kid starts to put on some decent weight and attains a decent mind muscle connection is all about refining and using the weight properly. Not just piling more of it on. -DiamondDelts BB.com Mod
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"This AIN'T ninth grade and no one gives a SHIT how much you bench" - Will Harris, IFFB Pro Bodybuilder
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"See it all too often in the gym I go to. Pair of young boys maybe 15-17yrs old. Dumbbell chest press way more weight then they can handle, they probably move the weight 10cm.
Another guy on bent over rows way too much weight, shit ROM no result in muscle mass. You see it all the time way too much weight and the result is they don't look like they workout."
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"I'm the same way, I used to train arms very heavy and had ok results.....but then started training with light weight and they grew much faster. I was like WTF?
But hey, it works for me so I'm going to keep curling my 30 llb dumbells and grow from it.
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A powerlifting squatting technique (very wide stance, hips back, torso at a 45 degree angle) will give you the best levers to make a big lift. However, as a quadriceps exercise (for a bodybuilder) this type of lift is basically worthless. A narrow-stance squat performed with the torso as upright as possible will place more stimulation on the quads despite using smaller weights. - Christian Thibaudeau
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"""I trained with exclusively low reps for several months and increased strength without increasing size--for the past 2-3 months I have been using 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps followed by 2 sets of 8-10 reps, but only on the major compound lifts (squat, deadlift, bench, chins, etc)
Strength is still increasing (though slower) and size is starting to creep back up with higher calories (higher calories on low rep only lifting added more bf than muscle)"" -wlhcrow, T-Nation forums"
I have just proven to you that respected authorities on this site agree and fully back up my opinions.
Can you possibly say anything in your defense or have you been totally silenced?
MegaMrBigBoy wrote:
which bits the troll bit?
There is no "troll bit". I stand behind what I wrote and am ready, willing and able to defend it against challenges from others. If you have any questions, if you need me to clarify or expand on what I wrote, simply say the word and I shall do so. |
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