BG-4: My Least Favorite Exercise Machine…..EVER??
I recently had a conversation with one of my high school athletes who was complaining of back pain. He was one of my top athletes, mind you….phenomenal in all of his events, and probably would have been great in others if he were allowed to do more. He was in great shape, he was disciplined and would work harder than just about anybody else on the team and was coachable.
During our conversation I asked him some questions about his off season regimen, to try to determine where/how the pain started. He said he had been working out with the coach of his summer team, so of course I asked what the workouts consisted of.
He goes down a list of running activities and stops. So I ask him about any strengthening and he said “oh, yeah,” and started naming a few, one of which included my most despised pieces of exercise equipment…..in the WORLD!! Can you guess what it is?
Yep, you guessed it, the leg press machine.
That machine is the most anti-functional machine in the world. Nowhere in life are we EVER in a position that we want, or need, our quads and hamstrings to work, while our glutes – the butt muscles – are biomechanically shut off.
As you learn more and more about me and my fitness training/exercise philosophy, by reading my posts and ebooks, or hear me speak at workshop or whatever, you will learn that the best exercises are (typically) the ones that do not shut off one group of muscles in order for another group to work. In early stages of rehab or in dealing with an injury, that could be the case, but not in an athletic-based training program.
But that is exactly what the leg press machine does, it shuts off the glutes (the butt muscles) so that the quads and the hamstrings can work.
One of the biggest things that I’ve found when it comes to back pain is that we try to perform certain activities with the glutes being in a weakened state. In any movement, the body expects certain muscles to perform or to assist in whatever movement you are trying to do. And when that muscle cant “pull its weight” other muscles have to perform in order to complete the movement. The term that I use to describe this is misfire.
When it comes to running, jumping and sprinting, the glutes, which are the most central muscle of the core, have a very important job. But when I tested the strength of the glutes there was nothing there, literally. He was unable to be tested because there was too much pain in the hamstrings and in the low back to complete the test.
The leg press machine encourages poor movement mechanics which in turn reinforces muscle misfiring and muscle imbalances, which, when done creates and prolongs aches and pains, and also increases the risk for injury.
