#1 Leg Press
Just as the quads and hamstrings are meant to be used in unison, so are the quads and the glute muscles. When performing a leg press, your glutes are not used effectively. When you contract your quads with a great level of force and your glutes do not fire simultaneously, there is increased risk of low back injury.
On top of the above mentioned injury risks associated with the leg press, the exercise provides no practical benefit as it is not a functional movement. At no point in real life do you ever need to perform the movement that the leg press trains. In most cases, people don’t even come down to 90 degrees of knee flexion, which is the basic requirement for getting in/out of a chair. As well, it trains your legs in a position that changes hamstring, glute and even abdominal recruitment; muscle groups that should all work together when performing movements in real life.
#2 Smith Machine Squats
Category:
exercise
Date Published:
2012-03-27
Topics/Tags:
hamstring, semitendinosus, semimembranosus, biceps femoris
The hamstrings are one of the biggest muscle groups in your body, yet they frequently are overshadowed by the quadriceps and overlooked. This is unfortunate because they arguably more important than the quads with regards to athletics, and forgetting to work out your hamstring can lead to chronic injury.
The hamstrings are the antagonist muscle group to the quadriceps, meaning the two groups work together through opposite movements. The quads, located on the front of the thigh, extend (straighten) the knee and help in flexion (bending) at the hip, while the hamstrings, located on the back of the upper leg, flexes the knee and extends/hyperextends the hip. There are three muscles that make up the hamstring group: semitendinosus, semimembranosus, and biceps femoris, which is comprised of a long and short head. In order for a muscle to produce movement in more than one joint, that muscle must cross all of the joints involved and the semitendinosus, semimembranosus, and the biceps femoris long head do just that, all connecting to the pelvis and
So Why Are The Hamstrings So Great?
· The hamstrings are key to acceleration and deceleration, which means they’re strength is essential to athletes who need bursts of speed, abrupt stops and need to change direction quickly.
· The hamstrings help transfer power from the knee joint to the hip joint.
· The hamstrings and glutes are the two main sprinting muscles, and are extremely important to forward propulsion at maximal running speed.
· &nbs
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The benchmark for most people when buying organic food is the “USDA Certified Organic” logo. This logo appears on commercially mass produced food items that have met the USDA’s certification requirements and have been deemed “organic”. The problem with the USDA is that their organic classification is process-based meaning there is no end product testing for GMOs, chemicals or other contaminants unless there is reason for the USDA agent to suspect contamination. Many of these commercial companies producing organic food do not truly care about organics; they only care about fitting within the word of the law that certifies them organic for the sake of profit. Unfortunately many of these products are not truly organic, and are just products produced by good paper pushers.
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A lot of people in the gym use the leg press thinking they are developing strong quads, but the leg press strengthens the quads in a specific and wrong position. There is a functional relationship that exists between the quadriceps muscle and the hamstrings, and they are meant to be used together to avoid imbalances. The leg press machine takes the hamstrings out of the equation, which can be very dangerous when you consider that the quads are often already much stronger than their opposing hamstrings. Besides the potential for weak hamstrings, leading to tears, this relationship can also damage the knee; when your quadriceps overpower your hamstrings in deep knee flexion, there is increased torsion and strain placed into the knee’s meniscus, which can easily lead to meniscal injury.
extending down to attach below the knee.