Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

All training and programming related queries and banter here

Moderators: mgil, chromoly, Manveer

MarkKO
Registered User
Posts: 2633
Joined: Sat Sep 19, 2020 6:12 pm
Location: Australia

Re: Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

#21

Post by MarkKO » Mon Sep 26, 2022 7:58 pm

Hanley wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 3:26 pm
SnakePlissken wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 8:08 am I don't know if I'm just doing them wrong or what, but the closest accessory that has ever been part of a good squat gain was landmine belt squats which is just another version of a squat
I'm guessing you're doing them wrong.

On your deadlift days (after the deads), try doing 100 reverse lunges (50 each leg) at 115-135. Use variable rep sets to RPE "absolutely fucking horrid burn". Your interest "rest" is a held plank.

The fluff work can/should be pretty goddamned hard.
I think that is one of the most important and often neglected parts of training for a large number of powerlifters.

My own experience, and I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one, is that my SBD improved significantly when two things happened in my training: one, my main lift:assistance lift volume ratio (by reps, at least) went to around 1:3 or 1:4; and the intensity in terms of reps in reserve per set for assistance work would generally sit between two and zero.

My own approach to training now really is that I try to do the minimum SBD work I can to work on technique, explosiveness and greasing the groove, which will generally mean 15 to 30 reps in total with most sets being somewhere between two and five reps. I do focus quite a bit on density as well, because I think that's another massively underused approach that is highly effective.

My main 'intense' work is my assistance, where the minimum reps per set is usually 10 apart from a couple of exceptions.

I digress, though.

I absolutely think lower body isolation work is highly effective, but it can take some time to figure out what isolation exercises are most effective and how they are most effectively applied. That may also change over time as you get stronger and your proportions change as you gain size.

For example, I'm quite lucky in that my legs to a point grow quite easily from squatting and pulling BUT that diminished significantly once I reached a certain point. Then it took some experimentation to find that what really drives my quad growth are sissy squats; and some time later it became obvious that what was holding my squat and pull back now is my lower back, when previously it was my abs.

User avatar
SnakePlissken
Registered User
Posts: 876
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2020 9:22 am
Age: 29

Re: Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

#22

Post by SnakePlissken » Tue Sep 27, 2022 8:39 am

MarkKO wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 7:58 pm
Hanley wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 3:26 pm I'm guessing you're doing them wrong.

On your deadlift days (after the deads), try doing 100 reverse lunges (50 each leg) at 115-135. Use variable rep sets to RPE "absolutely fucking horrid burn". Your interest "rest" is a held plank.

The fluff work can/should be pretty goddamned hard.
I think that is one of the most important and often neglected parts of training for a large number of powerlifters.

My own experience, and I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one, is that my SBD improved significantly when two things happened in my training: one, my main lift:assistance lift volume ratio (by reps, at least) went to around 1:3 or 1:4; and the intensity in terms of reps in reserve per set for assistance work would generally sit between two and zero.
My main problem is doing 3 tranches of squatting and leg work just takes so much time and I really don't like lifting for more than 1 to 1-1/4 hours in a day. By the time I get to isolations I feel like I'm trying to rush through it since it's just not that enjoyable. I enjoy getting new PRs, but if it's not really helping there, I rather focus more mental and physical effort on my accessory squatting and leave feeling more accomplished; not to mention a squat workout taking less than an hour as well.

MarkKO
Registered User
Posts: 2633
Joined: Sat Sep 19, 2020 6:12 pm
Location: Australia

Re: Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

#23

Post by MarkKO » Tue Sep 27, 2022 12:27 pm

SnakePlissken wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 8:39 am
MarkKO wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 7:58 pm
Hanley wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 3:26 pm I'm guessing you're doing them wrong.

On your deadlift days (after the deads), try doing 100 reverse lunges (50 each leg) at 115-135. Use variable rep sets to RPE "absolutely fucking horrid burn". Your interest "rest" is a held plank.

The fluff work can/should be pretty goddamned hard.
I think that is one of the most important and often neglected parts of training for a large number of powerlifters.

My own experience, and I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one, is that my SBD improved significantly when two things happened in my training: one, my main lift:assistance lift volume ratio (by reps, at least) went to around 1:3 or 1:4; and the intensity in terms of reps in reserve per set for assistance work would generally sit between two and zero.
My main problem is doing 3 tranches of squatting and leg work just takes so much time and I really don't like lifting for more than 1 to 1-1/4 hours in a day. By the time I get to isolations I feel like I'm trying to rush through it since it's just not that enjoyable. I enjoy getting new PRs, but if it's not really helping there, I rather focus more mental and physical effort on my accessory squatting and leave feeling more accomplished; not to mention a squat workout taking less than an hour as well.
This is understandable, and certainly there's no reason to do something that isn't helping.

However, there's no reason either that I can imagine that would mean doing assistance has to take longer. I don't like to train for more than an hour and a quarter either so I just push the pace throughout training. It's perfectly feasible to get through something like 30 total reps of squats, 75 total reps of back raises, 50 total reps of sissy squats, 50 total reps of lunges, 25 total reps of pullups and 100 total reps of facepulls in an hour to and hour and a quarter, including the time it takes to warm up and work up to your working weight.

User avatar
JohnHelton
Registered User
Posts: 4427
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2018 12:17 pm
Location: Bozeman, MT
Age: 51
Contact:

Re: Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

#24

Post by JohnHelton » Tue Sep 27, 2022 4:53 pm

MarkKO wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 12:27 pm However, there's no reason either that I can imagine that would mean doing assistance has to take longer. I don't like to train for more than an hour and a quarter either so I just push the pace throughout training. It's perfectly feasible to get through something like 30 total reps of squats, 75 total reps of back raises, 50 total reps of sissy squats, 50 total reps of lunges, 25 total reps of pullups and 100 total reps of facepulls in an hour to and hour and a quarter, including the time it takes to warm up and work up to your working weight.
You're a beast. I don't think my mitochondria are burning as hot as yours.

User avatar
DCR
Registered User
Posts: 3410
Joined: Sat Dec 14, 2019 11:06 am
Location: Louisiana / New York
Age: 45

Re: Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

#25

Post by DCR » Tue Sep 27, 2022 6:39 pm

JohnHelton wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 4:53 pm
MarkKO wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 12:27 pm However, there's no reason either that I can imagine that would mean doing assistance has to take longer. I don't like to train for more than an hour and a quarter either so I just push the pace throughout training. It's perfectly feasible to get through something like 30 total reps of squats, 75 total reps of back raises, 50 total reps of sissy squats, 50 total reps of lunges, 25 total reps of pullups and 100 total reps of facepulls in an hour to and hour and a quarter, including the time it takes to warm up and work up to your working weight.
You're a beast. I don't think my mitochondria are burning as hot as yours.
My jaw dropped at that post. It practically takes me an hour to squat unimpressive weights, forget about all that. That perhaps this is half my problem has been in the back of my head for a long minute now, but I have always loathed clock watching in the gym, whether an actual clock or, worse yet, a timer. Maybe time to get over it.

MarkKO
Registered User
Posts: 2633
Joined: Sat Sep 19, 2020 6:12 pm
Location: Australia

Re: Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

#26

Post by MarkKO » Tue Sep 27, 2022 8:00 pm

JohnHelton wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 4:53 pm
MarkKO wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 12:27 pm However, there's no reason either that I can imagine that would mean doing assistance has to take longer. I don't like to train for more than an hour and a quarter either so I just push the pace throughout training. It's perfectly feasible to get through something like 30 total reps of squats, 75 total reps of back raises, 50 total reps of sissy squats, 50 total reps of lunges, 25 total reps of pullups and 100 total reps of facepulls in an hour to and hour and a quarter, including the time it takes to warm up and work up to your working weight.
You're a beast. I don't think my mitochondria are burning as hot as yours.
I'm really not. Our bodies are very good at adapting to cardiovascular 'stress' as I understand it, so all I've done is exploit that. If you look at what I set out, it's all bodyweight. It isn't hard, as such, your muscles just pump up and burn like crazy. The only hurdle initially is cardio, and that improves quickly.

Hell, I can tack on deadlifts in between squats and assistance and be looking at an hour and three quarters.

I don't know how interesting this would be, but the breakdown for time is something like this:

Warmup 10-15 minutes
Work up from empty bar to working weight: 10-15 minutes
Squat work sets 10-20 minutes depending on what I'm doing (5x5, 5x5 with a top triple first, 10 second rest, etc)
Deadlift (5x3) including working up 15-20 minutes
Assistance 20-40 minutes

It's like @DCR said, the real hurdle is getting your head around the idea. You don't need to watch the clock after a while either, what I find is that a great indicator is breathing: if you're breathing normally, you've waited too long.

Once you're accustomed to it, it's great. You're in and out quickly and you're damn certain in your own mind that you've left nothing on the table.

User avatar
SnakePlissken
Registered User
Posts: 876
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2020 9:22 am
Age: 29

Re: Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

#27

Post by SnakePlissken » Wed Sep 28, 2022 4:28 am

MarkKO wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 8:00 pm I'm really not. Our bodies are very good at adapting to cardiovascular 'stress' as I understand it, so all I've done is exploit that. If you look at what I set out, it's all bodyweight. It isn't hard, as such, your muscles just pump up and burn like crazy. The only hurdle initially is cardio, and that improves quickly.

Hell, I can tack on deadlifts in between squats and assistance and be looking at an hour and three quarters.

I don't know how interesting this would be, but the breakdown for time is something like this:

Warmup 10-15 minutes
Work up from empty bar to working weight: 10-15 minutes
Squat work sets 10-20 minutes depending on what I'm doing (5x5, 5x5 with a top triple first, 10 second rest, etc)
Deadlift (5x3) including working up 15-20 minutes
Assistance 20-40 minutes

It's like @DCR said, the real hurdle is getting your head around the idea. You don't need to watch the clock after a while either, what I find is that a great indicator is breathing: if you're breathing normally, you've waited too long.

Once you're accustomed to it, it's great. You're in and out quickly and you're damn certain in your own mind that you've left nothing on the table.
Your initial reply about this has had me thinking in addition to Hanley's comment. I know for a fact I'm not as in shape cardio wise and I like to think there's a triangle of fitness where at this point having better endurance would help improve my strength. I haven't done any dedicated work like this in a year (mainly just relied on doing my own version of "higher volume" in my base phases), but I think I may go back to 3 days of lifting and make my 4th day the 'plus' day again with the BW stuff and might even start my EMOM burpee progression again.

Best I've ever felt doing volume work was when I did burpees 2x/week and when I did Muay Thai. When I was doing those I feel like it wouldn't have been a problem to chug through what you laid out in a timely manner.

User avatar
CheekiBreekiFitness
Registered User
Posts: 684
Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2022 3:46 am

Re: Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

#28

Post by CheekiBreekiFitness » Wed Sep 28, 2022 4:35 am

@SnakePlissken Are you monitoring muscle growth by measuring other things than squat strength (leg size, weight gain, waist size etc) ? That could tell you whether or not your isolation work is actually making you bigger (which is why you are doing it in the first place).

And even if you are sure that your legs are getting bigger, it might not result in a stronger squat for many reasons:

- you are not currently lifting heavy loads in your programming so your neural efficiency is not the highest it could be
- you're doing a lot of hypertrophy so your fatigue is masking your strength
- the leg muscles are not the ones currently limiting how strong you are at the slowest part of the range of motion, with your current technique (for instance if you have experienced that ab work makes you stronger, it might just be that your torso strength is holding you back) etc.

People say that a bigger muscle is a stronger muscle but there are many situations where making a particular muscle larger will not change your 1RM on a particular lift that uses this muscle.

Another thing that sets lower body apart from the upper body is that the main lifts for the lower body tend to be very good muscle builders: for instance the squat is (for some people, with appropriate range of motion and rep range etc.) very good at growing their legs. So adding things on top of that may or may not make a huge difference.

User avatar
SnakePlissken
Registered User
Posts: 876
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2020 9:22 am
Age: 29

Re: Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

#29

Post by SnakePlissken » Wed Sep 28, 2022 4:46 am

CheekiBreekiFitness wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 4:35 am @SnakePlissken Are you monitoring muscle growth by measuring other things than squat strength (leg size, weight gain, waist size etc) ? That could tell you whether or not your isolation work is actually making you bigger (which is why you are doing it in the first place).

And even if you are sure that your legs are getting bigger, it might not result in a stronger squat for many reasons:

- you are not currently lifting heavy loads in your programming so your neural efficiency is not the highest it could be
- you're doing a lot of hypertrophy so your fatigue is masking your strength
- the leg muscles are not the ones currently limiting how strong you are at the slowest part of the range of motion, with your current technique (for instance if you have experienced that ab work makes you stronger, it might just be that your torso strength is holding you back) etc.

People say that a bigger muscle is a stronger muscle but there are many situations where making a particular muscle larger will not change your 1RM on a particular lift that uses this muscle.

Another thing that sets lower body apart from the upper body is that the main lifts for the lower body tend to be very good muscle builders: for instance the squat is (for some people, with appropriate range of motion and rep range etc.) very good at growing their legs. So adding things on top of that may or may not make a huge difference.
The isolation stuff was an assumption that a bigger muscle could be stronger. I guess it was the hypothesis and question of this whole topic I made. It maybe helped my legs get bigger, but nothing crazy and I think at this point the juice isn't worth the squeeze for them if I could do something like more hi bar squats or belt squats in it's place.

I think your first and third bullet are a large part of the problem. I did a bunch of base work in the last year and never went over 85-90% on any of my lifts and then did a 2x/week Nuckols intermediate squat routine which only brought my singles up to like 350 so I only had 1 shot to get up into the 90-100% range. I never felt that fatigued on this routine either. In the last year I've put on about 5lbs and some of it's fat, but I really just need a true peaking cycle to get the neural efficiency, but the rest of my life has really thrown a wrench into that with work, getting my house ready to sell in the next year and weekend plans that just pop up. The last 3 times I tried running a 9 week program, 2 of them got turned into 11-12 week programs because of life reasons.

MarkKO
Registered User
Posts: 2633
Joined: Sat Sep 19, 2020 6:12 pm
Location: Australia

Re: Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

#30

Post by MarkKO » Wed Sep 28, 2022 5:04 am

SnakePlissken wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 4:28 am
MarkKO wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 8:00 pm I'm really not. Our bodies are very good at adapting to cardiovascular 'stress' as I understand it, so all I've done is exploit that. If you look at what I set out, it's all bodyweight. It isn't hard, as such, your muscles just pump up and burn like crazy. The only hurdle initially is cardio, and that improves quickly.

Hell, I can tack on deadlifts in between squats and assistance and be looking at an hour and three quarters.

I don't know how interesting this would be, but the breakdown for time is something like this:

Warmup 10-15 minutes
Work up from empty bar to working weight: 10-15 minutes
Squat work sets 10-20 minutes depending on what I'm doing (5x5, 5x5 with a top triple first, 10 second rest, etc)
Deadlift (5x3) including working up 15-20 minutes
Assistance 20-40 minutes

It's like @DCR said, the real hurdle is getting your head around the idea. You don't need to watch the clock after a while either, what I find is that a great indicator is breathing: if you're breathing normally, you've waited too long.

Once you're accustomed to it, it's great. You're in and out quickly and you're damn certain in your own mind that you've left nothing on the table.
Your initial reply about this has had me thinking in addition to Hanley's comment. I know for a fact I'm not as in shape cardio wise and I like to think there's a triangle of fitness where at this point having better endurance would help improve my strength. I haven't done any dedicated work like this in a year (mainly just relied on doing my own version of "higher volume" in my base phases), but I think I may go back to 3 days of lifting and make my 4th day the 'plus' day again with the BW stuff and might even start my EMOM burpee progression again.

Best I've ever felt doing volume work was when I did burpees 2x/week and when I did Muay Thai. When I was doing those I feel like it wouldn't have been a problem to chug through what you laid out in a timely manner.
The longer I do this the more I realise having a decent base level of conditioning helps hugely.

User avatar
Brackish
Registered User
Posts: 473
Joined: Mon Feb 03, 2020 6:29 am

Re: Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

#31

Post by Brackish » Wed Sep 28, 2022 5:58 am

Just to add on to what @MarkKO mentioned, I'm able to fit 4 accessories, 3-4 sets of each, into 40 minutes without any issues by super setting 2 of them and not allowing anymore than 2 minutes rest between each super set. Some of them I'm only taking a minute. For most, if not all of those assistance exercises, I'm aiming to push them to within 1 or 2 reps from failure. Periodically, just to keep myself honest, I'll take my last set to mechanical failure and recalibrate if needed. Each session I'm attempting to add a rep to each set, and once I reach a given rep target, then add weight. I don't know how much this has helped me get my squat up, since it's actually atrocious (Unlike the numbers you guys squat and call atrocious.), but I have noticed some hypertrophy gains as well as some cardiovascular benefits since I started doing my accessories that way.

I do tell myself that some of my accessories, especially the unilateral ones, are benefiting my big lifts because they're allowing me to have a more stable "base"...or something. For example, unilateral leg extensions have taught me that my left quad is significantly weaker than my left. Trying to sort that out in the hopes that it adds weight to my deadlift and squat.

User avatar
SnakePlissken
Registered User
Posts: 876
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2020 9:22 am
Age: 29

Re: Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

#32

Post by SnakePlissken » Wed Sep 28, 2022 7:57 am

Brackish wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 5:58 am Just to add on to what @MarkKO mentioned, I'm able to fit 4 accessories, 3-4 sets of each, into 40 minutes without any issues by super setting 2 of them and not allowing anymore than 2 minutes rest between each super set. Some of them I'm only taking a minute. For most, if not all of those assistance exercises, I'm aiming to push them to within 1 or 2 reps from failure. Periodically, just to keep myself honest, I'll take my last set to mechanical failure and recalibrate if needed. Each session I'm attempting to add a rep to each set, and once I reach a given rep target, then add weight. I don't know how much this has helped me get my squat up, since it's actually atrocious (Unlike the numbers you guys squat and call atrocious.), but I have noticed some hypertrophy gains as well as some cardiovascular benefits since I started doing my accessories that way.

I do tell myself that some of my accessories, especially the unilateral ones, are benefiting my big lifts because they're allowing me to have a more stable "base"...or something. For example, unilateral leg extensions have taught me that my left quad is significantly weaker than my left. Trying to sort that out in the hopes that it adds weight to my deadlift and squat.
My biggest issue is equipment. Super setting my upper body stuff is all pretty easy to setup and perform, but bands with lower body stuff like quad extensions is hard to get right weight wise. If I was back in a gym with machines I'd 100% be hitting the quad, hamstring and calf machines. It takes a few minutes to setup quad extensions and hamstring curls at home let alone just getting all the bands around your feet each time you start or stop a set. I have a pretty short attention span for things that I don't like.

What I've been chewing on in my head though is that I think I need to bring back some direct ab work and some HIIT back into my life though. Stuff like Burpees and jump rope were fun, require no setup and don't cost me any extra money. Maybe I can use this as a good excuse to get a Rower too.

User avatar
Brackish
Registered User
Posts: 473
Joined: Mon Feb 03, 2020 6:29 am

Re: Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

#33

Post by Brackish » Wed Sep 28, 2022 10:09 am

SnakePlissken wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 7:57 am
Brackish wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 5:58 am Just to add on to what @MarkKO mentioned, I'm able to fit 4 accessories, 3-4 sets of each, into 40 minutes without any issues by super setting 2 of them and not allowing anymore than 2 minutes rest between each super set. Some of them I'm only taking a minute. For most, if not all of those assistance exercises, I'm aiming to push them to within 1 or 2 reps from failure. Periodically, just to keep myself honest, I'll take my last set to mechanical failure and recalibrate if needed. Each session I'm attempting to add a rep to each set, and once I reach a given rep target, then add weight. I don't know how much this has helped me get my squat up, since it's actually atrocious (Unlike the numbers you guys squat and call atrocious.), but I have noticed some hypertrophy gains as well as some cardiovascular benefits since I started doing my accessories that way.

I do tell myself that some of my accessories, especially the unilateral ones, are benefiting my big lifts because they're allowing me to have a more stable "base"...or something. For example, unilateral leg extensions have taught me that my left quad is significantly weaker than my left. Trying to sort that out in the hopes that it adds weight to my deadlift and squat.
My biggest issue is equipment. Super setting my upper body stuff is all pretty easy to setup and perform, but bands with lower body stuff like quad extensions is hard to get right weight wise. If I was back in a gym with machines I'd 100% be hitting the quad, hamstring and calf machines. It takes a few minutes to setup quad extensions and hamstring curls at home let alone just getting all the bands around your feet each time you start or stop a set. I have a pretty short attention span for things that I don't like.

What I've been chewing on in my head though is that I think I need to bring back some direct ab work and some HIIT back into my life though. Stuff like Burpees and jump rope were fun, require no setup and don't cost me any extra money. Maybe I can use this as a good excuse to get a Rower too.
Ugh. I'm still trying to figure out how to do leg curls with bands just for something different to do. Tired of doing leg curls on the machine twice a week. I can definitely see how the lack of machines would be a pita for lower body stuff.

FredM
Registered User
Posts: 728
Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2018 9:17 am
Age: 36

Re: Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

#34

Post by FredM » Wed Sep 28, 2022 9:06 pm

Hanley wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 3:26 pm
SnakePlissken wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 8:08 am I don't know if I'm just doing them wrong or what, but the closest accessory that has ever been part of a good squat gain was landmine belt squats which is just another version of a squat
I'm guessing you're doing them wrong.

On your deadlift days (after the deads), try doing 100 reverse lunges (50 each leg) at 115-135. Use variable rep sets to RPE "absolutely fucking horrid burn". Your interest "rest" is a held plank.

The fluff work can/should be pretty goddamned hard.
Well I didn't go to absolutely fucking horrid burn but I did throw in behind the neck presses before the planks. This is my new favorite Hanley bro block/GPP.

It also exposed a horrible asymmetry/weakness very quickly. I can do more than double the reps with my right leg.

On topic, Absolutely no amount of squatting has every given me the hypertrophy of BSS drop sets. Probably because my core gives out before I can burn my legs that hard. I've also never tried 20 rep squats because I don't hate myself.

MarkKO
Registered User
Posts: 2633
Joined: Sat Sep 19, 2020 6:12 pm
Location: Australia

Re: Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

#35

Post by MarkKO » Thu Sep 29, 2022 2:45 am

Brackish wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 10:09 am
SnakePlissken wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 7:57 am
Brackish wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 5:58 am Just to add on to what @MarkKO mentioned, I'm able to fit 4 accessories, 3-4 sets of each, into 40 minutes without any issues by super setting 2 of them and not allowing anymore than 2 minutes rest between each super set. Some of them I'm only taking a minute. For most, if not all of those assistance exercises, I'm aiming to push them to within 1 or 2 reps from failure. Periodically, just to keep myself honest, I'll take my last set to mechanical failure and recalibrate if needed. Each session I'm attempting to add a rep to each set, and once I reach a given rep target, then add weight. I don't know how much this has helped me get my squat up, since it's actually atrocious (Unlike the numbers you guys squat and call atrocious.), but I have noticed some hypertrophy gains as well as some cardiovascular benefits since I started doing my accessories that way.

I do tell myself that some of my accessories, especially the unilateral ones, are benefiting my big lifts because they're allowing me to have a more stable "base"...or something. For example, unilateral leg extensions have taught me that my left quad is significantly weaker than my left. Trying to sort that out in the hopes that it adds weight to my deadlift and squat.
My biggest issue is equipment. Super setting my upper body stuff is all pretty easy to setup and perform, but bands with lower body stuff like quad extensions is hard to get right weight wise. If I was back in a gym with machines I'd 100% be hitting the quad, hamstring and calf machines. It takes a few minutes to setup quad extensions and hamstring curls at home let alone just getting all the bands around your feet each time you start or stop a set. I have a pretty short attention span for things that I don't like.

What I've been chewing on in my head though is that I think I need to bring back some direct ab work and some HIIT back into my life though. Stuff like Burpees and jump rope were fun, require no setup and don't cost me any extra money. Maybe I can use this as a good excuse to get a Rower too.
Ugh. I'm still trying to figure out how to do leg curls with bands just for something different to do. Tired of doing leg curls on the machine twice a week. I can definitely see how the lack of machines would be a pita for lower body stuff.
It isn't so bad if you use your imagination some.

For example, sissy squats instead of hack squats for quads. Not to mention they shit all over hack squats for quads IME anyway. And leg extensions.

Band good mornings for hamstrings and glutes. Zero setup time.

Plain old air squats, once you go past 20 reps the pump is pretty good.

Walking lunges, with or without weight.

Split squats, assuming they don't piss your hips off.

Machines are cool, but you can usually duplicate their effect without them with minimal setup.

cole
Registered User
Posts: 2826
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2017 2:03 pm
Location: Ft Collins, Colorado
Age: 40

Re: Usefulness of Lower Body Isolations

#36

Post by cole » Sat Oct 15, 2022 8:08 am

i feel like my limiting factor for low body movements ie:squat and DL, is weak spinal erectors. not sure if any assistance for spinal erectors would be helpful since im getting plenty of work on them when i pull heavy and squat

Post Reply