Muscle Ventures Podcasts

In this podcast (Quicktime ipod compatible, 27MB; Google streaming flash video), Nancy Arnold and I (Bud) discuss a comment by Chris Dorr, a long time viewer from Iowa and blogger at Strength News. Chris had watched our podcast on interval training where we talked about motivation. He wondered if Nancy had any tips that could help his wife who has had a hard time getting into the gym and felt a little shy doing weights with the guys.

Nancy has sixteen years experience as a personal trainer. Her observation is that some of the motivation has to come from the individual. As for novices' intimidation the weight area, she has a few tips. She tries to get her clients thoroughly familiarized with the equipment so that they can do it almost automatically. We discussed how even Nancy, not really the sort to get intimated, can feel a little awkward in a new gym, sensing all eyes are on her.

For my part, I don't think this intimidation is just felt by women. I remark how I hated weight training as a teenager because I really could not do it as well as the others. Ultimately, I had some health problems a few years ago and realized it was a matter of getting in better shape or going down the tubes. My new attitude became that I was going to do it come hell or high water. I started flat pressing with 10 lb. dumbbells.

Additional Links

• Mich's blog Maspik Teruzim provides excellent links for women wanting to get into weight training. Mich chronicles her own progress from rank beginner to accomplished amateur.
• Stumptuous provides an advanced resource for women who have already made the commitment to weight training and want to go further.
• Our Men Vs. Women category provides articles on male vs. female training in bodybuilding. To be honest, one of our motivations is that female training is not well covered.

In this podcast (Quicktime iPod compatible download, 28MB; Google streaming flash video), Nancy Arnold and I (Bud) go over a question put to her by one of her clients (we'll call the client C). C wanted to know what the value of interval training was compared to straight sets.

C had come to Nancy because, while she had been an off-and-on exerciser, she had knocked off for the last year and a half and wanted some help getting back on the wagon. Further, C had noted a loss in muscle mass as she got older and hoped to regain muscle. After starting an interval training program with Nancy, C saw people doing straight sets of weight lifting exercises and wondered how intervals would get her to the point where she could do that too.

Nancy explains that, given C's previous lay-off from all exercise, she is doing intervals with C to develop her general conditioning before progressing to heavier weight training. As we note, general conditioning is a component of many training programs. Chris Dorr is doing dinosaur training to develop his overall stamina, and Scott Bird has really gone to work on the kettlebell to keep his conditioning up while his weightlifting gear journeys from England to Australia. Indeed, general conditioning is a component of the periodization program Nancy and I are currently pursuing.

In this podcast (Quicktime, 42 MB; Google Video, no download), Nancy Arnold and I (Bud) review four different leg press machines available at Liberty Athletic Club, the gym where we normally workout. The review was based on a request from Scott Bird, who was either going to purchase a leg press or build one. Scott sent several question in email, and we try to answer them in this podcast for each of the machines.

We also tried to address the general question of why you would use a press instead of doing an exercise like the squat or the lunge. In a word, the leg press removes the elements of balance and stabiliztion required for those two exercises, allowing you to focus solely on building the muscle. It's a good option for general conditioning and when you feel like you just don't have the mental concentration to do the more difficult movements but still want to work the muscles.

We covered the machines in the order they appear in the strip on the left. Here are the highlights for each.

Paramount Leg Press

The paramount is one of the most used Leg presses at Liberty, and you find similarly designed presses in most gyms. It is mounted on an incline of 45 degrees and plate loaded. We figure the platform by itself weighs 40 to 50 lbs. The seat tilts through a range of 15 degrees so you can vary the angle the press hits your muscles.

One reason this press is popular is that it is pretty simple to operate. You hop in the seat put your feet on the platform, release the platform catches and let gravity and your muscles do the rest. No need to specify how close your body should come to the platform or anything else.

This leg press also provides a good range of motion. Range of motion is important for working all of the leg muscles. The closer you bring your legs to your body during the negative part of the movement, the more you will work your gluteals during the contraction phase. Once you get about half way up, the emphasis switches to your quadriceps.

The platform on the press is wide enough to allow a variety of foot positions ranging from feet together to a wide "sumo" stance (feet beyond shoulder width and angled out at 45 degrees). This variety Allows you to move the exercise emphasis from outer to inner thighs.

Hammerstrength Leg Press

Looking at the second photo, you can see that the Hammerstrength leg press is quite different from the paramount press. First the incline of the seat is on the order of 35 degrees (not 12 to 15 as we say in the podcast), and the range of motion is set by explicitly adjusting the seat forward or backward. The manufacturer states that this is one of their top ten selling products.

In my experience, this press works the quads and the lower quads in particular. Nancy gets more impact in the gluteals. I think this is largely because she sets the set for a much longer range of motion. My hips simply do not flex that much.

This is another plate loaded press. However instead of pushing the weight up an incline as you do with the paramount, you are pushing against a lever mechanism. I find I can do about three quarters the weight on the Hammer as I can on the paramount.

we normally place our feet shoulder width apart with this machine and tend to do few if any variations in foot placement.

Nautilus Nitro Leg Press

Pictured third from the top, the Nautilus Nitro Leg Press is very popular in gyms. Like the Hammerstrength, you adjust the seat explicitly to get range of motion, and you can get the seat so close that you are almost sitting on the foot platform. While the platform is not as wide as the Paramount, we use both shoulder width and sumo stances.

The machine has a few unique features. First, like all Nautilus machines, it works on a pulley system with a cam that is intended to keep resistance even throughout the range of motion. Second the seat tilts back up to 45 degrees. Nancy finds that claim of even resistance is only partially true. She also feels the incline on the chair has no effect. With my tighter hips, I find leaning the seat back allows me to move the seat closer to the platform getting a longer range of motion.

Cybex Leg Press

The Cybex at Liberty is an old pulley driven machine where you lie on a bed and push your legs against a stable platform to raise the weight. In some ways, it mimics a squat. You adjust the range of motion by setting the position of the bed relative to the foot platform. Extremely long ranges of motion are possible. The foot platform on this machine is rather wide, and we use the same variety of foot stances as we do on the Paramount. We also frequently do single leg presses on this machine. The nice thing about this machine for single leg presses is that if your leg fails during the press, the consequences are not too great, the bed just stops at the rest position.

We will continue this series in our exercise analysis section when we look at specific leg exercises on each machine.

Additional Links

• Range of motion is what it is all about in training your legs. This article provides a good overview of things you can do to increase your range of motion.