Execution of Leg Sets

[Scott Stevenson]

Scott- I've been reading and looking through a lot of Ben Pakluski's stuff and a lot of it mirrors your thoughts on continuous tension for muscle growth. For legs he's a proponent of keeping quads tensed on leg press, squats, and hacks, which results in a rom right around parallel or a little higher for most people.

I was wondering your thoughts on that as opposed to bottoming out exercises like squats and hacks where some of the tension may shift to muscles other than quads/glutes.

Matt

Hey Matt,

Thanks for posting this up here.

Well, I would say that you're doing to lose tension on the quad and glutes at the bottom of the ROM on squats or hack squat. At the "top" of the ROM (knees and hips extended) this would be the case if you just stand / pause with the weight.

So, when you say, "which results in a rom right around parallel or a little higher for most people" but say, " as opposed to bottoming out exercises like squats and hacks where some of the tension may shift to muscles other than quads/glutes" I can't tell what you are saying Ben suggests for ROM (*range* of motion). Does say just to use the TOP part of the ROM?...

My thought is simply to maintain continuous tension and keep the weight moving throughout a "full" (safe) ROM, but I don't want to preclude the need to pause during a set instantaneously to make an adjustment in stance, grip, etc.

During PUMP sets, PARTIALS definitely make sense, but I'm not suggesting that an abbreviated ROM be used on all exercises, unless that is what feels natural to someone. For some, during chest presses, favoring the top of the ROM feels best and for some the bottom of the ROM. If that's the natural ROM that you've found you progress on, feels right, and can be consistent with, then I'm all for it.

The idea of an abbreviate ROM was put forward with a book called Power Factor training (if not before) as a way to (supposedly) create maximal muscle tension (although I believe the book looked only a strength and didn't account for biomechanical factor that could play a role maximal in external force output when there was sub maximal muscle activation).

Continuous tension will favor metabolic stress and also usher the progressive involvement of higher threshold motor units, calling upon those more difficult to recruit fibers earlier in a set. My experience tells me that doing sets this way is less stressful on the nervous system and means overall a better return on investment when it comes to muscle stress vs. CNS (and autonomic / endocrine) stress.

-S