Alternatives to squats & leg presses?

S

stiffler

New Member
Hi everyone,

I am almost finished with my first SD, and when I begin my next cycle I'm going to adjust some of my exercises to help bring up lagging body parts, primarily my glutes. For years I've performed squats & presses, which seemingly have no effect on my glutes, while my thighs continue to grow. So now I'm looking for alternative lower body moves that I can incorporate into HST that will hopefully change this. For reference my last routine included squats & stiff leg deadlifts, my calculated 1 rep max being 368 & 312, respectively.
 
Depending on what equipment you have available you could try some of the following.

Glute Ham Raises
Butt Bridges or Barbell Glute Bridges
Barbell Hip Thrust

However, you may not want to give up on squats. If you are performing Squats by sitting back and pushing your legs out rather than sitting down and also going very low you should be hammering your Glutes and Hamstrings.
 
Thanks for the reply! I don't have a way of performing glute ham raises, but I was considering adding in bridges. Regarding squats, I have a hard time going really deep as I pile on weight (on heavy squats I set up a bench behind me and only go low enough to touch my but to it), and my knees have been bothering me. I do my best to keep my knees from going over my toes, so I'm sure the chronic knee pain is age related as opposed to form related. I have also considered static lunges or Bulgarian split squats, but I'm not sure if they will be any more effective than regular squats.
 
If you have a bench and a power rack you can try doing “Ghetto” Glute Ham Raises. Do a Google search for various ways to do them and see if any will work for you.

I’m going to wager that the reason you are getting so much Quad and not much Ham and Glute activation doing Squats is that you are actually Squatting too heavy and using bad form. Have you tried doing Box Squats? I learned a lot from watching this video series and improved my Squat by 50 lbs. in just 4 weeks of training while vastly improving my form:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkF9QD7oCIA

Even if you are using good form just drop the weight some and go all the way down as low as you can. If you want to have your Hams and Glutes catch up with your Quads then I would exclusively do Ass To Ground (ATG) Squats using your ATG maxes as the ones you calculate your RMs from. While you may not be Squatting as much you will be using the lagging muscles more and they will catch up faster with your Quads that way. In the mean time you will still be Squatting and not losing the neural adaptation to the exercise you already have.
 
I'll give box squats a shot, but my hams are pretty developed as well, its specifically my glutes. Actually, it's my entire back side, from traps to glutes;I have a really flat back.
 
If you want to develop your back I don’t think there is any better exercises than Deadlifts and its cousin Rack Pulls. Doing these will develop a strong back chain. From there you can add things like Shrugs, Rows and some of the various Glute Ham exercises to bring up lagging parts.
 
Thanks for the video link, I watched them all:-) It turns out that my form fails for similar reasons as the gentlemen they used as an example, and as I assumed it was stated that lagging body parts cannot be strengthened by continuing to squat; accessory exercises are needed. As I don't feel like adding in a bunch of extra sets, I'm hoping to find some moves that I can just do in place of squats.

I should also mention at this point that since I started HST, my groin has felt progressively tighter. Today is supposed to be my first day off of SD, but my groin still feels a little strained, but I don't know if its actually injured. I've been working out for the better part of a decade, this is the first time I've had any discomfort like this. Any idea what this could be from?
 
The pain in your groin is DOMS because squats are so bad ass that they have been known to cause hypertrophy of the penis.

Just joking... In all seriousness, can you isolate a specific area that hurts? Squats can hit your inner thigh muscles quite a bit, which could be felt as soreness in the lower part of the groin area... or is it up higher? I would wait until a few days into SD and see how it feels and if it is persistent, or if it goes away then comes back when you start up your next cycle, then you should get it checked out. The last thing you want is to get a hernia or something.
 
stiffler said:
Thanks for the reply! I don't have a way of performing glute ham raises, but I was considering adding in bridges. Regarding squats, I have a hard time going really deep as I pile on weight (on heavy squats I set up a bench behind me and only go low enough to touch my but to it), and my knees have been bothering me. I do my best to keep my knees from going over my toes, so I'm sure the chronic knee pain is age related as opposed to form related. I have also considered static lunges or Bulgarian split squats, but I'm not sure if they will be any more effective than regular squats.
Click to expand...

Then don't pile on the weight.. lol (your bodybuilding i assume, not powerlifting).
Your not really going to be activating your glutes if you only do half squats (aka slightly below parallel). I'm not even sure what weight i could use when doing half squats. I'd recommend finding a weight that you can perform your set reps while being able to go low enough that you can sit in that position. Then you dont have to worry about how low your going, because its a given. I can assure you, it works well.
 
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Along with what’s already been said the tightness in your groin could also mean you are getting close to straining a muscle. I piled on the weight faster than I should have when I first started because my Quads (I was squatting wrong) could handle it but the other muscles in my legs weren’t as strong and one gave slightly. Luckily it was only a class one strain and I was back to squatting a week later but mine also started out as tightness which I ignored. You might want to back of the weight a little and get in more reps to try and bring all your squatting muscles up to par. Going very deep will also help to stretch things out besides working your Glutes better.
 
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