What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM.
Today, it's time to crown the worst leg exercise of all time, and No.
I know you've watched me for awhile.
You probably think it's leg extensions.
Yeah, while that is still not the worst exercise that you can do for your legs, and today I
want to tell you why.
But before I tell you what that is, we have to qualify one thing.
Worst exercises, or bad exercises, are not always bad exercises because they're ineffective.
Matter of fact, as a Physical Therapist, I look at exercises a whole different way.
Exercises could be effective, but it doesn't mean that it's a great exercise to do.
Matter of fact, any exercise done poorly would be a bad exercise.
It's those exercises that are done correctly that are still bad exercises, those are the
ones I like to pick on.
And today the king of that is the Sissy Squat.
Now, some of you guys, especially younger guys, will probably say, 'What the hell is
a Sissy Squat?
I've never even heard of that.'
Anybody that's been training for a longer time would know or probably have done quite
a few of these because they've been told at some point along the way,
'These are the best way to build your quads.
These are the best way to target your quads.'
And the rationale behind is,
you're performing the exercise as I show you here up on your toes with your ass tucked
under.
What does that do?
It tries to shut down the gluts and the hamstrings.
It tries to take them out of the traditional squat.
So, some that would argue that on a traditional squat, you're getting too much of the posterior
chain involved in the exercise as well,
too much ass involved in the squat.
Their argument is by doing this, you're going to get a lot less.
And the argument is actually true.
By pulling under into a big posterior tilt here, it would definitely go into shut down
that back side and make most of the work focused on the front side.
But is it a good thing?
No.
It's the worst thing that you can possibly do for your knees and the health of your knees.
And you may not feel anything wrong when you're doing the exercise the first time, or the
second time.
But I can guarantee you, if you make this a staple of your leg workouts,
you're going to see some damage to your patellar tendons in no time at all.
Here's the reason why.
It goes back to the knees-over toes-thing.
And before you jump out and say, 'But knees over toes isn't bad.'
I'm agreeing with you and I'll support that, but I'm going to show you exactly what the
difference is.
If you look at a knees-over-toes situation, ok, here's the foot.
There's the knee.
There's the toe.
If you're squatting, you've got your force.
It's all dependent upon where the force is generated.
It's not the direction of the knee in relation to the toe.
It's, 'Where is that line of force?
Where's that press point?'
And if you're doing a well-executed squat, your press point should be either back here
through your heel, or at very worst, a little bit more towards the big foot.
So, if it's through your heel, that line of force is directed back through here, through
your hips which is fine.
We can support that.
Even if you start to let your weight shift a little bit more forward, which you should.
You should be more back on your heels when you're squatting,
then you'll see that the point will come a little bit more interior, but it's still behind
the front of the kneecap.
You're still getting some force more through the quad which would happen more likely when
you're doing a High Bar Squat.
Ok.
With a High Bar Squat, you're going to be in a little bit more upright stance, but again,
your force should be still directed behind the knee.
It's when the force starts to get in front of the knee, that press point, that line of
force in front of the knee, that's when you're going to have problems.
Again, not the fact that the knee is slightly in front of the toe.
I'm going to show you in one more second exactly why that works that way.
It's really about the fact that your knee in the line of force, the press point, especially
in a Sissy Squat, goes that way.
It's straight forward, straight through the kneecap into the patellar tendon.
All of that force is being absorbed there.
That's a bad thing.
That's a recipe for disaster.
Back to the squat.
You can see as I do a squat.
A well-executed squat, your knee will go past your toe.
So if a trainer ever comes up to you and holds their hands in front of your knee
while you're going down into a squat and says, 'Don't go past that.', they're actually blocking
you from the real biomechanics of the exercise.
They're preventing you from doing what you need to do to safely get to the bottom.
Now, if you find that with a High Bar Squat that your knees, you know, go too far in front
of your toes
because they're going to go in front of your toes a little bit, if you find that they go
in front of your toes too much, it's likely a problem more about your knee spacing.
Are your feet actually tracking out at all because they can't just go straight forward.
They've got to go out and forward.
And if you find that spreading your knees apart a little bit making sure your knees
go in the direction of your toes that are, again, slightly splayed out,
that should probably address most of that interior translation here of the knees.
But again, they're going to go out a little bit past if you want to make sure that you're
executing the exercise right.
But, the Sissy Squat, no chance.
You look at the biomechanics of that exercise versus this, it has nothing to do, yes, the
knees are going way far out over your toes, way far out.
Obscenely far out over your toes.
But even what's worse than that is not just that they're out there, it's that that line
of force is coming this way
eating away at your patellar tendons right in here as opposed to coming down through
either the front part of your thigh, or more likely, back through your hips.
So, hopefully guys, we've crowned this one the King of the Iron Graveyard, and you won't
be doing it despite what other people will show you and tell you about how great it is
for your quads.
It is.
At what expense for your knees and the health of your knees and legs in your future leg
workouts?
Guys, if you haven't already, and you're looking for a training program, we're not just picking
on bad exercises.
We try to pick on the right exercises that have the best risk/reward to help you get
the results that you're looking for.
I know what you're looking for.
Bigger stronger legs.
Bigger, stronger upper bodies.
Bigger, stronger, more athletic, physically imposing bodies, right,
that can go out there and do damage if you're an athlete.
Or just look a hell of a lot better if you're not.
But you've got to get there the right way, and you've got to get there safely, and that's
what we focus on exactly with our ATHLEANX Training Program.
Laying it out for you day by day, workout for workout, exercise by exercise.
You can get that at ATHLEANX.COM.
In the meantime, if you found this video helpful, make sure you leave a comment and some thumb's
up below.
Whatever else it is that you want to see, let me know guys.
I'll be sure to make a video on it in the upcoming weeks.
Thanks.