Thread: Who does these...

Who does the variation of leg press that Frank Zane used to do to target his " tear drops"?

* You put your feet about 3-4 inchs apart, and only the balls of your feet on the platform as if you were going to do a calf raise. I've added this excerise to my routine, and my tear drop shape has improve 100%. It's great!

Originally posted by DrChiro
It is true that no matter what variation you do to a muscle it will only contract one way (insertion to origin)....where variation does come into play is on muscle "groups" like quads (4 muscles) or triceps (3 muscles)...also calves (legs straight or bent to target soleus or gastrocs...the toes in or out thing doesnt work).

For example...legs wide on squats do target the vastus medialis moore than a neutral stance and legs closer together do target vastus lateralis more. Best bet is to do things neutral for overall development that is equal and balanced in my opinion.
Once you start competing and really noticing weaker areas...that is when you should start to look for ways to improve them...otherwise stick to the basics.....it worked for most of the top pros....Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS)

Okay, yes and no.......this is why I can't stand bodybuilding magazines...biomechanics totaly go out the window.

First, I will agree with you that about muscular contraction. the muscles contract both ways but I don't agree with the second half of your post, and this is going back to Flex's post. I am not saying that I know everything and I am defenitly not the only personb on this board that has study biomechanics and kineseology so don't take this the wrong way or as me trying to flame either of you as it is not my intention to fight on this forum. (this is the reason I usually leave these types of questions alone).

the muscle that extend the knee and the vastus mediallis, vastus intermediallis, vastus lateralus (these three make up the quadracep muscle), the Tesor fascia lata (TFL) and the rectus femoris. Now the three "vastus" muscles (aka the quads) extend the knee. that is it. that is all they do. the contract and extend the knee. foot placement, like prince said, is irellevant because these muscle don't cross the hip and have nothing to do with internal or external rotaion of the hip, which is what is being altered when we move our toes in or out. These muscle extend the knee and are unaffected by fott placement.

the other two knee extensors (rectus femoris and TFL) do cross the hip, both of them being hip flexors and the TFL also being active during hip abduction. However they too have nothing to do with internal and external rotation so their involvment in foor placement is very little as well.

the muscle which do hip external rotation are the sartorius (which also does hip flexion and adduction), piriformis and the quadtratus femoris (there are many more small muscles working around here also as the hip is a very complicated musculature).

the muscles which are actuve during internal rotation are the pectineus, adductor magnus, gracilis, and glute mimimus (to name a few as there are again many other muscles working around the joint do to the number of angles the hip can be placed in, being that it is a ball-and-socket joint and the second most moblie joint in our body next to the gleno-humeral joint).

So, even though you are not activly internally or externally rotation during a squat, since your feet are planted and you are applying force downward, these muscles which do internal and external rotation of the hip may actaully get hit to different degrees. This is why I think it is silly that people change the angle of their toes on knee extensions, it has nothing to do with the knee extensors at all.

Also, squating, leg pressing or hack squatting with feet pointed inward is not recomended (toes slightly out or straight ahead (which I reall don;t like) are more favorable as Prince has stated) because of the approach of the femur to the acetabulo-femoral joint. It does not approach at a 90 degree angle like an anatomy chart may suggest, but rather it approaches posterior to anterior causing natural foot potition of about 7 degrees outward. Not to mentino the fact that at lock out the knee does have a small amount of rotaion to it which can be inhibited with a toes in type stance and may lead to some knee problems.

hope that help a little,
patrick