Exercise Plan - Leg Press Machine Quadricep Workout

Margie Weiss: My name is Margie Weiss and this is a quad video. Following up on what were doing in basics squats for the quad. This exercise is called a leg extension or leg press. What we are going to do is push outwards and back for this exercise.

The nice thing about this exercise, you can put more weight on this exercise machine than you probably can on anything else and it s very safe, because your back is supported. Don t be afraid of a decent amount of weight, your legs are strong, so if you weigh a 120 pounds, you can put a 120 pounds on because you can squad and extend. You can usually put about two times your weight on this machine and still keep it safe. Notice Janice, who is going to put her feet little bit closer together, back shoulder width apart, so that way when the knees bend, they come right in towards the shoulder blades so that in shoulder, the knee and the foot are all lined up. When we extend, we are not going to extend quite completely because we don t want to hyper extend the knee and injure the joint. As she bends her, knees she is going to breathe in, as she does her exertion, she is going to breathe out.

Bending the knees you are going to catch it at about 90 degrees. So you want to set your seat far enough away that your knees are not going to be wrapped around your ears when you bend your knees. Just like, we have done on some of the other pieces, we are going to have three different positions because of the different quad muscles. If she pulls her heels inwards and her toes out, now she is doing a little bit more of the inner thigh. If she wants to do with the outer thigh, she just does the opposite, she is going to bring either her toes in or on this machine, she can also bring her feet right next to each other. Toes and heels and do this extension bending and extending. You also want to make sure that your foot is high enough up on the platform that you are not going to hyper extend your knees or bend them too much either way, so that you get that nice 90 degree bend at the base and the extension. Notice that her motions are smooth and controlled. They are not jerked. As she gets tired, you want to still continue slow. If you want to really work the muscle, do ten counts to the extension and ten counts back. Makes those muscles fire for a longer period of time, so you can do your own variations of workout on one machine by varying the number of weight, by varying the amount of time it takes to extend or the amount of time it takes to come back to your main position. Keeping the belly to your backbone, the entire time especially when you are getting tired. So this exercise is nice because you can do a lot of weight and you can do it safely.