Hamstring development from a leg press – myth?

[Robbie Totten]

Hi,

Some of you may have seen the debates on Tiktok over whether a high and wide stance can be used to bias the hamstrings on a leg press.

It has been very polarising with people getting into the semantics.

Deceleration of the knee was quoted as to why they are involved; hip flexion and and knee flexion leading to know significant change in length at the hamstring was quoted etc…

I’ve come here for a hard and fast biomechanics lesson as to fact please.

No one is arguing that the leg press is a good exercise to build the hamstrings but many thing they are working enough to grow and many thing they are not doing much at all.

[BryceBahm]

[Simo Matikainen]

I suggest you read Paul Carters instagram post about it, he has a perfect answer.

[Simo Matikainen]

This isn’t an “agree to disagree” topic or “well some people are built different” discussion. You cannot grow the hamstrings with Any squat or lunge or leg press variation.

When you squat or leg press, the hamstrings shorten at the knee and lengthen at the hip. On the concentric they lengthen at the knee and shorten at the hip. So their relative length never changes.

In order to get a high degree of intra-muscular force a muscle needs to lengthen and/or shorten dramatically in comparison to its resting state. There is literally no way to do this with leg presses or squats when it comes to hamstrings
.
Squats provide so little stimulus for hamstring growth that even in noobs, there was no real hamstring adaptation to squatting (Kubo 2019 study) .

[Simo Matikainen]

Its not going to be different from person to person, its not physically possible. And its measurable fact not an opinion.

[Author]

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