Foot Position for Quads

[Turkish1530]

I'm making this thread to make sure i have this correct because I have had several ppl tell me it's wrong.......to hit your outer quads (vastus lateralis) you should do leg exercises with a wider stance and your toes pointed out..... and to work your inner quads (more vastus medialis) you should do exercises in a more narrow stance with your feet straight.

 

[nigster]

I think this is quite obvious... Narrow stance with feet pointed out = more tension to outer quad. Wide stance = more tension to inner quads.

For example hack squats are great to work on your sweep when legs are positioned quite narrowly and your feet are pointed out. Especially in hack squats it's easy to consentrate to work on your sweep. Don't go crazy with the weights and do the movement with you QUADS.

Squats are pretty much the same. But you can't go very low if your stance is very narrow. So squats should be done with quite wide stance to get as low as you can (IMHO). After this you can do e.g. hack squats or leg press or whatever.

I think it's important to do varied styles instead of always doing the same shit if you are going to build your muscles. Powerlifting is a different story.

 

[Duality]

I'm making this thread to make sure i have this correct because I have had several ppl tell me it's wrong.......to hit your outer quads (vastus lateralis) you should do leg exercises with a wider stance and your toes pointed out..... and to work your inner quads (more vastus medialis) you should do exercises in a more narrow stance with your feet straight.

umm dude i think your totally backwards on that. a narrow squatting stance is supposed to hit the "sweep" and outer portiion of your quads. the wider more powerlifting approach is not only geared more for just pure strength in terms of poundage, but will hit your "tear drop" more efficiently. i would go more the narrow stance (not too narrow) for bodybuilding as it works the whole leg best.

 

[Big_Guns_Lance]

Yeh mate, you've got it the wrong way around. the close stance hits the outer quads whilst the wider one hits the inner quads

 

[Turkish1530]

thanks for the responses, i actually confused myself becuz of what I was taught in my anatomy class (the teacher taught it to us the way i said and then later said he wasn't sure if it was correct or not.....)

 

[tim290280]

This is all a myth!!

There is no stance that targets the different heads of the quads.

There is no foot position that targets the different heads of the quads.

The only difference comes in the relative contribution at the various ranges of motion.

I challenge anyone to actually find a study that has shown foot or stance width to do anything other than change the recruitment of the other leg muscles. From a biomechanical standpoint it makes sense as you have all of the quads attaching to the patella (same tendon), so you will have very little difference. The main development differences you see between different people is to do with length of muscle bellies of the different heads and the like.

If you want more "sweep" (VL) or "tear drop" (VM) then try to do a different ROM or different exercises that change the relative involvement of the other muscles in the thighs. Also activation exercises (the only time I will ever recommend a leg ext, as they are terrible for the knees) will help. Leg ext with feet turned in will get more VL, turned out more VM. This is the only one that has actually been shown to occur, and is only a 30% or so difference (i.e. all the quads fire, just relative involvement is realicated due to the extremeness of the movement).

 

[nigster]

Well I have to agree with you but as you said yourself there is a difference...a little one but still is. Same shit works with biceps, it's funny when people tell you that they are training the lower head of the bi.

But yes, it's your genetics and the shape of your muscles that dictates how your muscles are gonna look like. Not the way you position your legs while doing leg press.

 

[curtisymoo]

narrow = more outter as opposed to wide which is more inner

kinda like your biceps on the straight bar, narrow is outter wider hits the long head

also for narrow NEVER point your toes inward...the most "inward" they should ever go is parallel with each other. but yeah keep the spacing narrow

 

[curtisymoo]

i find it hard to believe this is a myth

"There is no stance that targets the different heads of the quads.

There is no foot position that targets the different heads of the quads."

please explain the grips on chest press movements, the example like the biceps i stated above, and how foot positioning targets the calves differently in the same exercise.

im going to stick with the pros who have pro cards with their years under their belt along with the many testimonys ive heard.
secondly my personal experience with narrow stance is that its helped my outter sweep balance my tear drop (VM) b/c through the years i always feel my VM nicely pumped and tight after leg day but nothing with my sweep. since ive used narrower stances on my leg day my quad development has definitley improved, my quads are significantly more "balanced".

im not saying youre completely wrong but it works for me so whatever works for you, good for you

 

[Skeptic]

the reason the biceps gets trained differently from different angles is because the biceps is used to rotate the forearm, as well as flexing the arm.... the quads do nothing more than flex to extend the leg (in on direction).

 

[tim290280]

i find it hard to believe this is a myth

"There is no stance that targets the different heads of the quads.

There is no foot position that targets the different heads of the quads."

please explain the grips on chest press movements, the example like the biceps i stated above, and how foot positioning targets the calves differently in the same exercise.

im going to stick with the pros who have pro cards with their years under their belt along with the many testimonys ive heard.
secondly my personal experience with narrow stance is that its helped my outter sweep balance my tear drop (VM) b/c through the years i always feel my VM nicely pumped and tight after leg day but nothing with my sweep. since ive used narrower stances on my leg day my quad development has definitley improved, my quads are significantly more "balanced".

im not saying youre completely wrong but it works for me so whatever works for you, good for you

A few comments:
1) I am referring to the science papers on this subject in making my statements. Go and read them by searching Pubmed, Google Scholar etc. I am not making wild assertions based on no knowledge. My personal experience has nothing to do with this.

2) Pros are not necessarily good sources of information. This is why they have coaches and trainers. The latter also don't have to be knowledgable either because some of their clients would get results no matter what they did.

3) Your personal experience is not an objective or quantifiable measure of anything. There are too many variables that you cannot account for (that science experiments do try to). Experiments are carried out in order to rule out other factors and then measure what is actually happening. The science on this subject shows that muscle involvements are not influenced by width at all.

If you want a personal experience: I don't usually notice my VM as much as VL after squatting but noticed it after doing several sets of heavy singles. Does this mean that only really heavy squats target my VM more? I don't see how.

 

[curtisymoo]

"im not saying youre completely wrong but it works for me so whatever works for you, good for you"
i also never stated my personal experience as substantial evidence to counter your argument, it was just my own testimony
im going to use what works best for my quads




on another point, not starting a new arguement but when a bodybuilder adds more sweep how is it then that they do that? and what about calves?

 

[tim290280]

"im not saying youre completely wrong but it works for me so whatever works for you, good for you"
i also never stated my personal experience as substantial evidence to counter your argument, it was just my own testimony
im going to use what works best for my quads

A lot of people have wasted a lot of time with this approach (myself included). Science is done for a reason, ignore it to your own loss. Have fun

on another point, not starting a new arguement but when a bodybuilder adds more sweep how is it then that they do that? and what about calves?

Usually they don't so much add sweep as they add mass. The sweep is a byproduct of more mass overall. But as I described you can change recruitment patterns with different movements (step-ups work the thighs differently to lunges which are different to squats, etc) and you can do activation exercises like the leg ext (which I hate) as I originally described.

Calves are actually composed of a lot of small muscles that stabilise the ankle in all planes of motion. As such they are far more dynamic than the knee joint which requires stabilisation from the ankle and hip.

 

[SRUDWARF]

This is all a myth!!

There is no stance that targets the different heads of the quads.

There is no foot position that targets the different heads of the quads.

The only difference comes in the relative contribution at the various ranges of motion.

I challenge anyone to actually find a study that has shown foot or stance width to do anything other than change the recruitment of the other leg muscles. From a biomechanical standpoint it makes sense as you have all of the quads attaching to the patella (same tendon), so you will have very little difference. The main development differences you see between different people is to do with length of muscle bellies of the different heads and the like.

If you want more "sweep" (VL) or "tear drop" (VM) then try to do a different ROM or different exercises that change the relative involvement of the other muscles in the thighs. Also activation exercises (the only time I will ever recommend a leg ext, as they are terrible for the knees) will help. Leg ext with feet turned in will get more VL, turned out more VM. This is the only one that has actually been shown to occur, and is only a 30% or so difference (i.e. all the quads fire, just relative involvement is realicated due to the extremeness of the movement).

lol i do wide stance squats and i can tell you my abductors hurt like hell alot more when i do box squats or olympic squats.

 

[tim290280]

lol i do wide stance squats and i can tell you my abductors hurt like hell alot more when i do box squats or olympic squats.

So you are saying that your glutes that are more active in a wide stance are doing more work in a wide stance than your abductors Don't quite see your point, unless you are agreeing with my post.

 

[afgan-ali]

honestly go into the gym and doo one set close and one set wide and you will straight away realise that different stances hit diff parts, close hits outer and wide inner, i dunno bout the science but i no what i feel

 

[tim290280]

honestly go into the gym and doo one set close and one set wide and you will straight away realise that different stances hit diff parts, close hits outer and wide inner, i dunno bout the science but i no what i feel

If you seriously believe that I have two items that I think you might like:
1) A bridge that I have for sale
2) A rock that keeps away tigers.

 

[SerbMarko]

I'm making this thread to make sure i have this correct because I have had several ppl tell me it's wrong.......to hit your outer quads (vastus lateralis) you should do leg exercises with a wider stance and your toes pointed out..... and to work your inner quads (more vastus medialis) you should do exercises in a more narrow stance with your feet straight.

i believe you have your theory opposite my friend.. to hit inner quads you need to have a wider stance, outer quads (sweep) shoulder width stance..

 

[SerbMarko]

honestly go into the gym and doo one set close and one set wide and you will straight away realise that different stances hit diff parts, close hits outer and wide inner, i dunno bout the science but i no what i feel

i believe you are correct.

 

[afgan-ali]

If you seriously believe that I have two items that I think you might like:
1) A bridge that I have for sale
2) A rock that keeps away tigers.

soo you can honestly say that if you squattin wide stance or squatting narrow stance you feel muscle working in the same part i dunno about you but i like to do lots of reps soo i can feel it soo mayb diff for u