Legs do what now?

[tim290280]

Ever wanted to know what muscles get hit by what leg exercises?

Ever wanted to tell people that squat stance doesn't affect the muscles recruited and never had the ammo?

Well now you have what you need.

The thing about measuring muscle involvement in an MRI is that you don't necessarily get to see all the other muscles that are recruited during a major lift. What you see is the cross section you measure.

I know House does it differently, but I'm sure that his budget is higher than that of BBing researchers. So when you see these charts bear in mind that they aren't taking into account the hip muscles and any of the trunk and upper body involved, just the muscles of the leg.

 

[Adam23]

i love training legs !!! thanks for the great info bro

 

[The Creator]

biceps feforis seems a little tough to recruit and I guess it makes sense. Good info bro

 

[tim290280]

^^ I was a little surprised by the hamstrings in general. The level of activity is rather low in them for all the exercises. I wonder what a GHR would look like.

It is a pity they didn't measure some of the other exercises around.

 

[The Creator]

^^ I was just thinking about the glute ham raise. I think it would be similar to the SLDL but cant help but think the stimulation would be a bit higher.

 

[PrinceVegeta]

Good read

Thanx!

 

[Turkish1530]

nice post ....i know what the last 3 sets of letters stand for but can someone clarify the others

 

[tim290280]

^^ Good point, didn't think to do that.
AD B - Adductor brevis
AD L - Adductor longus
AD M - Adductor magnus
BF - Bicep femoris
GR - Gracilis
RF - Rectus femoris
SR - Sartorius
ST - Semitendinosus
VM - Vastus medialis
VL - Vastus lateralis
VI - Vastus intermedius

 

[tim290280]

biceps feforis seems a little tough to recruit and I guess it makes sense. Good info bro

I've been thinking about why the hamstrings and the bicep femoris didn't have big registers, even in hamstring exercises. I'm thinking that in the case of the hip flexion exercises that the knees were bent too much and as a result the glutes were dominant. In the leg curls I'm thinking that a similar thing occurred with the position allowing glute involvement.

Considering most people also have relatively weak and innactive hammys this may also have been an issue with the tests.

 

[The Creator]

Thats a good point. Just brushing up on my anatomy and seeing as how the biceps femoris has a proximal attachment at the lateral ishial tuberosity and a distal attachment at the posterior lateral condyle of tibia, head of fibula, it makes a little more sense. The semiten and semimem both attach on the medial side and so it is a shorter muscle therefore it would be more easily recruited from the sense that it would be more easily pre-stretched in a bent leg situation...

 

[tim290280]

^^ Yes exactly. So in order to get the hammys bearing the most brunt would require a reasonably straight leg to get the most "stretch" possible. Otherwise the muscle is never fully loaded and doesn't act over a full ROM.

At least that might be why those exercises didn't seem to recruit the muscles very well.

 

[Skeptic]

So from what you're saying... SLDL/Goodmornings/Glute ham raises are the best type of exercise for the hammy's seeing as they stretch the hams?

 

[tim290280]

Well the SLDL in the analysis above did recruit the brevis and magnus adductor muscles, the bicep femoris and semitendinosus. Whereas the supine leg curl only really recruited semitend and bicep fem (plus sartorius and gracilius). Compared to a seated leg curl where the bicep fem wasn't recruited and there was greater activity in the gracilius, sartorius and semitendinosus.

So the SLDL is hitting more muscles, which obviouslyare needed to perform hip flexion. Bicep femoris seems to need the stretch as well, because it was only when seated that it wasn't working.

 

[Lionheart]

Excellent find Timmy.