squats or leg press with deadlifts?

[marcink99]

Ok for some reason my knees give me discomfort when squatting. My friends looked at my form and it looks good. I might just have bad mechanics for it I guess. I am 6.0 if it makes any difference. Would leg press and Romanian dead lifts be a good alternative? I tried smith machine squats with same outcome. Also I had 3 bad discs in my back so maybe I should just avoid squats.

 

[rckvl7]

Can you get a video of your form? Your friend may not know what good form is...

 

[Jstrong20]

Whats your warm up look like? 5-10 minutes on the treadmill before squats to get the blood flowing can make a diffrence for some. If it turns out you can't do them though their are ways around it unless your a powerlifter. You don't have to do regular squats for big legs.

 

[b9cist]

I agree on the warmup comment. I used to have knee aches during squats as well, in fact, I still have a torn ACL in my left knee. I warmup by doing 5 mins on the seated bike to get some blood in my legs, then I do leg extensions at high reps, to make sure my knees are warmed up. Only after all of this will I do squats. Squats are the best for growth, it would be a shame for you to have to skip them.

However, if you have a bad back, you may have too avoid them after all. You could try pre-exhauting your quads so you don't have to go so heavy on squats. Be careful with your back, mess that up and you won't be able to lift at all.

 

[marcink99]

Thank you for all the responds. usually my warm up consists of light squats before going heavy. Next time I will do some treadmill to see if it helps. Thank you

 

[omni]

I use the exercise bike for about 5 min. a couple light squats and it works for me.-and i'm old

 

[Whacked]

Same here. Im old too LOL

I use the exercise bike for about 5 min. a couple light squats and it works for me.-and i'm old