Squats or Leg extension

...

Squats for overall power and development of the entire leg and posterior chain.

Leg extensions should be done carefully, not with a weight you struggle with, as it causes some pretty harsh unnatural shearing forces on your knees, which your legs aren't very well adapted to dealing with.

If you have to choose one, squats win every time.

squat. Because glutes.

or both, using leg extension as an accessory lift.

is there anything that looks less aesthetically pleasing than ripped thighs?

Squats is the obvious answer; however, extensions are good for what they do.

Light weight, high reps and you will get a quad burn like nothing else.

you, probably

you.

>Leg extension

HAHAHHAHHA

ya got me samefag, im shook

Gotta go with squats for overall leg/glute development. With that being said, I hate doing squats and LOVE doing leg extensions. Being at the bottom of a squat on my 5th or 6th set is fucking misery. The pump/burn I get from the quad isolation that leg extensions provide feels amazing.

Is there something wrong with it as an accessory lift?

Nothing wrong with it as long as you don't like your knees

>do leg extensions
>still a manlet

>do chin ups
>still depressed

>as it causes some pretty harsh unnatural shearing forces on your knees, which your legs aren't very well adapted to dealing with
this is the biggeat load of horse shit i've read in my entire life. it's virtually impossible to do with incorrect form so you get an ideal lift every time no matter how fatigued you are. unlike squats where the slightest mistake can literally kill you. yeah maybe you shouldn't be doing one rep max lifts leg curls they're for volume and they don't fatigue you like squats so you can put more effort into all your other lifts and get much stronger. only reason squat is so popular is because of crossfit and comp lifter autism

>Leg Extensions
>Still a manlet :(

Leg curls =/= leg extensions, you moron.

no? leg curls are the same thing as hamstring curls

leg extensions =/= knee extentions

What about leg presses bruvs

Mediagenic here. Our anatomy is designed to perform the squat movement. Our anatomy is not designed to perform leg extensions. You are wrong.

I hope this was simple enough for you to understand.

I do both, leg day is long enough to do squats/leg press, leg extensions, leg curls, hip adductions, and both standing and seated calf raises. I do both on calves, I hit them until I can't walk anymore.

lmao gtfo why you even on this board if you dont lift

>decline bench
>do it anyway

Both.

m8 i can prove I lift more than you if you care to prove how much you lift?

You're dumb

i lift all day err day

>how to spot a dyel

>le can't walk after leg day meme
Want to know how I know you can't even squat 3 plates?

>Thinking leg day should be squats and go
>How to spot a DYEL

I squat 275 sir. I'll close in on 3 plates eventually.

>leg day
> I hit them until I can't walk anymore.
literally the biggest tell you're a fucking dyel

>le we were designed to squat shitposting retard autist
the human body optimally functions under its own body weight with minimal additional weight added to it. we evolves squtting zero/minimal extra weight not with 500lbs on a bar laying on your back you fucking moron

>has little kid calves
Have fun looking like a chicken. I'll go ahead and do 5 sets of 16-20 full ROM calf raises and walk away with my big boy calves.

Oh yeah, all those frat bros who come and do hours of leg extension and calf raises in my gym are so jacked and not DYEL at all

not with your shitty regime you won't
>sir
back to red.dit with you

true user. I really dont think falling for this strength gains meme is worth it. Do make squats, but if you are not under the strict control of a professional coach you shouldnt be going too much over your power potential, snapping with huge weights is sooo common nowadays.

There's shear force even if your form is perfect. Shear is the sliding force between two segments caused by moment force, and the lockout position of a leg extension is pure moment force with the point of rotation being the knee. Essentially the tibia is trying to slide downwards past the femur due the load being applied to the distal end of the tibia (which creates even more moment), but this is obviously being stopped by the ligaments and tendons of the knee. However, this means that these connective tissues are under a lot of shear force.

Doesn't mean leg extensions are going to make your knees explode or anything, but they can cause issues due to this fact.

>so dyel you can't even tell why I'm calling you dyel
literally calling you dyel because you're saying you "train them so hard" you can't walk, basically you're dyel as shit, you train legs once a week for "such a hardcore" workout and think you're doing shit.

>squatters think it's perfectly normal to have to keep their knees warm
>squatters think it's perfectly normal to have to wear knee sleeves
>squatters blame everything else for their knee pain
>squatters think the momentary loss of knee pain while squatting means it fixes their knees (it's from blood flow retards)
>squatters think they're privy to some sekrit club knowledge when they're the only ones who squat at the gym
>squatters think copying geared lifters is a good idea
>squatters fell for the xfit/plg/olg meme (these ppl only squat bc their sport requires it you sheep brain autist)
>squatters listen to shills who only know how to use a barbell due to the above
>squatters think squatting is more natural than moving your femur back and fourth
there's no bigger meme victim than you. this isn't a joke. you'rw being darwin'd in realtime.

yes there is sheer force. it is reduced by the strong leg muscles it produces and never mattered. everything produces sheer force. you know what produces a fuckload more sheer force than anything else? a beginner lifter loading a fucking barbell up thinking they're ever gonna have anything even remotely resembling correct form on the advice given by various noob lifter programs.

>everybody that squats uses knee sleeves and has knee pain

Also, the femur doesn't move in a leg extension.

durrr i mean tibia

I squat and my knees are really bad.
My doctor told me to stop but I can't
I'm addicted.

>trying to argue when you don't even know the difference between shear and sheer
You are SO dumb

>retarded squatist desperately picking at grammatical errors
i'm writing this on my phone so it's full of errors. i type 120wpm on my kb

It does matter. There was a famous basketball player (hopefully somebody remembers the name) recently who's physio fucked his knee up even worse rather than helping it.

There was videos of him floating around. Wasn't squats he was doing, it was leg extensions.

>it is reduced by the strong leg muscles it produces and never mattered

How much force your legs can produce has no bearing on the amount of shear force being applied at lockout in a leg extension. Shear force is a combination of amount of force being applied by the load and the distance from the point of rotation.

>a beginner lifter loading a fucking barbell up thinking they're ever gonna have anything even remotely resembling correct form

Sure, divebombing will increase dynamic shear and the more knees forward your squat is will also increase shear (lack of oly shoes and poor ankle flexibility keeps this to a minimum in beginners though). This is why a coach is good.

i know many jacked dudes who are fucked for life from barbell routines. i know no one who ever got injured doing leg curls. not saying it can't happen anyone can use a machine wrong but it's far easier to snap your shit up with a barbell unless you're a pro or are aspiring to become one

a pro athlete likely fucked his knees up from doing a myriad of other leg exercises. there's no way to pin it on leg curls especially when most people at the gym who lift do them and studies show injury rates at the gym to be astronomically low

That's because those doing leg curls never get 'into' the gym, as if they did they would move onto BB routines.

You can simply do a Google search and find enough published papers that actually studied this subject and found squats generate more muscular activation whereas leg extensions generate greater shear force, minimum muscular activation, and more strain on your ACL compared to squats (or even the leg press).

It's not a particularly good exercise for the body.

right because most people at the gym are doing barbell routines. lolnope it's only meme victims who do. well coached athletes are the exception to the rule.

Well he didn't squat and still fucked his knee up doing exercises other than squatting. That was my point.

Also 'squat' is too broad a term here. High rep front squats with oly shoes on are going to impart a completely different stress on the knee than low bar squats in flats for instance.

Plenty of people with quad and patella tendonitis from squatting have fixed it by sitting back a bit more. If you're having knee problems from squats, might be time to check your form and stop trying to make it as knee dominant as possible.

Spotted the curlbro

yes if you squat with perfect form which i guaranfuckingtee 99% of the uncoached meme victims who read a guide on the internet do not do consistently. leg curls do not place enough shear force to matter this is a buzzword constantly used to indoctrinate barbell meme victims. leg curls have been around forever and people aren't cropping up all over message boards herniating their discs and blowing out their knees from it likw barbell shitlifts

>yes there is sheer force. it is reduced by the strong leg muscles it produces and never mattered
non-engineer detected. nigga you dumb.

if he's in the nba he's placing absurs load on his knees everyday. did you see the gigantic ice packs on kobes knees after every game? i'm sure it was from all the leg curls.

Why are there posts about leg curls when the post title is literally "Squats or Leg extensions"?

(Although the scientific literature tends to find that leg curls are also not good for you because of similar reasons for leg extensions being not good for you but to a lesser extent, and that hamstring should be exercised WITH glute activation--so romanian or stiff legged deadlifts are better on the joints and ligaments)

>mechanical analysis shows leg extensions cause more shear stress on the knee
>but the shear force from squats will fuck u up bro im serios leg extensions wont though because broscience

that's exactly how it works. strengthening hams and quads reduces the opposing shear force from either dominant movement.

This was post injury when he wasn't playing basketball and was instead rehabbing the knee. The physio managed to make it worse, and knee extensions were included in the rehab

>i use hams in a leg extension
so you're dyel along with having no understanding of forces and moments. gotcha

training squats so you don't overload the knees is not that hard. you just need to "sit back" and make sure your knees point towards where your toes are pointing and don't track too far forward compared to your toes.

everyone i see at my gym that actually squats does them more or less correctly. the people who seem to snap their shit up are ego-lifting with bad form and shit ROM, or DYELs (who are also ego lifting when they should be practicing form with way less weight or just the bar).

when i talk to other people that lift, the lift that causes injuries most often (and that reoccur most often) is the bench press. almost everybody that benches complains about shoulder pain, and quite a few have injured their rotator cuffs

Why the fuck do you keep talking about leg curls?

Literally no one else is. The question was leg EXTENSIONS

i think the problem is these machine have you sit at a decline. i did leg curls/extensions from a flat surface and never felt it on my knee

Squats = Hospital.

Post legs dyel

Also
>Isolation>compound
>ever
Kill yourself my dude

I can't do legs extension cuz my left knee lost all the flexibility after that shit.

Help ;_;

>still on starting strength

A flat seat actually increases the shear. If you're sitting at an incline there will be less moment and some tension applied, and sitting at a decline results in less shear and more compression.

Sitting at a decline would increase the range of motion however, which may have had something to do with it.

The biggest factor imo is how far away you have the pad set. If you have it set as low down on your ankles as possible, there's more shear, and having it set higher up the shank results in less shear.

yes isolation is better than compound every single time

I don't understand, why can't one do both?

>mechanical analysis shows squatting can put pressure on the spine, causing slipped discs and other serious back and injuries
>Even with perfect form, unless you're using shoulder pads on a squat machine or leg pressing you're risking fucking your spine up for life
>Squatting has significantly more reported back injuries than deadlifting

Squatting does put compression on the spine (so do hack squat machines by the way, pads or not). However the spine is actually very good at tolerating loads SO LONG as the vertebrae are in their normal anatomical positions.

Compression forces on the spine are fine, which is why many lifters live a life relatively back pain free (I say relatively because back pain comes to us all). Compression forces on a spine in flexion or hyperextension (which is actually worse than flexion due to the facet joints being jammed together on the posterior of the vertebrae) are not fine.

Squatting has more injuries than deadlifting likely because since the deadlift has no eccentric, you can only load your spine if you can get the bar off the ground. However you can load up 2x your 1rm on squat and stand up with it, i.e. don't be retarded.