Do alternate techniques on the leg press make a difference?

When performing the leg press, does altering the technique make a difference [1]?

The answer is…possibly!  read below

Study:  The researchers sought to determine if adding an elastic band around the knees or squeezing a physioball increased muscle activity at submaximal loads (70% RM).  They took 13 female college students and had them perform 3 sets of 10 repetitions (70% RM) on the leg press from 0-45 degrees (about halfway down) using either a traditional leg press, a physioball iso-adduction leg press, or an elastic band iso-abduction leg press.

Results:  Using a physioball and performing isometric adduction in addition to the leg press increased muscle activity in the VMO and VL (vastus medius oblique and the vastus lateralis), which is the distal inside portion of the knee and the outer quad muscle.  Using an elastic band proximal to the knee helped to increase activation of the rectus femoris.

My thoughts: This article should be taken with a grain of salt, the study was performed on college aged females using sub-maximal efforts.  The fact that using an isometric adduction and isometric abduction during the leg press likely increased the difficulty of the exercise, and the authors failed to account for this during maximal testing.  They only tested the 10 RM in the traditional LP-45.  Realistically, the subjects may have been using a greater percentage of their RM during the iso-add/abd exercise.  A similar example would be comparing the regular bench press to the incline press, clearly you cannot use the same weight and therefore using the regular bench press rep max to determine your 70% rep max for the incline press would be asinine.  This is a more glaring example but nevertheless the % RM has been shown to be the largest influence on EMG activity (see here)[2].  Therefore, it is possible if the subjects were using a small increase of say, 73% RM of the iso-add, it may influence the EMG.   Nevertheless, I feel it could be useful for individuals requiring greater lower extremity stability, such as volleyball, soccer, and basketball players whom require large amounts of lower body stability (in fact most sports do).  We’ll continue to keep an eye on future research to corroborate these authors findings.

1.  Machado, Wallace, Gabriel Paz, Leonardo Mendes, Marianna Maia, Jason B. Winchester, Vicente Lima, Jeffrey M. Willardson, and Humberto Miranda. “Myoeletric Activity Of The Quadriceps During Leg Press Exercise Performed With Differing Techniques.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (2016): 1. JSCR.
2. Clark, Dave R., Mike I. Lambert, and Angus M. Hunter. “Muscle Activation in the Loaded Free Barbell Squat.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 26.4 (2012): 1169-178. Web.