is this just a garbage exercise? I try to skip leg press as much as possible because I always seem to fuck up my lower back on it. Yesterday I decided to do leg press, not a lot of weight and my lower back just went on fucking fire.... hurts pretty bad today and I'm thinking I got a back strain.

What do you think about leg press? How long does it take for this shit to heal? Like a week max?

I'm gonna go ahead and guess that you were lifting your back off of the pad on the leg press, or doing some weird shit that caused your lower back issue.
Healing time depends on the severity of the strain, but just take it easy for a while.

Leg press is a great exercise imo. Just don't do it incorrectly lol

most likely, this isnt the first time its happened... I know some people love leg press and hate it, i just wanted some opinions. I don't think its an exercise for me though... probably never going to use it again and just stick with squatting

its a good exercise, but in no way a substitute for squats. If your lower back is in pain, you are not doing it correctly.

I hate leg press even at 90lbs it hurts my back if i go.too low

My lower hurted a lot too, and it was bc id raise my back off the seat pad. I stooped and my back felt much better.

Not really a neccessary exercise so you won't miss much by not doing them

Plenty of squat variations to do; back squats, front squats, hack squats, box squats, one legged squats, then you have barbell lunges, db lunges, and isolation exercises like leg curls and leg extentions etc.

I don't really do leg press anymore, only when I'm doing calves, I push the machine with the top quarter part of my feet for a "calf press".

only downside is I have to stack like 400-500kg (1000lb +) on the machine to actually feel it doing 15-40 reps

This post was edited by MGS4BestGameEverMade on Dec 27 2014 12:52pm

Leg press is an awesome lift

not really a functional exercise, i dont do them because i dont find them very beneficial, squats are more than sufficient