Episode 262: The Top 21 Quad Exercises Ranked S to F Tier

0:00:11.7 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

0:00:12.3 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, Michael? You’re in an undisclosed location this week?

0:00:15.5 Mike Vacanti: No, disclosed. Las Vegas, Nevada. The MGM hotel.

0:00:19.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, wow.

0:00:20.0 Mike Vacanti: Yep. They have those rooms where if you don’t move during the night, the AC shuts off. So I woke up sweating at 4:30 this morning. Yeah. That was fun.

0:00:29.4 Jordan Syatt: I didn’t even know those rooms existed. I don’t like that.

0:00:31.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. They’re trying to save a buck. When you leave your room, the AC shuts off. Yeah.

0:00:36.6 Jordan Syatt: I don’t like that at all. All right. Not staying at the MGM anymore.

0:00:41.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah, man. How are you?

0:00:44.3 Jordan Syatt: I like the ARIA. The ARIA is nice.

0:00:46.5 Mike Vacanti: ARIA is nice.

0:00:47.2 Jordan Syatt: And The Cosmopolitan. Yeah.

0:00:48.5 Mike Vacanti: When I’m traveling with Gary, I just pick the cheapest that is reasonable hotel is kind of the way that I’ve done things over the years.

0:00:59.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I didn’t do that when I was coaching Gary. I was like, “Oh, you’re staying here?”

0:01:04.3 Mike Vacanti: You did it fine.

0:01:05.6 Jordan Syatt: I did it early on until I saw D-Rock staying at the same hotel Gary was at. And I was like, Oh, we can do that?

0:01:13.2 Mike Vacanti: And then didn’t D-Rock… Weren’t there repercussions for that? Not repercussions, but didn’t D-Rock have to stop doing that?

0:01:20.4 Jordan Syatt: I don’t remember.

0:01:21.2 Mike Vacanti: Oh, I thought there was more to that story.

0:01:23.0 Jordan Syatt: No. In my brain, there might be more, but my brain just shuts off at being like, “Oh, D-Rock stays here? Oh, cool. All right. Me too.”

0:01:30.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. You walked into a hotel in LA to coach Gary and D-Rock was eating this five-star breakfast and you’re like, “What are you doing?” He’s like, “I’m staying here.”

0:01:38.5 Jordan Syatt: I was like, “Dude, how did you get the breakfast?” And he was like, “I’m staying here.” I’m like, shut the… I’m staying at this grimy-ass motel in LA. And I was like, never again.

0:01:48.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. You don’t have to do that.

0:01:50.3 Jordan Syatt: That’s what you told me early on. You were like, yeah, you stay at these… You don’t spend a lot of money. I was like, okay, I’ll just go to the low, really like $57 a night.

0:02:03.3 Mike Vacanti: That’s how I did it early on too. But no, now it’s like there’s a certain baseline of hotel that’s reasonable.

0:02:11.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:02:12.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Dude, I have something for you.

0:02:14.7 Jordan Syatt: You’ve been holding onto this for a couple days. I can’t wait.

0:02:17.7 Mike Vacanti: Do you remember one morning or one podcast when you were like… I think it was your hip flexors that were bothering you, and you were like, ugh, do you ever go in your daughter’s crib and lay in there with her, and you’re scrunched up, so your knees are up because the crib is kind of small, and you’re in that position for a long time, and you’re like, my back, my hip flexors from doing that?

0:02:41.0 Jordan Syatt: I don’t remember the conversation, but I remember doing that for a long time and just being wrecked from it.

0:02:46.7 Mike Vacanti: And do you remember asking me, “Hey, do you ever go in your daughter’s crib?” And I was like, “No.” It was like, why would… I was like, “I don’t go in her crib.”

0:02:54.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It also makes sense because your daughter was so much younger. That makes sense. Yeah.

0:02:58.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Well, two, no, three nights ago, I was in my daughter’s crib for most of the night on and off.

0:03:08.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh man.

0:03:09.5 Mike Vacanti: And the next day, my back and my hips were wrecked. Wrecked. Yeah.

0:03:19.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, dude. It’s brutal. I remember one time I tried to lie on my back and then put my feet up on the top of the crib so my legs were straight, and I dozed off for a little bit. But then you’ve got gravity pushing down on your knees and your legs are straight. And I remember being like… I felt like I had hyperextended both of my knees. I was like, “Oh, God, this isn’t good either.”

0:03:44.5 Mike Vacanti: You don’t want to fall asleep in that position.

0:03:46.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh man. How do you feel? Do you feel better now?

0:03:48.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:03:49.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You curled up like a little baby inside the womb. You’re just like…

0:03:54.8 Mike Vacanti: That’s right. That’s exactly what was going on. Yeah. I tried to put her down seven times, and she just wasn’t going down.

0:04:05.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh man.

0:04:05.6 Mike Vacanti: And so eventually I’m like, “All right. I guess I’m going in this thing with you. Let’s see how this works.”

0:04:10.4 Jordan Syatt: She went to bed when you did that?

0:04:11.7 Mike Vacanti: No. It was her worst… I mean, yes, but then when I try and get out and it makes the slightest creak, and then she stirs, and then she cries, and then I lay down and start the process over. I was up basically the whole night.

0:04:25.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, dude, I’m sorry. That’s not fun.

0:04:28.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:04:29.6 Jordan Syatt: I know that trying to finagle the crib so there’s no creaking, putting both hands on the side, slowly getting yourself up so the mattress doesn’t move at all.

0:04:39.2 Mike Vacanti: No, not even both… I was going for both corners to distribute the weight as effectively as possible, and then both feet too. So I’m like, all right, I’m displacing my weight in four different places. And then when you move one, the other three absorb it. It’s like, creak. And then I wait a few seconds to see if she… Because it’s pitch black, I can’t see. Yeah, rough. That eight to ten-month sleep regression.

0:05:02.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh man. I’m sorry, dude. That’s not fun. She’s sleeping better now or no?

0:05:06.6 Mike Vacanti: I mean, no. Better than that night, but no, it’s been a rough seven to ten days.

0:05:13.8 Jordan Syatt: Sleep deprivation is real. It’s a real torture.

0:05:16.0 Mike Vacanti: It really is. It is a real torture indeed.

0:05:19.1 Jordan Syatt: They have peptides that help with just energy.

0:05:22.8 Mike Vacanti: Probably.

0:05:23.5 Jordan Syatt: They’ve got it, right?

0:05:24.5 Mike Vacanti: I’m not the peptide connoisseur. Oh, you know what?

0:05:27.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. The first thing that came up when I said, do any peptides help with… The first thing was acne. Let’s see. MOTS-c. I really need to learn more about peptides, dude. These are… I’m constantly getting questions about them and I don’t know anything about them.

0:05:45.4 Mike Vacanti: Isn’t that kind of because most people don’t know anything about them because they’ve been around for like eight seconds and there’s no even medium-term trials and most of the peptide use is non-FDA approved peptides and people are just, wonderful results in the short term, unknown long term. Isn’t that… Not all. I’m making a blanket statement obviously.

0:06:07.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, there are some that are FDA approved. I mean, listen, I don’t even know. I don’t even know how many… I know tesamorelin is FDA approved. That’s the only one that I really know about.

0:06:18.9 Mike Vacanti: For HIV?

0:06:19.7 Jordan Syatt: For HIV. Yeah. For belly fat and then muscle growth. That’s the only one that I know of.

0:06:27.8 Mike Vacanti: Well, those are the benefits why fitness people use it. Is that why it’s FDA approved for HIV?

0:06:33.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It’s specifically FDA approved, I believe, for belly fat. For lower belly fat in HIV patients.

0:06:45.6 Mike Vacanti: Do HIV patients have excess belly…. Like what is the benefit there?

0:06:52.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. So, tesamorelin, marketed as Egrifta SV and Egrifta WR…

0:06:58.9 Mike Vacanti: Is this Grok? I want to know which…

0:07:00.6 Jordan Syatt: No, this is just Google. Is FDA approved specifically to reduce excess visceral abdominal fat in adults with HIV-associated lipodystrophy. It is a synthetic growth hormone-releasing GHRH analog that stimulates the pituitary gland to release growth hormone, thereby reducing deep belly fat.

0:07:20.6 Mike Vacanti: Deep belly fat. Okay.

0:07:22.9 Jordan Syatt: Clinical studies show it can reduce visceral adipose tissue by 15% to 17% over 26 weeks.

0:07:29.9 Mike Vacanti: I think the peptide for short-term sleep deprivation from parenthood is napping. I think that’s the play. Like a little 20, 30-minute afternoon power nap.

0:07:41.1 Jordan Syatt: If I could take a pill, a nap pill, that just gave me all the benefits of the nap without needing to take a nap, you know what I mean?

0:07:48.5 Mike Vacanti: I’m on the other side of history on that one. We’ll see how…

0:07:54.4 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know if it exists yet. I’m saying, I would take that pill.

0:07:58.4 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know that that pill will ever come out. I think just doing the nap works. You can just lay down and take the nap.

0:08:04.4 Jordan Syatt: I guess.

0:08:05.2 Mike Vacanti: You’re not a napper.

0:08:06.2 Jordan Syatt: I’m not really a napper. I’m a napper on vacation. If I go on vacation and it’s just super nice outside, and we’re at the beach, I’ll nap on the beach. Or even in the hotel room, leave the windows open, get a nice little nap in. But not on a day-to-day.

0:08:23.1 Mike Vacanti: No, not day-to-day. But if you slept three hours one night and you were just dragging the next day, you could just take a little 20-minute power nap when you’re sleep-deprived and go straight into REM.

0:08:33.3 Jordan Syatt: No, if I’m napping, it’s gonna be like a three-hour nap. I’m not gonna take a 20-minute nap.

0:08:37.5 Mike Vacanti: I mean, one, that just eats up such a huge chunk of the day. Two, waking up from a three-hour nap, I don’t know where I am or what year it is when that happens.

0:08:46.1 Jordan Syatt: 20-minute naps just infuriate me. I’m like, if I want to lay down and sleep, I want to sleep. I don’t want 20 minutes.

0:08:54.3 Mike Vacanti: You feel good waking up from a three-hour nap?

0:08:56.6 Jordan Syatt: I feel better waking up from a three-hour nap than I do a 20-minute nap. That’s for sure.

0:09:00.5 Mike Vacanti: Interesting. You got a good sample size of 20-minute naps?

0:09:03.8 Jordan Syatt: It’s not ever deliberate. It’s not like I’ll set my alarm and be like, “Hey, I’m gonna wake up in 20 minutes,” because then it’s just a countdown. As soon as I would set my alarm, it’s 19:59, 19:58. And then it gets to 12 minutes, then it’s really just a 12-minute nap. And it’s just, what was the point of that?

0:09:19.9 Mike Vacanti: I would set my alarm for 20 plus the number of minutes it’s gonna take me to fall asleep. But yeah, to each their own. We’ll see if the nap pill peptide ever comes out. Today, we are reviewing S-tier to F-tier. Do you wanna guess?

0:09:39.3 Jordan Syatt: I’m praying it’s not calves.

0:09:41.5 Mike Vacanti: We’re not doing calves.

0:09:44.1 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Good.

0:09:44.7 Mike Vacanti: There will be no calves or forearms episode. That was a joke.

0:09:46.1 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Okay. Good.

0:09:46.8 Mike Vacanti: Unless there’s real audience demand for it, in which case I could be persuaded.

0:09:51.7 Jordan Syatt: I’d be okay with grip. Like, grip stuff. But you know what YouTube rabbit hole, I’ve been down? If I open my YouTube right now, my shorts… Do you know who Devon Larratt is?

0:10:05.7 Mike Vacanti: Sure do. He’s a world champion arm wrestler. Guy is a beast.

0:10:09.2 Jordan Syatt: They are the best shorts on YouTube. That’s all that comes up is Devon Larratt arm wrestling training videos, competition videos. Just obsessed with it.

0:10:19.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. He’s an animal.

0:10:20.8 Jordan Syatt: He’s a beast, dude. It’s incredible.

0:10:22.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. Did you guess? Do you have a guess?

0:10:28.8 Jordan Syatt: Is it abs?

0:10:29.7 Mike Vacanti: We did abs.

0:10:30.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, we did abs. Is it hamstrings?

0:10:33.9 Mike Vacanti: Close.

0:10:34.7 Jordan Syatt: Quads.

0:10:35.5 Mike Vacanti: Quads. We are reviewing the top 24 quad exercises for strength, muscle growth, coolness factor, functionality, personal enjoyment, ability to program for whatever population, nostalgia. Infinite criteria over here.

0:10:57.7 Jordan Syatt: Nostalgia is a big part of it too.

0:10:59.3 Mike Vacanti: Huge part of it. We’re trying to bring the year 2002 back to the present. How’s your short-form scrolling, speaking of?

0:11:09.1 Jordan Syatt: Not the best, but it’s not the worst at all. I’m pretty good about just not opening Instagram. Just not being on there at all. If I open it, I’ll end up down a rabbit hole. But also like, yeah, it’s not the best, not the worst, but it’s definitely way better than it’s been historically.

0:11:30.3 Mike Vacanti: Good. That’s great. All right. We’re diving in. High bar back squat.

0:11:40.0 Jordan Syatt: It’s a really interesting one to start with.

0:11:40.6 Mike Vacanti: It’s the order that my AI gave me.

0:11:43.4 Jordan Syatt: No, no. I’m not saying interesting that you put it there. I’m saying just it’s an interesting one to kick off the whole list with. I mean, part of me feels like it would be a massive disservice to not give it S tier. Like that classic bodybuilder, powerlifter, it’s so good. The arguments against it would be is that, it targets so much more, it’s a little bit more complex, the technique involvement. But I feel like a barbell back squat, and never mind the high bar, but in general, it’s a really important movement to learn. I’m gonna give it an S tier. I feel like a high bar barbell back squat, S tier quad exercise.

0:12:33.9 Mike Vacanti: S tier. Couldn’t agree more. And just because an exercise is S tier, just because we give it S tier, doesn’t mean everyone has to do it or everyone should do it or that you have to do it consistently in every training phase throughout the entire year. But it is an awesome way to build strength and muscle in your quads. And like you said, it is more complex, so it takes more time to learn. You’re training more than just the quads, but it’s a phenomenal classic exercise.

0:13:03.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And I would say you definitely don’t have to do it. And I don’t barbell back squat, especially at this point in my life, I don’t do it all the time. But it is a really great goal to shoot for. It’s like when you’re getting in the gym, I know a lot of people don’t do barbell stuff because they’re nervous, because it is more intimidating and all of that. But that’s one of the best parts about the gym is working your way up to more advanced and advanced and advanced progressions and overcoming that fear. And loading it is so much easier than just a goblet squat or just standard kettlebell squats, which are all fantastic and I use them all the time. But in terms of your own development as a lifter, building up to a barbell back squat is a really great skill to develop.

0:13:53.8 Mike Vacanti: Couldn’t agree more. I would say it’s analogous. Analogous?

0:13:59.3 Jordan Syatt: Analogous. Yeah.

0:14:00.3 Mike Vacanti: To saying not everyone needs to track their nutrition. It’s like, correct. But the population who really doesn’t need to track their nutrition is the population who has done that for a long time and earned the right and the skills and the ability to not have to track. Similarly, I don’t want you avoiding the barbell back squat because you’re new to lifting and you’re afraid of the move. But if you have mastered the move, if you have spent a lot of time doing the exercise and you’re later in your training career and you just don’t prefer it and there are other lower body exercises you like more that you’d rather hit, cool. That’s awesome. But yeah, like you said, don’t avoid barbells in general because they’re scary or intimidating.

0:14:44.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:14:45.7 Mike Vacanti: Front squat. Barbell front squat.

0:14:50.8 Jordan Syatt: I want to go S tier again. It’s so good. I’m giving it an S tier.

0:14:57.7 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely.

0:14:58.5 Jordan Syatt: You know what’s funny? I rarely program them in the Inner Circle and even with one-on-one clients, I would rarely program them just because really the only people who enjoy them are higher-level lifters, in my experience. People who… When you’re just starting out, they’re wildly uncomfortable. And even when you’re not just starting out, they’re still uncomfortable but oftentimes the discomfort will just not… People aren’t gonna want to do it. They’re like, “This is so uncomfortable that I have no interest in this whatsoever.” And then also weakness in the upper back and/or mobility issues will often prevent them from being able to hold it properly and load it properly. But again, it’s an S tier exercise. It’s amazing.

0:15:48.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I agree. You’re even more upright on a front squat than you are on a barbell back squat. So theoretically and in practice, you’re targeting the quads even more. The limitations you mentioned are real for a lot of people: mobility and upper back strength. And so if you have mobility issues, you can do a cross-arm bodybuilder style. You can not keep one finger on the bar instead of multiple fingers. You can work on your mobility. There are so many good squatting patterns and exercises in general that target the quads that, like you said, I’m rarely programming it for one-on-one coaching clients. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a fantastic exercise.

0:16:38.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:16:39.8 Mike Vacanti: And if someone has an interest or desire in mastering that movement, I get excited. That’s fun for me. But I’m not going to just thrust it upon someone because there are so many other good options.

0:16:52.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Agreed.

0:16:53.6 Mike Vacanti: Low bar back squat.

0:16:56.6 Jordan Syatt: A low bar back squat, I would say C.

0:17:00.3 Mike Vacanti: Wow. Okay.

0:17:03.4 Jordan Syatt: And maybe this is my powerlifting bias, but when I see people taking a low bar, low bar, it’s such a hip-dominant exercise. Obviously quads are involved, but they’re not getting stretched that much. It’s way more glute. It’s just not the greatest quad exercise. So if someone’s like, “Hey, I really want to focus on my quads specifically,” there is no world in which I’m having them low bar back squat.

0:17:39.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That’s true. That’s true. I would say the lower… Because it’s kind of a continuum, high bar and low bar. It’s not just two fixed positions. The lower you are on your back, the less effective it is for your quads. I’m trying to think about comparing an exercise that doesn’t hit the quads as effectively, like this one, but that you can load really well compared to something that hits the quads more directly but that you can’t load as effectively.

0:18:16.5 Jordan Syatt: Like a sissy squat?

0:18:17.8 Mike Vacanti: No. I’m thinking of worse exercises because I really like a sissy squat.

0:18:21.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, okay. I love a sissy squat. Yeah.

0:18:23.6 Mike Vacanti: I’m thinking more even like a bodyweight squat or like a wall sit. Like movements where you might be hitting the quads more directly than you are because, like you said, low bar back squat is hitting so much more glute and hamstring. Between B and C, I’m gonna go B. But like you said, especially with certain femur-to-torso ratios, you’ll see people heavy low bar back squatting where it’s more than a good morning. They’re basically parallel to the ground at the bottom of each rep.

0:19:00.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. That’s where my bias is going. I’ve seen the lowest of the lowest of the lowest low bar back squats that are just all hip and no quad whatsoever. That’s where my brain is going. So, yeah.

0:19:11.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That makes sense.

0:19:13.8 Jordan Syatt: Like the bar is beneath their shoulder blades and it’s a couple inches away from their hip. It’s like, yeah, okay, you have to bend over.

0:19:24.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yep. Hack squat. This says barbell or machine. I think we should just review the machine. Do you program the barbell hack squat?

0:19:35.8 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think I’ve literally ever programmed it once. I do love the machine hack squat and I also enjoy the barbell hack squat as a like fun lift, as like a skill in and of itself. If someone said, “Hey, I really want to do this,” and they’re a higher-level lifter, yeah, for sure, let’s do it. I have no problem with that. But I don’t think I’ve ever programmed a barbell hack squat once in my life because no one’s coming to me saying, “Hey, I want to do this,” and I would never just give that out as an exercise to give to a random person.

0:20:14.7 Mike Vacanti: Right.

0:20:16.4 Jordan Syatt: I think the machine hack squat is S tier. It’s an incredible, incredible piece of equipment. It’s an amazing… And the cool thing is you can manipulate based on your foot position as well, whether it’s quad-dominant or whatever. I love the hack squat.

0:20:34.4 Mike Vacanti: I’m with you. Another S tier move. Yeah. I had a phase where I was programming the barbell hack squat.

0:20:43.2 Jordan Syatt: Really? Was this like 2014?

0:20:45.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yep. That’s exactly right.

0:20:47.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. That’s when… Yeah, that makes sense.

0:20:49.2 Mike Vacanti: What? It peaked in popularity there or had a moment and…

0:20:53.2 Jordan Syatt: There were people in our circle who were posting a lot of videos doing it.

0:20:59.2 Mike Vacanti: The coolness factor.

0:21:00.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:21:01.4 Mike Vacanti: And obviously not for every lifter. You have to have a certain degree of strength and…

0:21:09.6 Jordan Syatt: Mobility.

0:21:10.7 Mike Vacanti: Mobility. Ability to learn the skill.

0:21:13.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Also a desire to learn a skill that is… Lifting can be uncomfortable enough and that is awkward enough to where it’s like, enough people like, “Hey, what the fuck am I doing, dude?” Like, “Why are you having me do this?” It’s awkward enough to be in here in the gym learning these movements. Why are you giving me this? And if someone loves the gym and they love learning new things, great. Absolutely. But if I have someone, “I’ve got 40 minutes and I really am not even a fan of this to begin with,” there’s no way.

0:21:51.4 Mike Vacanti: What are we doing here? With so many good alternatives. And then based on people’s anatomy, I don’t know if it’s more limb length or size of glutes driven, like sometimes the glutes get in the way and it’s just awkward for a lot of people.

0:22:06.2 Jordan Syatt: If they’ve got a BBL, good luck, dude.

0:22:08.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. You don’t want to pop that BBL with the bar. That’d be disastrous.

0:22:13.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:22:13.8 Mike Vacanti: Pendulum squat.

0:22:15.1 Jordan Syatt: Oh man. Have you used one of these?

0:22:16.9 Mike Vacanti: I have not, and I really want to.

0:22:18.9 Jordan Syatt: Dude, they’re amazing.

0:22:19.7 Mike Vacanti: They look incredible.

0:22:20.8 Jordan Syatt: They’re amazing. It’s an S tier because, again, you can manipulate foot position as well. Pendulum squats are sick.

0:22:28.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Amazing ability to target the quads, less low back stress. Less complex than a barbell back squat.

0:22:38.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:22:38.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. They look awesome.

0:22:39.8 Jordan Syatt: Louie had developed, I think he has the patent for it, he had a pendulum squat, but he also had one specifically for plyos where you could use it to do plyos on and jump on it, and oh my gosh, it was one of the coolest pieces of equipment I’ve ever used in my life. Granted, yeah, you could just jump as well, but it was nice because you could load your jumps on this thing. It was really, really cool.

0:23:06.7 Mike Vacanti: That’s cool. Did that ever get to market or was that just a one-off thing? Yeah, he sold them too.

0:23:10.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah. I’m pretty sure like Westside Barbell gyms, because they have a Westside Barbell gym certification where it’s like, you are certified as a Westside Barbell gym, you have all the equipment X, Y, Z. So I’m pretty sure that he did sell that as well.

0:23:23.6 Mike Vacanti: Cool.

0:23:24.2 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:23:25.1 Mike Vacanti: 45 degree leg press.

0:23:27.1 Jordan Syatt: S tier.

0:23:27.8 Mike Vacanti: Uh-huh.

0:23:28.5 Jordan Syatt: If you had said the… There are leg presses that are just flat that are more like…

0:23:33.8 Mike Vacanti: It’s coming.

0:23:34.8 Jordan Syatt: I don’t really like them.

0:23:36.9 Mike Vacanti: You’ll get to talk about that in one exercise.

0:23:40.1 Jordan Syatt: Got it. Okay. Yeah. I think the 45 degree one that you can load up super, super, super heavy, I love it.

0:23:48.7 Mike Vacanti: Remember the phase when some people were saying that you can’t manipulate the quad activation by changing your foot position on movements like the leg press?

0:23:59.7 Jordan Syatt: Dude, infuriating.

0:24:00.7 Mike Vacanti: Do people still say that or was that just another…

0:24:03.1 Jordan Syatt: Yes.

0:24:04.2 Mike Vacanti: They do.

0:24:04.8 Jordan Syatt: Yep. Yep, they do.

0:24:05.3 Mike Vacanti: Are they citing EMG stuff?

0:24:07.8 Jordan Syatt: I think they’re citing EMG stuff, which is always funny because they’re also the first people to critique EMG stuff and say, “Well, we can’t trust that.” I’m like, it’s just common sense, dude. You change your foot position, it’s gonna… Try it.

0:24:21.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. But yes, a little bit of a lower, little bit closer stance leg press. I mean, whatever feels comfortable, really. The leg press in general is an amazing exercise. I know that some people can have low back discomfort on this one, and you can play with foot position, which can help with that. You can also go with the leg press that you don’t like as much, which is the… What is it even called? Horizontal leg press. So we can move on to that one. Let’s do horizontal leg press, and let’s assume that you have as much range of motion at the bottom of each rep as you like, because…

0:25:05.7 Jordan Syatt: That’s important.

0:25:05.9 Mike Vacanti: The one thing I don’t like about this machine usually is that I’m not getting a big enough range.

0:25:12.6 Jordan Syatt: And you’re taller than I am, so it should be even easier for you. For me, it’s an eighth squat. It’s horrible. Assuming they build one that you can get a full range, then I would say it’s an S tier. But I’ve never found one that gave… Out of all of the ones I’ve tried all over the world, I’ve not found a single one that gives me a full range of motion. And so I was gonna give it a B, but if someone develops one that gives a 5’4″ four dude full range, yeah, I’d give that an S tier.

0:25:50.2 Mike Vacanti: Is that your only criticism of… That’s the only reason you don’t like it, or are there other reasons that you like the 45 degree more?

0:25:57.8 Jordan Syatt: You know what? I would probably love the horizontal one potentially even more than the 45 degree one if it gave a full range. The 45 degree one, the main issue is the lower back issues that a lot of people with like… I personally don’t have any issues with the 45 degree, but I know a lot of people with that tail tucking underneath and that flexion at the bottom. Some people get some real pain. I know some people who’ve blown some discs doing it.

0:26:24.5 Mike Vacanti: Really?

0:26:25.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. The horizontal one is much more similar to a hack squat machine, which I really like. I would probably like it more if they got a full range on it.

0:26:35.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I’m the exact same. If you can get a full range, and again, depends on your height, depends on how deep you can squat or want to squat, but I’m going S tier on the horizontal leg press too. Our S tier is getting quite crowded.

0:26:53.0 Jordan Syatt: These are all just such good exercises. Except for the low bar back squat for quads. It’s a great exercise in general, but not for the quads.

0:27:00.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Smith machine squat.

0:27:03.0 Jordan Syatt: Dude! S tier. That’s my favorite squat variation right now.

0:27:08.0 Mike Vacanti: And it would be high bar, we assume?

0:27:11.8 Jordan Syatt: High bar, ridiculously close stance. Man, I’ll show you. I’ve been doing it a lot lately. I’ve got a video. I’ll find it. I absolutely love the Smith machine close stance high bar squat. It’s amazing. It’s not just amazing for quads, I mean, just like any higher bar close stance squat, it’s also great for ankle mobility. It’s a great display of these other things. I will sit in the bottom of this high bar, close stance Smith machine squat just to also get a little bit of extra for my ankle mobility. I’m doing this once a week right now. Here, check this out. Look. I’ll sit in the bottom. High bar, ridiculously close stance. Probably a closer stance than you could get in a normal barbell back squat without risking a loss of balance.

0:28:13.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, you don’t have to worry about balance on there. Yeah. Yep.

0:28:15.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I love it. It’s an S tier.

0:28:18.2 Mike Vacanti: I bet that feels great.

0:28:19.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Love it.

0:28:20.3 Mike Vacanti: That’s just ankles for you. That doesn’t do anything for your hips. You’re so loosey-goosey after years of…

0:28:25.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I don’t notice it in my hips at all.

0:28:27.6 Mike Vacanti: Just squat A to G without even feeling your hips. That’s where you’re at, huh?

0:28:31.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It’s more ankles for me.

0:28:33.1 Mike Vacanti: You do that Jean-Claude Van Damme yet?

0:28:35.1 Jordan Syatt: No, dude. I tweaked my hamstring.

0:28:37.4 Mike Vacanti: Oh, yeah. I thought that was more of a scare and you were okay.

0:28:42.3 Jordan Syatt: No, it was a scare in that I thought that I ripped it off the bone, but I still feel it. And I was talking to my coach about it, and I think it’s the tendon that attaches to the hip, the proximal hamstring tendon. Because tendons are a little bit slower to heal, they don’t get as much blood flow, and it’s nagging. It’s really nagging.

0:29:11.4 Mike Vacanti: Oh man.

0:29:11.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Not fun.

0:29:12.2 Mike Vacanti: That sucks.

0:29:13.2 Jordan Syatt: But it’s cool because every time I have…

0:29:16.1 Mike Vacanti: What about a little BPC for that? Or not necessary?

0:29:19.6 Jordan Syatt: It’s a great idea. Maybe I’ll get it. I honestly didn’t even think about it. I should. Maybe I’ll try and get some. But every time I injure myself, it gives me an opportunity to focus on other areas. And so I’m taking this time to do some things that I wasn’t doing before that hopefully by the time I’m healed, I’ll be better off for it. But yeah, it’s strained right now pretty bad.

0:29:46.6 Mike Vacanti: I mean, that’s the mindset and approach to take with any injury, right?

0:29:51.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:29:51.7 Mike Vacanti: It’s like, don’t just skip training and lay around and do nothing. Get better at what you can get better at so that you come back in the best position possible.

0:29:59.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Exactly.

0:30:01.1 Mike Vacanti: Bulgarian split squat.

0:30:02.8 Jordan Syatt: S tier, dude.

0:30:03.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:30:05.1 Jordan Syatt: What’s your favorite? You could do barbell back-loaded, you could do barbell front-loaded, you could do barbell Zercher, you could do dumbbells, you could do… What’s your favorite Bulgarian split squat way to load it?

0:30:20.8 Mike Vacanti: Did you just ask me if barbell Zercher was my favorite way to load the Bulgarian split squat?

0:30:25.4 Jordan Syatt: I just gave it as an option. Just an option.

0:30:28.8 Mike Vacanti: I am a classic dumbbells in both hands.

0:30:35.7 Jordan Syatt: Unilateral? Oh, both hands. Okay.

0:30:36.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I love the unilateral. It’s just that I need more weight than that.

0:30:42.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I get it. You’re strong as shit.

0:30:44.9 Mike Vacanti: That wasn’t… It was a statement of fact, not an attempted brag. So what I was gonna say about the Bulgarian split squat that leads into this is, you can manipulate how much quad activation you have based on how far your front foot is away from the bench as well as your upper body position. Vertical versus more leaning forward. Vertical being more quad dominant. I feel best making this movement more glute dominant, which isn’t to say it’s all glute, it’s just more glute relative to quad. And doing that barbell back… I mean, you can’t do that barbell front-loaded. You can’t even do that with a goblet hold. Doing that barbell back-loaded just places unnecessary strain on my low back that I don’t feel if I’m holding dumbbells. If I got to a point where grip was the limiting factor and I wanted to continue to progress in strength, I would probably do barbell back-loaded. Maybe like a safety squat bar. I think that would feel really good actually.

0:31:59.5 Jordan Syatt: Maybe a Smith machine?

0:32:01.1 Mike Vacanti: But classic dumbbells. Yeah. I actually haven’t tried barbell back-loaded on a Smith machine. I’m trying to think of what that bar path would look like on my Bulgarian split squat. That might be worth trying.

0:32:14.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:32:15.7 Mike Vacanti: What’s your favorite variation?

0:32:17.2 Jordan Syatt: I’m gonna say for me, not for clients. Well, I’ll start, for clients, just standard either dumbbell in each hand or one dumbbell in the contralateral hand. For me personally, if I’m gonna do my all-time favorite, it’s just barbell. Barbell back-loaded, high bar. And I go typically a little bit more close to quad because I’m more upright. So I bring my foot a little bit closer in, which I was thinking as you were saying, I was like, yeah, if I was doing more glute-focused, then I probably wouldn’t like the barbell as much because I’m leaning forward more. Yeah. So if I’m more upright with what I typically do, the barbell back-loaded is… I love that one.

0:33:01.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That actually sounds nice with the foot in a little closer. I mean, upright torso just feels better. You’re training your erectors more if you’re leaning forward with the barbell on your back, which is cool if you want to train your spinal erectors more, but if you don’t and you’re trying to target your quads, doesn’t make as much sense. Yeah. Good classic exercise.

0:33:25.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:33:26.5 Mike Vacanti: Walking lunge or forward lunge?

0:33:32.6 Jordan Syatt: This is really tough because I want to give it an S tier. I’m gonna give it an S tier. It’s so good. It’s such a great quad exercise. It’s amazing.

0:33:44.0 Mike Vacanti: What makes you want to put it below a Bulgarian split squat, for example?

0:33:48.6 Jordan Syatt: Mainly just the potential struggles with balance. Sometimes the convenience of it, especially if you’re doing walking, you need a lot of space for it. But it’s so good, it’s so effective. And sort of like with the horizontal leg press, we’re gonna assume the best. I’m just assuming you’ve got a clear space ahead of you, turf or whatever you can do this on. No one is obstructing you, no one is walking in front of you, and assuming you’re not falling off balance like crazy, it’s just such an amazing exercise. Again, you can manipulate it through the length of your stride, but it’s incredible. And again, I know we’re talking about quad, but it’s so good for knee health, it’s so good for teaching deceleration. It’s an amazing exercise.

0:34:38.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. S tier. I don’t even have anything to add. That was well covered. Do you have a variation you like in terms of barbell, dumbbell?

0:34:49.9 Jordan Syatt: For this one, I’m gonna go with just holding on to dumbbells or kettlebells by my side. I like the barbell, but then when you gotta turn around, it’s just goes…

0:34:58.7 Mike Vacanti: Crack. Someone in the face.

0:35:04.7 Jordan Syatt: It’s a little bit clunky.

0:35:05.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Reverse lunge.

0:35:08.0 Jordan Syatt: Reverse lunge, I’m gonna go A tier. Reverse lunge I’ve typically found is better for glute. A is still an amazing exercise, but quad-specific, I’m gonna go A tier. You’re using a lot of quad, but it is typically more glute-focused. It’s harder to get more knee dominance in there with that reverse lunge. So, yeah. A tier, amazing exercise, but we have enough in the S tier.

0:35:30.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. It’s definitely a step below walking lunges and forward lunges in terms of quad activation. It’s actually my favorite lunge variation of these three in terms of what I personally enjoy, but it absolutely targets the quad less. And yeah, A tier. We’re in sync today. Step up.

0:35:53.2 Jordan Syatt: Man, this is a tough one. I’m gonna give it an A tier.

0:35:58.4 Mike Vacanti: Paint us a picture of the variation or are you just grading it in general?

0:36:03.0 Jordan Syatt: I’m just grading it in general. I know you could do a low box step up, more of a moderate, more of a high box. It’s a great exercise and it can and it does target the quads really well. I’ve found that in practice, in order to… Most people will push a lot off that back leg. And if you’re not pushing a lot off that back leg, it’s difficult to load it heavy enough to really get just a lot of quad. I think most people end up using more glute. Most people often don’t have the ankle mobility to really lean forward into it and just really isolate the quad. I think most people will either end up using more glute there. And just in practice, most people are gonna be pushing off the back leg, which essentially takes a lot of the load off at the bottom of the movement. And then never mind the control down, which a lot of people botch as well. So it’s an A tier exercise. I think it’s really good and it has so many benefits, but specifically for quads, I’m gonna give it an A.

0:37:11.8 Mike Vacanti: I think it’s probably between A and B. I think it’s an A exercise if you’re trying to target the quads doing it. If you are doing a lateral, higher step, forward lean, and biasing more glute, it’s gonna be a little bit lower. But I think for the reasons you mentioned, it probably caps out at an A even with proper technique, which is rare. Almost no one is controlling the eccentric to the bottom of the range and almost everyone is pushing off of that back foot to a degree. It’s also so uncommon to see as a main lower body movement programmed early in the workout. So if you’re doing this as your third or your fourth lower body exercise of the day, you’re already fatigued, you don’t have someone watching every rep that you’re doing, you’re just more likely to cheat a little bit with the non-working leg. Great for balance and an exercise that I program a bunch.

0:38:21.8 Jordan Syatt: All the time.

0:38:23.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. But a step below that top level.

0:38:25.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I really like this just as a general health exercise and general lower body strength overall, especially as people get older, it’s a really important skill to have. But specific to quad growth and strength, it’s not on the same level as the other exercises in S tier.

0:38:45.4 Mike Vacanti: Leg extension.

0:38:45.8 Jordan Syatt: S tier, bro.

0:38:46.9 Mike Vacanti: Wow. Let’s go.

0:38:48.7 Jordan Syatt: S tier.

0:38:48.9 Mike Vacanti: You’ve changed your tune, and I know we’re reviewing quads and obviously this is the quad machine, but I feel like you used to not like this exercise as much and now you don’t hate it as much as you used to.

0:39:05.2 Jordan Syatt: No, personally… Listen, I have a leg extension machine in my gym. It’s an amazing piece of equipment. It’s an incredible quad exercise. You can also manipulate it for hip flexor stuff as well. I love the effectiveness of it. I hate the pain of it. The quad burn from that machine it’s the worst. I hate the exercise because of how much it hurts, but I do it every week because it’s so effective.

0:39:38.5 Mike Vacanti: Wow. How long since you got the machine? You’ve been doing it every week?

0:39:41.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, dude.

0:39:42.5 Mike Vacanti: What was your frequency of doing that movement before you got the machine?

0:39:46.1 Jordan Syatt: Very rare. Because the only time I would do it would be if I was at a gym that had it. The gym that I worked out in my apartment didn’t have it. And before that apartment, I was in New York, and any of the gyms that I went to, it was mostly Structure. They didn’t have it. And if I was going to like a New York Sports Club or something, I probably wasn’t doing it. So, yeah. I mean, almost never.

0:40:16.3 Mike Vacanti: In your powerlifting days, did you do any of these?

0:40:21.1 Jordan Syatt: No, dude. It was actually… It’s one of my biggest regrets about my lifting career is I love Lu with all my heart and he completely changed the entire industry in so many ways. Louie really did not emphasize quads much at all because he was so focused on geared powerlifting. And then you go to people like Eric Cressey and that whole crowd, they were vehemently against the leg extension machine. Would write whole articles about it. And so my whole upbringing was around people saying this machine, there’s too much torque at the knee, da da da da, shear forces, whatever. That was the crowd that I grew up in. And so I was just told never, never, never, never, never. And then I’ve got the quads to show for it. So I never really did it, and now I’m trying to make up for it.

0:41:11.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Okay. Good answer. S tier move for the quads, for sure. Yeah. Get that seat back a little bit. Do you have it on the full, where you’re setting the range on the bottom part?

0:41:31.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yep.

0:41:35.2 Mike Vacanti: As far in as it’ll go, I would imagine.

0:41:36.7 Jordan Syatt: As far as it goes. Yeah. As far as it goes.

0:41:37.5 Mike Vacanti: And does that give you enough of a stretch?

0:41:39.4 Jordan Syatt: Not only that, I also take an AireX pad and I put it on top so I get an even bigger stretch.

0:41:45.2 Mike Vacanti: Yep. Yep.

0:41:47.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Love it.

0:41:48.7 Mike Vacanti: Great. Great. Yeah, awesome exercise. Horrible burn. Heels-elevated goblet squat.

0:41:58.4 Jordan Syatt: I’m gonna give it an A. It’s an A. You’re inherently limited by how much weight you can hold in front of you. You’ll get a hell of a quad burn and either you could just do higher repetitions if you want to. It’s a great exercise, but the limit by how much you can hold in your hands is a major drawback of the exercise. So A. Amazing. I program goblet squats all the time, so many different variations. The heels elevated obviously puts more on the quad, which I love. Yeah. I’m just gonna give it an A.

0:42:31.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. A tier, you can’t load it as heavy as you can a lot of these other exercises, barbell exercises, single-leg exercises, machine exercises. I also program it all the time. I don’t know, unless it’s a complete beginner with limited equipment, that might be the only situation where it’s going to be the first lower body movement of the day. But it’s going to be more effective later in a workout when someone is more fatigued because then you’re not as limited by how much weight you can hold. A tier, goblet squat. What’s your favorite variation of these?

0:43:14.5 Jordan Syatt: Well, right now I’m doing a lot of horse stance goblet squats, which are a very, very wide… It’s for your splits. It’s for your side splits. So a very wide stance where you’re not sitting back at all. You try and go straight down as though you’re trying to go into a split. That’s just for me.

0:43:37.6 Mike Vacanti: What’s your foot position on those?

0:43:39.7 Jordan Syatt: Outrageously wide.

0:43:41.2 Mike Vacanti: I mean your toe angle, sorry.

0:43:43.2 Jordan Syatt: Toe angle is trying to be straightforward. It’s not fully straight, but it’s mildly angled. So it’s not pointing to the walls on either side of me because I’m trying to, again, really match the hip position and the foot position that you’d have in a split. So that’s what I’m doing a lot of now. I hate it. It’s really painful. For the vast majority of clients, Inner Circle members, I just really like a constant tension, close-stance goblet squat. I love that. It’s great for the quads. Yeah, it’ll blow your legs up. I really like that.

0:44:19.1 Mike Vacanti: So do you slow down the eccentric and concentric a little bit and then just have no pause?

0:44:24.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Correct.

0:44:25.2 Mike Vacanti: Cool.

0:44:25.7 Jordan Syatt: What about you?

0:44:26.5 Mike Vacanti: Been a 1.5 rep guy on these lately. Spending a little more time down in that stretch position.

0:44:35.0 Jordan Syatt: That’s a good one.

0:44:36.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Those are my current favorite of many. Sissy squat.

0:44:43.3 Jordan Syatt: S tier. S tier exercise. So fucking hard.

0:44:48.6 Mike Vacanti: The best bodyweight exercise for quads, probably hands down, or top two for sure.

0:44:54.6 Jordan Syatt: One of the best bodyweight strength exercises, period. Like of all of them, you’ve got pull-ups, chin-ups for upper pull. You’ve got push-up variations for upper push. For lower body, I mean, sissy squat from a bodyweight perspective, I would say sissy squat, pistol squat…

0:45:20.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Nordic hamstring curls.

0:45:22.0 Jordan Syatt: Nordic hamstring curls. Those are like the premier bodyweight exercises. Yeah, sissy squat is so good.

0:45:27.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. S tier. Yeah. Obviously, if someone’s limited on equipment and wants to train quads, this is a great way to do that. Probably the best way to do that. Even for someone who has equipment, it’s something nice to work in. Yeah. I should probably do more sissy squats myself.

0:45:53.8 Jordan Syatt: They’re great exercise.

0:45:55.6 Mike Vacanti: Bodyweight squat or air squat?

0:45:58.6 Jordan Syatt: My gut wants to say F. I’m gonna go D. And the only reason it’s D and not F is because if you are a complete beginner and maybe struggling with overcoming some type of an illness or some type of medical condition and this is your starting point, it will work. But for such a brief period of time, it’s… Yeah. I’m very closer to F because it’s just… But that’s why I said D, because there is a teeny tiny percentage of people who it would actually be beneficial for. But otherwise, no.

0:46:46.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. D tier feels like the right place. You are targeting the quads technically. It’s just that we’re not loading it at all. And again, just because it’s a D tier it doesn’t mean there aren’t some people who would benefit from this exercise, the populations that you mentioned, which aren’t small populations. I mean, in terms of lifters, they’re small populations, but in the world…

0:47:09.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Correct.

0:47:10.6 Mike Vacanti: There are a lot of people who would benefit from bodyweight squats as a starting point. But very quickly, they’re going to gain the strength and ability to load them and progress to a goblet squat, other variations. But, yeah. And equipment accessibility too. Like if you don’t have anything and you’re a beginner, good. But for most people, it’s just not going to do a whole lot. Jump squats.

0:47:43.1 Jordan Syatt: For quad strength and growth?

0:47:44.4 Mike Vacanti: No, no. Again, we’re reviewing based on anything. So you can have like a explosiveness.

0:47:50.0 Jordan Syatt: I mean, as an exercise for athletic performance and for bone density and for speed and power and rate of force development, they’re great. But all these exercises I’ve been rating purely on ability to grow strength and muscle in the quad. So, I’m gonna give it a C. I mean, I almost went D. It’s just from a strength and muscle growth perspective, you’re not doing that with jump squats.

0:48:26.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:48:27.3 Jordan Syatt: I’m gonna go D. It’s a D.

0:48:29.7 Mike Vacanti: I get it. You want to go C because it seems better, is better than a bodyweight squat. But for the population that can do them… Yeah. It’s not a strength and muscle building exercise.

0:48:44.5 Jordan Syatt: Amazing exercise, but not for strength and muscle in the quads.

0:48:48.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:48:48.9 Jordan Syatt: I do them every week.

0:48:49.2 Mike Vacanti: You do jump squats every week?

0:48:50.5 Jordan Syatt: Every week.

0:48:51.4 Mike Vacanti: Wow. What does that look like?

0:48:54.7 Jordan Syatt: Jump squats, box jumps… I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Jump squats, box jumps, like plyometrics. It’s amazing.

0:49:04.2 Mike Vacanti: Wall sit.

0:49:05.3 Jordan Syatt: I was waiting for this one. And I’ll have to preface by saying if you looked at my beliefs around the wall sit throughout my entire career, it’d be all over the map. Sometimes I’d say they were an incredible exercise. Sometimes I’d say they’re an absolutely worthless exercise. For the right population, they can be a tremendous exercise. They can be incredible in an injury prevention or injury rehabilitation setting. They can be great from an overall general health perspective. They can be great as a starter exercise to get people build up enough strength in strength training. It can be a great exercise to build up the mental tolerance to deal with a quad burn. Just like, “Hey, this is what it’s going to feel like.” To even teach them what a quad burn will feel like, it’s great.

0:50:03.2 Jordan Syatt: It can be great for certain athletes, whether it’s snowboarders, skiers, surfboarders, wakeboarders, it can be a great exercise for them. But if you want to build bigger, stronger quads, it’s not going to be… I’m going to give it a C. I’m going to give it a C. The fact that you’re not changing your muscle length at all is a really big fucking problem in terms of growing it. You can build strength with it, and you can even load it. So from a strength perspective, it’s good, not great. And from a muscle growth perspective, I’d say it’s pretty damn bad.

0:50:48.6 Mike Vacanti: Well said. That’s accurate. Do you have any high school nostalgia around this movement?

0:50:56.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah, a ton. Wrestling room, everyone against the wall, hold it for five minutes. Yeah, terrible.

0:51:04.4 Mike Vacanti: There’s a scene, I don’t know if this happened in real life, but in the movie “Miracle” prior to the USA playing Russia, there’s a scene where the whole team’s doing wall sits and they’re like passing a plate back and forth down the row, just battling. Yeah. That whatever nostalgia exists around this movement brings it up from where it actually is. Again, we don’t want to be doing a whole lot of isometrics specifically for muscle growth if that’s our primary goal. The fact that you can load it makes it better than a bodyweight exercise for strength alone for people who are gonna try to get advanced at a wall sit. Yeah. I think C is as high as I can put this one, unfortunately.

0:51:59.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Agreed.

0:52:00.8 Mike Vacanti: Belt squat.

0:52:02.0 Jordan Syatt: Amazing machine. I almost bought one for our home gym.

0:52:06.1 Mike Vacanti: Takes up a lot of space.

0:52:07.4 Jordan Syatt: Huge amount of space. A good one takes up a huge amount of space. They have smaller ones that just aren’t as good. It’s much more hip dominant. If you want to use it properly, it’s very difficult to do it properly with a more knee-dominant, quad-focused technique. I love it. It can be great for your back. It’s great for overall squat. There’re so many things you can do with it. But for quads specifically, I’m gonna give it a B.

0:52:38.8 Mike Vacanti: I think that’s fair. It’s probably similar to a… Really trying to do a Bulgarian split squat in a glute-dominant fashion if we’re thinking about upper body position. Great machine, great exercise, great for glute strength and growth. Feels really good for…

0:53:06.8 Jordan Syatt: Of course, feels amazing.

0:53:08.6 Mike Vacanti: Basically everyone I know who’s tried it really likes, super fluid movement. Yeah. I guess B tier for quads. Now I’m trying to visualize where we have everything because I kind of wanna give an A because I like the exercise so much, but I guess for quads, I think B is probably right.

0:53:25.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:53:26.4 Mike Vacanti: This is also an interesting episode in general because not everyone wants to grow their quads. So some people might be hearing a lot of these and think, “Oh, S tier for quads. Stay away from that one.”

0:53:36.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:53:38.2 Mike Vacanti: Spanish squat. I don’t even know what this is.

0:53:41.0 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know what that is.

0:53:42.1 Mike Vacanti: Uses a resistance band looped behind the knee to force upright posture and massive quad activation at the bottom.

0:53:49.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, you know what this looks like? This looks like… Have you seen the sissy squat machine?

0:53:55.7 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:53:56.6 Jordan Syatt: It looks like what you’d be doing on a sissy squat machine, which I don’t like the sissy squat machine because… Yeah. I don’t like this one. Yeah, I’m not a fan of this one. It really prevents your knees from traveling forward and makes it more hip dominant. Not a fan. I’m gonna give it a C.

0:54:24.1 Mike Vacanti: It prevents your knees from traveling forward because your upper body and butt have to sit back more to offset the band pulling you forward.

0:54:33.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Your knees aren’t really traveling over your toes. You’re sitting back.

0:54:37.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. You definitely have less knee flexion.

0:54:39.9 Jordan Syatt: You know what I might say is like, it’s similar to a wall sit without actually being against a wall.

0:54:48.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. Except you’re going through a range.

0:54:51.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Correct.

0:54:51.7 Mike Vacanti: But yes, the bottom position looks identical to a wall sit. So that’s right.

0:54:56.4 Jordan Syatt: I would probably give it like a B then because you’re still using the quads and it’s like a wall sit, so you’re getting range, but you’re not getting as much range in one of the S tier exercises. So, yeah. I would give it… It’s like a dynamic wall sit, essentially. So I’d give it a B.

0:55:12.8 Mike Vacanti: I’d never heard of it until this moment. I’ve never programmed it. And I think B is fair. I wouldn’t argue with a C rating either here. I could be persuaded in many directions based on more knowledge.

0:55:27.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:55:28.1 Mike Vacanti: Reverse Nordic curl.

0:55:29.7 Jordan Syatt: This is also a really good one. I like this one a lot. I’m gonna give this… Oh, fuck. I’m oscillating between A and S. I’m gonna give it an A. It’s a great exercise. It’s wildly difficult. If you think sissy squats are tough, a full range of motion reverse Nordic is just elite strength.

0:55:56.3 Mike Vacanti: Full range being butt to heels.

0:55:59.1 Jordan Syatt: Full range, butt to heels. And then you could even extend that by elevating yourself onto a plyometric box and then letting your head come down behind the box. So it’s not just going down to the floor. You’re even getting a bigger range. Wild, wild exercise. Really, really good. I’m gonna give it an A. Just based on what I… I feel it way more from a sissy squat than I do in a reverse Nordic. Just feel it way, way more.

0:56:28.8 Mike Vacanti: I haven’t done these in a long, long time, and I never spent much time doing them. You could load this theoretically.

0:56:37.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, you can load it. You can load it for sure. I’ve seen people do that. And you can also regress it by holding onto a band so it can pull you up.

0:56:49.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I think at least an A, right?

0:56:52.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:56:53.4 Mike Vacanti: At least an A. It sounds like personal preference for you has it below a sissy squat.

0:56:57.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I’m putting the sissy squat at S tier. This I’m putting at A. It’s an amazing exercise, but the way I’ve felt it… Also, I feel like at the top, or not at the top, halfway up, you lose so much tension on the quad. So the loading isn’t as consistent as a sissy squat. It’s not as heavy. It gets so much easier so quickly. The last half of the range is so, so difficult, and the first half is way easier.

0:57:30.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. Especially if you compare to machine exercises or…

0:57:37.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:57:38.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. All right. That seems fair. When you get to the 24th best quad exercise, it’s like at a certain point you almost need to be programming for the sake of variety to get into the 24th, 27th, 29th best exercise with so many good options above it. Yeah. Good episode.

0:58:03.6 Jordan Syatt: Great episode.

0:58:04.8 Mike Vacanti: Thank you very much for listening. We’ll be back next Tuesday with another weekly episode. See you soon.

0:58:12.4 Jordan Syatt: See ya.