January 2025

Why Can't I Move the Leg Press?

Many Total Results clients can relate to the following scenario. You have just completed the first exercise of your workout, which is usually either the Seated Leg Curl or the Abduction/Adduction combination. Your hip and knee joints are sufficiently warmed up (which is largely why we perform these exercises first in the routine), and now you position yourself to start the Leg Press. When given the cue from your instructor to begin the exercise, you start to gradually apply pressure to the foot board to overcome inertia and get the movement arm into motion. However, something happens. In spite of your best effort, you find that you cannot budge the carriage of the machine. How could this be?

This has happened to me a few times over the years, and I can assure you that there is nothing wrong with you if you experience this unfortunate circumstance. No, you didn't lose muscle since your previous workout. This is not an altogether uncommon situation, and there are a few possible explanations for why it takes place. The Leg Press is the largest, most challenging, and probably most important exercise that you will ever perform, and it has the greatest overall effect on your metabolism. We perform this exercise near the beginning of the workout, simply because we want to exercise the lower body muscles when your body is relatively fresh. If your body is not properly recovered due to excessive physical activity, poor sleep, or insufficient nutrition, this can leave you at less than full strength for your workout. Consequently, you might have trouble moving out of the bottom out position.

What is another reason you can't move the Leg Press? In my experience, it is largely a mental phenomenon. I have said many times that the mental component of exercise should never be underestimated, and you need to have a sharpened intellectual focus in order to optimize your workout experience. If your mind is not in the right place, then you will not be prepared to grasp how much effort is required to overcome inertia. There can sometimes be a slight delay between when your brain sends the impulse to the muscles to fire (contract) and when movement of the movement arm actually begins. In reality, this all takes place in fractions of a second, but in your perception it feels like it takes much longer. When movement doesn't happen instantaneously it can become a self-perpetuating scenario, and once you think you can't do something, you can't do it. This is why it is important to always believe in yourself, and one of the most important aspects of my job as an instructor is to provide encouragement to the clients that I supervise. Additionally, this scenario is one reason why I will rarely tell clients in advance when I have raised their weight, as I do not want to cause them to have a mental block.

How can we work around this? In a pinch I can have the client start the exercise from the endpoint rather than the starting point by pulling the carriage all the way out and handing it off to them. If that doesn't work, we can utilize a Timed Static Contraction for that workout. More often than not, this is a one-time thing and it is not an ongoing issue. If this happens for several workouts in a row, the next option is to slightly reduce the weight. More than anything else, it helps the trainee to regain their confidence in performing the movement. I would rather a client use less weight but start the exercise from the bottom out position than start at the end point and use a higher poundage.

I believe that one of the greatest privileges of life is having a challenge to overcome. Once the challenge of life is gone, things tend to go downhill. You have a tremendous opportunity at Total Results to rise to the occasion. Doing hard mental and physical things sharpens your fortitude and your ability to overcome adversity; you get the best of both worlds in our facility. Mentally prepare in advance of your workout, and accept the fact that while it will be uncomfortable, you will come out of it better on the other side. The Leg Press is the biggest challenge that we face at Total Results, but it is not insurmountable. You can do this!