Swapping squats for leg press

Forget squats, use the leg press. I've heard the press DOESN'T bulk up your waist, which is vital to creating the strongest V taper possible, and thus the best appearance. Also, if your legs get too big you won't be able to wear stylish jeans anymore, which is unacceptable in my opinion. As long as you can keep your legs proportionate so you don't look ridiculous, you're golden.

Bulk up waist? Wat

Don't get big legs because jeans - wat

Squatting hits your obliques, which thickens your midsection. Built obliques look nice, the shape of the muscle is pleasing, but not at the cost of even marginally reducing V taper. Remember you're in clothes 99% of the time. How you look in a tight fitting tee and jeans is the most important.

V taper is entirely genetics and fat levels, its very hard to get massive obliques or nigh on impossible without the genetics or being a bear.

Plus you shouldn't even be mildly concerned of V taper until you're years into the game

You should be concerned from the very beginning about your body proportions, you should know what you want to build and why. Somebody with wide hips for example would want to ESPECIALLY concerned about their taper and how they will develop it.

For most men, they should focus on building lats and lateral delts while ensuring zero oblique work, this will give the illusion of a stronger taper. I also feel like big legs in general can detract from the apparent width of the upper body, so just work to keep them proportionate. As long as your legs aren't noticeably underdeveloped compared to the rest of your body, that's enough.

During pre-steroid era bodybuilding, a lot of work was put into creating the illusion of size in desired areas by keeping certain muscles small. Traps for example, to make the upper body seem broader. I don't like the look of flat traps though personally, so I train those.

I believe standard deadlifts also use obliques as stabilizing muscles.

Anything that involves your core engages your obliques. Have fun not engaging your core by just doing machines and suffering recurrent back injuries. Trying to look like someone on low dose roids as anything other than a late intermediate to advanced lifter is absurd

Aside from isolation oblique work, it's those two exercises that are harsh on the waist width. That's why I don't do them. They're very replaceable exercises.



You can do the exercises with a belt, but you'd look ridiculous doing less than roider weights with a powerlifter belt.

ur missing out on the two best exercises for leg gains
why do u care so much about the waist width? they're not going to make ur waist absolutely massive dude-I think u got ur priorities wrong

Shoulder-to-waist and shoulder-to-hip ratios are extremely important.

I don't recommend you (and couldn't bring myself to) risk ratios when there are other exercises that can build legs and lower back. Having big "gains" in legs is irrelevant, you just need to keep legs proportionate and developed enough so if you wear shorts at the beach you don't look stupid. That's all they're good for.

Show muscles are more important for looking good in clothing.

ur just trolling at this point