For bodybuilder Jay Cutler, fitness is a lifelong pursuit. The four-time Mr. Olympia winner may have retired from competitive bodybuilding over a decade ago, but Cutler hardly rests on his laurels these days.
Still, a career in the iron game takes a toll. “I’d highly recommend using machines that take pressure off your knees and back,” Cutler said in a Jul. 6, 2024, social media post. Cutler, 50, takes a tactical approach to his bodybuilding leg workouts — including a preference for a specific type of leg press plus his preferred rep range for limiting back and knee pain.
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Cutler, 50, takes a tactical approach to his bodybuilding leg workouts — including a preference for a specific type of leg press plus his preferred rep range for limiting back and knee pain.
Let’s take a look at what Cutler has to say and see if his advice aligns with the latest scientific research.
Jay Cutler’s Favorite Leg Exercise for Back & Knee Pain
“The leg press has always been my second or third quad exercise during my workouts,” says Cutler, whose most iconic moment throughout his bodybuilding career was his now-famous “quad stomp” pose at the 2009 Mr. Olympia.
Safe to say he knows a thing or two about growing leg muscle. To that end, Cutler endorses the horizontal leg press as his go-to machine variation, which he performs after beginning his sessions at the leg extension station.
- “The horizontal leg press takes pressure off my knees and back,” Cutler notes of the machine’s design.
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People commonly experience back pain during heavy leg pressing sessions, particularly if the machine is not calibrated properly or if an individual is low on hip mobility.
If you’re lacking flexibility in your hips or lumbar spine, you may find your pelvis tilts posteriorly — your butt comes off the seat and curls underneath your torso — as you sink deep into the eccentric phase of the leg press.
For Cutler’s part, the horizontal leg press station provides much more intuitive motion and allows him to utilize a full range of motion without unduly straining his back or knees.
- Studies have shown that “excessive biomechanical pressures” contribute to conditions like vertebral disc herniations, which occur more commonly in the lumbar region of the spine. (1)
Our Take: No machine or movement is inherently dangerous, but you’d be wise to pay close attention to whether an exercise or range of motion is compatible with your individual needs and limitations. Unless you compete in a strength sport like powerlifting or weightlifting, no exercise is truly “mandatory”.
What Rep Range Is Best for Growing Legs?
“What I’m trying to do these days is get that pump; get blood in there,” Cutler says of his leg workout programming as a retired bodybuilder in his 50s. He’s a proponent of high-repetition leg workouts because ramping up your rep count diminishes the need for ultra-heavy weights.
- Cutler says he typically trains in the 8-to-12 rep range, but that he’ll periodically perform as many as 15 to 20 repetitions on certain leg exercises.
This idea has scientific merit as well. A 2021 analysis by Schoenfeld et al. showed that bodybuilders can build muscle across a wide array of rep ranges — anywhere between 5 and 50 reps have been shown to be effective. (2)
Sure, high-rep training may challenge your cardiovascular system and endurance capabilities a bit more than doing a 5×5 workout, but as long as you’re working hard and training close to failure, you should build muscle just fine.
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Does the Pump Build Muscle?
The mystical and alluring muscle pump is perhaps one of the best parts of bodybuilding workouts. Arnold Schwarzenegger sang its praises in Pumping Iron, while athletes like Dorian Yates preferred to lift hard and heavy to gain mass. Cutler himself falls somewhere in the middle:
- But does the pump itself build muscle mass? Not exactly. Muscle hypertrophy is a confluence of three primary factors: mechanical tension, muscle damage, and metabolic stress. (3) Mechanical tension is commonly regarded as the most influential factor.
That said, experts like content creator Jeff Nippard and Exercise & Sport Science PhD Dr. Mike Israetel have said that you can use the pump as a proxy measurement for other elements that contribute to gaining mass.
Our Take: If an exercise creates a solid pump, it probably aligns neatly with your unique anatomical structure, is comfortable to perform, and indicates that you’re fueling your workouts properly as well.
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More Bodybuilding News
- Learn To Lat Spread From 7X Mr. Olympia Phil Heath
- Grow Your Arms Under 1 Hour With Mr. Olympia Derek Lunsford’s 7 Go-To Exercises
- Bikini Olympia Champion Jennifer Dorie’s 5-Exercise Shoulder-Toning Workout You Can Do In Any Gym
References
- Awadalla AM, Aljulayfi AS, Alrowaili AR, Souror H, Alowid F, Mahdi AMM, Hussain R, Alzahrani MM, Alsamarh AN, Alkhaldi EA, Alanazi RC. Management of Lumbar Disc Herniation: A Systematic Review. Cureus. 2023 Oct 29;15(10):e47908. doi: 10.7759/cureus.47908. PMID: 38034203; PMCID: PMC10683841.
- Schoenfeld BJ, Grgic J, Van Every DW, Plotkin DL. Loading Recommendations for Muscle Strength, Hypertrophy, and Local Endurance: A Re-Examination of the Repetition Continuum. Sports (Basel). 2021 Feb 22;9(2):32. doi: 10.3390/sports9020032. PMID: 33671664; PMCID: PMC7927075.
- Schoenfeld BJ. The mechanisms of muscle hypertrophy and their application to resistance training. J Strength Cond Res. 2010 Oct;24(10):2857-72. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181e840f3. PMID: 20847704.
Featured Image: @jaycutler / Instagram
