Well, I discovered a lot of things, don’t take them as being fully scientific though. Many people suggest doing leg extensions before sissy squats either as a warm-up (to protect your knees) or in a superset. I found that the contraction of the muscle is very different in the leg extension then in the sissy squat and can present problems to certain people. The peak contraction in the leg extension is at the top of the movement so one can assume that the quadriceps muscle will be shortened after a set of these just like a set of concentration curls will work the biceps peak. Therefore, a larger amount of stress is placed on the knee joint if one precedes sissy squats with leg extensions. This could cause all kinds of pain and popping in the knee joint that wouldn’t occur if one did a different warm-up. It seems to work for me. Stretching before sissy squats probably helps as well but if your muscle is tense enough it might not be sufficient. I found that this was about the only way that I could do sissy squats. I look at it like this, when people don’t grow they blame genetics, when people can’t do some of these exercises they blame knee problems. Don’t we know better than that? If you have a bad back aren’t you supposed to reinforce it not avoid all exercises that involve the slightest amount of pressure on the back? Look at Arnold who learned to do seated cable rows with a full stretch, look at his Christmas tree. I was also wondering if any one knew anything about knee pressure, you know people who have to wrap their knees. What causes our knees to deteriorate like this? How can we improve the pressure in our knees? Thanks for the article Mac and all the references, it is useful information in my quest. I hope I have not forgotten anything, long post you know.
Here is an interesting article:
http://www.dragondoor.com/articler/mode3/303/