Strength Imbalance?

[Cougar]

From what I understand, my squats and deadlifts should be my heaviest lifts, because hell, they're full-body exercises involving the biggest, strongest muscle groups in the body. But I can bench press as much as I can squat, and my heaviest lift overall is my shrug!

Am I just not trying hard enough on my lower-body exercises? Will this gradually correct itself as I lift longer? Because I more or less started out this way....

[Fudomyo]

I'm in exactly the same boat.

I think leg press helps a lot. You don't have to worry about form and balance (in comparison). I squat like 235, and can leg press ... 314 (380 + sled (65) * 0.707)

At one point I added lunges (no leg press), and went backwards fast.

I'm now trying 2 leg days (in one day) and 9 days rest to see if I can get some more growth. I can hardly stand up today.

Let me know when you figure it out....

Fudo

[Cougar]

Unfortunately, I can't leg press. I work out at home.

I tried lunges, and decided they suck, mostly because I can't seem to keep in form and keep my balance at once... plus they didn't seem to be helping any.

My latest brainstorm is to do a lighter set of narrow-stance front squats after my usual set of wide-stance back squat. If that doesn't help, I may eliminate any other leg exercises altogether and see if overtraining isn't the problem...

[Lee J B]

I am in the same boat too as you too, except I am not bothered, I just go on improving the weight every week, I try not to compare my body parts to each other so this just enables me to increase the weight regardless of wether one movement should carry more weight