On January 14 2014 16:49 zatic wrote: So I am still struggling with significant imbalance from my knee injury. My left leg is still visibly smaller and weaker by a lot, which stops me from doing serious squats and deadlifts. So far I have been doing a lot of single leg exercises (leg press, extension, etc) and basically did what I know: 3 sets of 5 with increasing weight. However progress is incredibly slow, and it almost feels like my healthy leg is getting further ahead.
My PT suggested to end all sessions with an exercise to exhaustion. So I should do (for example) single leg presses at a weight that completely exhausts me within 30 seconds. If I can do more reps after 30 seconds, increase.
Opinions on this suggestion?
Seems like a good idea to me? Do you never train to exhaustion? Or are you asking about the leg press? Leg press can be useful in situations such as these.
On January 14 2014 16:49 zatic wrote: So I am still struggling with significant imbalance from my knee injury. My left leg is still visibly smaller and weaker by a lot, which stops me from doing serious squats and deadlifts. So far I have been doing a lot of single leg exercises (leg press, extension, etc) and basically did what I know: 3 sets of 5 with increasing weight. However progress is incredibly slow, and it almost feels like my healthy leg is getting further ahead.
My PT suggested to end all sessions with an exercise to exhaustion. So I should do (for example) single leg presses at a weight that completely exhausts me within 30 seconds. If I can do more reps after 30 seconds, increase.
Opinions on this suggestion?
Seems like a good idea to me? Do you never train to exhaustion? Or are you asking about the leg press? Leg press can be useful in situations such as these.
No it seemed like a good idea to me too - I just double check everything I hear fitness related with TLHF.
Another minor pull up PR for me. Hit a set of 17 pull ups (unweighted) today, which felt good. So in the last two weeks, my pull up maxes have been 1x17 for one set, and BW + 50lbs for my 1rm. Feeling pretty good for not really training pull ups other than mostly bodyweight sets.
On January 15 2014 07:00 MtlGuitarist97 wrote: Another minor pull up PR for me. Hit a set of 17 pull ups (unweighted) today, which felt good. So in the last two weeks, my pull up maxes have been 1x17 for one set, and BW + 50lbs for my 1rm. Feeling pretty good for not really training pull ups other than mostly bodyweight sets.
How do you do your pull up programming? I am plateauing right now at like a max of 9 or 10 if I didn't workout the day before.
On January 15 2014 07:00 MtlGuitarist97 wrote: Another minor pull up PR for me. Hit a set of 17 pull ups (unweighted) today, which felt good. So in the last two weeks, my pull up maxes have been 1x17 for one set, and BW + 50lbs for my 1rm. Feeling pretty good for not really training pull ups other than mostly bodyweight sets.
How do you do your pull up programming? I am plateauing right now at like a max of 9 or 10 if I didn't workout the day before.
I don't really, lol. Eshlow would be much better, but to give you an idea of what I did to get to this point: But if I had to give you some advice:
First, do some dumbbell (or barbell) rows. In conjunction with deadlifting and overhead pressing, this will help you a ton. For the pull ups themselves, I find that if I stall with bodyweight pull ups, the solution is to do high volume at a medium weight. This (for me) means 3x5-8 @15-25 lbs. For you, you may still have trouble doing 3x8 bodyweight pull ups, so try to at least work up to the point where you can get 3x8 and not have to crane your neck. Once you get to this, add enough weight that you can do 3x5 and be really tired and then go back to 3x5. In my experience, the amount of weight that you should add is enough weight that you can do ~6.5-7 pull ups with.
I would just keep adding weight until you can get to ~8 pull ups with each weight. In Starting Strength, Rippetoe advocates being able to get to 15 pull ups before adding weight. This is ridiculous and completely unnecessary. If you feel that you can't progress anymore with pull ups, do more deadlifts and rows. Deadlifts will increase your forearms' potential (I find that's my limiting factor personally for fatigue) and rows will help in general.
Anyway, this isn't really that great of advice and I don't know a lot about programming in general. I just kind of follow SS and hope that it carries me on. Some of the other guys know way more than I do, so I hope IgnE, Decaf, Mordek, etc. give you advice that doesn't suck like mine
How do you guys stretch/warmup before starting your workout? I've just been walking into the gym straight to the squatrack and start with the empty bar for warmups; is that sufficient warmup?
Not having read Supple Leopard, does it give you some kind of framework for stretching? There seems to be so many movements/stretches that I don't know which ones to implement.
I don't do too much in the way of intensive stretching, if it's really cold out I jog on the treadmill for a bit, otherwise I kinda jump around, shadowbox and swing the arms to get shoulders open, same sort of thing with the legs and hips (doing kicks and the like is pretty good for that) and then a couple BW squats to the bottom and up again, maybe some burpees if I'm not quite feeling warm yet. Then I kinda move around the bar while it's racked in the squat rack, hit my bottom position a few times and start my bar warmup
...that was a long explanation for not a lot of stuff....
Yeah back in the day I could pretty much walk in the gym cold, do a few empty bar reps and move around a bit and i was good to go. Now that i'm old and decrepit I do anywhere from 5-20 minutes of mobility work depending on my workout. Squat usually just mobilize my hips knees ankles and back a bit, do empty bar squats/goodmornings etc. Snatches and clean and jerks I add about 10 minutes of shoulder mobilization and lax ball rolling in to the knots of muscles that comprise my upper back and shoulders along with some dynamic barbell stuff.
Worked up to a pretty routine 125kg snatch 150kg clean and jerk today, hoping for some big PRs on saturday! (140/170!?)
I'm usually in a hurry during my workouts, so I just mostly walk up to the bar and start working. I never start with squats though (usually do them second, so I'm already warm) and I will do 3-5 minutes of trying to loosen up my hips if they're feeling particularly bad that day.
I try to do minimum 15 minutes of stretching when I'm not at the gym in my free time, and I've recently started trying to do some longer periods (30 minutes to an hour) of more yoga-type stuff 3-4 times/week, but that's only been going for 2 weeks, and there's no telling how long it will last =p
Thanks guitarist, I will try to start incorporating those rep ranges into my workouts and see if I can't break this plateau. And don't worry about being the most experienced. I think it is wise to listen to those who are better than you at something !
It's a great resource. You can probably get 80% of what's in there if you watched through the free mwod stuff but then again that's hours of video and it's not nearly as convenient. Both is probably ideal. I don't have buyer's remorse if that's what you're getting at. I reference and let friends borrow it to because I love sharing this stuff.
While a bit pricey I justified it in that I got a lot out of the mwod project for free. Same with getting Eshlow's book, feels nice to support someone who's contributed to a community for free.
Was approached by the gymbro I've previously mentioned (helped me rehab my knee, found out later he's a personal trainer/rehab gymnast whatsitscalled) today as I was doing deadlifts. He was worried about my lower back and asked if it would be alright for him to give me some pointers. I happily accepted because as it happens, I'm worried about my lower back too. I've been lifting for over two years and I'm still not happy with my form.
So he had me lower my weights down to babby and he coached for free for an hour. Quite the bro-move, abd I immediately noticed improvement, so I decided it was once again time to hire a personal trainer. Thank God for disposable income.
I made sure to ask him about his lifts this time, and they are twice that of mine so I should be in good hands.