My training History: I trained less than one year before competing in my first powerlifting meet as a teenager back in 1983. Before leaving the sport in 2005 I achieved my elitefts status in the 198,220,242,275 & 308 weight class. Throughout these years I did have a 3 year run in the bodybuilding world. Loved the training didn't like the competing aspect so I went back to my first love, powerlifting. Injuries have been a part of my life ever since I can remember and were the biggest reason for leaving the sport (I can no longer hold a squat bar on my back). I have degenerative joint disease, have had two shoulder surgeries (right shoulder now needs replaced), one full hip replacement, knee surgery, herniation's in all three regions of my spine, Bone spurs in places I didn't know you could get them, planter facetious, tendinitis and bursitis. I can't even begin to list the number of muscle tears I have had, surgical and non surgical. I am "The Mashed Up Meathead" and this is my story. You can find my training log archives HERE and my most current training log posts HERE. My best lifts are behind be but my best training is yet to come. CLICK TO VIEW ALL MY LOG POSTS & ARTICLES * Unless otherwise noted the tempo of the work sets is about 1/2 of what most would consider normal. In most cases, if I did the set with normal temp what I fail at with 8-10 reps in training I could do for 20 reps with a normal tempo. This is to keep the joint stress down while increase the stress on the muscle. I have found this to work best for me provided the conditions listed in my training history above.
Standing leg curls. Started with just the machine with no weight for two sets at 10 repetitions. When I do this exercise, I like to use dimes on each side and work up every couple sets by one dime. This way all my warm-ups and my work sets are all progressively increasing. The first set was a dime per side, or a dime with each leg, for 10-12. Second set, two dimes. Third set, three. Then four, and five, and six. Then up to seven dimes per side for 6-8 reps. I did three sets with that weight, going to failure between 6 and 8 repetitions. Yoke bar, box squats. The last two weeks I squatted with the spider bar. This week I switched it up to a yoke bar. I wanted to get more volume in for this week with the same weight with the hope of next week doing some type of challenge set, which will be very hard. Today two warm-up sets with the bar, a plate per side for 10, two plates per side for 10, and then three plates per side for six sets, 10 repetitions. Hack squats. I've stayed away from this machine for a long time because six months ago or so I tore my MCL a little bit. It wasn't a major tear. It was just a very, very slight tear, and I had a lot of crepitus, which is popping and cracking, in my right knee. It was most apparent doing the hack squat, so I have not done this exercise for an extremely long time. Today was more just kind of testing it. My knees were definitely warmed up after doing the squats. I stayed with one plate per side, did super slow reps, going to parallel and back for three sets of 10 reps. On my final set, I buried every repetition and only felt a little bit of the crepitus on two of the eight repetitions that I did. Slowly I'll begin adding this exercise back into my program. When I do this, I have an adjustable foot plate. I keep the foot plate a little higher than what most hack squat machines would be using, and I keep my feet completely together and a little more up front on the machine. My knees are never going in front of my toes. My knees are actually staying in line with my heels. Glute presses. It's just a standing glute machine. You lean against the machine, put your foot on it, and you push your foot back. Nothing to write home about, nothing too exciting. The reason I got the machine is because of having a hip replacement and knowing that my other hip eventually is going to have to be replaced as well. I am no longer going to ignore my glutes or hip region in any way whatsoever. This is a machine that I use frequently. I don't put it in my training log very often, but it's being done usually two to three times per week. On leg day, I typically do it heavier four sets to six. I did four sets of six reps, and even with it being heavier, I am unbelievably weak when it comes to this machine. The next exercises were hip ab- and adduction, two sets of 20 repetitions with each exercise. I then had to break for 45 minutes to an hour because I had a meeting. After the meeting, I went back out and did leg extensions for four sets of 20 repetitions. None of these sets were to failure. It was just more light, pumping/burning sets. That's because I was seated for an hour beforehand. Standing calf raises for two sets of 15. None of the sets were to failure. I stopped doing the repetitions when I started to feel my calves burn. The second exercise I did for calves were seated toe pushes and exactly the same thing. It was two sets of about 15 repetitions. As soon as it started to burn, I stopped.
I haven't done any calf work for a long time, and I know I am going to be sore as hell tomorrow just from doing those. There was no need to go and do 10, 15 sets of calves when it's irrelevant. It makes no difference. What I did is going to break the muscle down. It's going to make my calves sore as hell. Anything more than what I did would just be stupid and wouldn't make any sense. This way I'll be able to get my calf training back on par and be able to start training them a few times per week.
