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. 

* 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.

 

leg day

Saturday Oct 17th Legs

 

Spider bar box squats. I used the same exercise today as I used last week.  I've found that I have higher success especially trying to build higher rep strength, by hitting it really hard and intense with a challenge set like I did last. Where it was a strip set of four drops and then following that up the next week with the same exercise, and actually the same weight but not at the same intensity. I've found that that greatly helps with the strength endurance when I come back to the exercise again and try to hit it with a challenge set.

I began with the bar and did four sets of five reps. Then worked up to one plate per side for five reps. A plate an a quarter per side for five reps. Two plates for five reps. Two plates and a quarter for five reps. Three plates for five reps. Three and half plates for five reps. Four plates for five reps, and then drop down and did three plates for a set of ten.

The second exercise was leg presses. Four to five warm up sets and then four sets of 10 - 15 repetitions. These sets were ten reps short of failure, so they were work sets but they weren't what I would consider balls out work sets. These work sets were with a slower controlled tempo than I would normally use. I was  just going for a really strong eccentric burn.

The third exercise was leg extensions. I do leg extensions pretty much every leg training session where I'm hitting quads, but I do change how I do it almost every single time. This time the way that I did them was to contract my quads as hard as a I could at the top. Actually focusing on just kicking my feet as high as I could until I felt a stretch in my hamstrings at the top, so on a lot of the repetitions my legs are actually coming a little bit off of the bench. I did three warm up sets of ten reps and then four work sets of 15 to 20 reps, with each set taken to failure.

The forth  exercise was seated leg curls. One set of 100 repetitions. The first 30 to 35 repetitions were to failure and then the remainder of the 100 repetitions were all partials at the top end.