Mobility Prep
Inverse Leg Curls
+225(ast)x10
+225(ast)x10
+180(ast)x5
+180(ast)x5
+135(ast)x10
+110(ast)x10
+85(ast)x10
Inverse Leg Curls
+225(ast)x10
+225(ast)x10
+180(ast)x5
+180(ast)x5
+135(ast)x10
+110(ast)x10
+85(ast)x10
Step Ups w/ Band TKEs (9”, lb)
bwx15/15
bwx15/15
bwx15/15
bwx15/15
Paused Leg Extensions (2 seconds)
45x8
90x8
135x8
180x15
180x15
180x15
45x8
90x8
135x8
180x15
180x15
180x15
Safety Squat Bar Squats (5-2-0-0 tempo)
65x3
115x3
155x3
205x3
245x3
275x3
315x7
275x7
275x7
65x3
115x3
155x3
205x3
245x3
275x3
315x7
275x7
275x7
Reverse Band Hack Squats (LB’s)
emptyx5
+70x5
+140x5
+190x5
+240x5
+290x10
+290x10
+290x10
emptyx5
+70x5
+140x5
+190x5
+240x5
+290x10
+290x10
+290x10
Lying Leg Curls
45x8
90x6
135x8
180x12
180x12
150x18
45x8
90x6
135x8
180x12
180x12
150x18
Quad Fallbacks
bwx6
bwx6
bwx6
bwx6
bwx6
bwx6
Sled Drag Work (turf)
235x5 minutes
235x5 minutes
Stretching
Comments: Stress at work was getting to me this week and got a reminder of that with my body deciding to rebel on me. The rumblings had started Thursday morning and thankfully didn’t really start until after training Thursday. Friday was a sucky day with my digestive tract being out of whack. No appetite and pretty much passing magma all day. Got about half of my usual meals down. On top of that, allergies hit me super hard in the late evening after work and I thought it was something more serious that would require a doctor visit to get meds but turned out to be just allergies and took a Claritin and started to clear up almost immediately. When I’m feeling like this, I do think I need to take the “mental health days” I threaten to take. Took some Nyquil to help things along and insure I got a solid sleep. I knew it was going to be a late start to the day for training. I needed to take care of some things before I went out to train anyways so it was early afternoon by the time I arrived at the gym to train. Again, no rush really as the session wasn’t really event work. Traffic was fine so that worked in my favor. No one really there today which was fine. They were people I knew at least so I could talk with them a bit to vent some haha (work and strongman shit). Mobility stuff was needed. Pairing of one legged rdls and deadbugs. Balance between sides needs that work. The pain thing I was concerned about was the left leg calf/hamstring insert or whatever it is that I made angry on Tuesday with the Nordic curl attempts. Was it going to keep me from doing what I wanted to do? Was my mobility going to be hindered, my strength down? Questions that would be answered. Starting things off with inverse curls, same thing as last time. Taking into consideration that last time was essentially me “fresh” as no real secondary workout of high intensity that week and post-contest deload and with my irritated whatever in the left leg, my plans were to try to do 5lbs less assistance on the last set. I did an extra set from last time to get more blood flow in the legs and tendons for the working sets. There was discomfort but I had full ROM and didn’t feel like my strength was hampered. Just may be irritated tendons/ligaments or something. These sets felt easier than I had expected them to be. I may need to adjust what I end up doing for the working sets, like take smaller jumps and start with less assistance. Maybe make +135lbs a warm-up set or something. After this was on to some step-ups with bands as TKEs. Idea was to warm-up the knees and see if this made them less grouchy on the leg extensions. So I thought these would be easy to setup here with all this stuff compared to at home (which is super easy) but I was wrong. First issue was finding something stable to step on to. Not trying to get anymore life alert preventative injuries here. Once I got that figured out, band tension I tried using was too much so had to swap out for a different one (I think it works better at home since I can weigh myself down with weights and this seemed to not indicate any weights to be added). Then had to move out a good bit to get enough tension on it. Once that was resolved, this was fine and easy. Indication was that if leg extensions still not feeling perfect that I’d be doing these instead. Next was leg extensions. I knew what to expect this time. Plan was to do 2x15 with 3RIR and same 2 seconds stuff. I read that and apparently ignored it and did 3x15 like last week. Oops. The only knee that doesn’t care for this is my right one and it is only on the eccentric and feels like it is the patella tendon. The thing is that these feel better as I do them and with more weight for some reason. Leg extensions are also a weird one for me in that it is a very unique sensation when they get fatigued and full of blood. The lactic acid fatigue feels way different. Whereas others it just feels like a burn, this is like a bubbling sensation of small things in my leg with mild venom stinging me. The bees as I dub it haha. But I know even at that point, I’m not close to finished and can keep on going through and eventually go above it. But these sets weren’t high enough for that to be a problem for me to have to push out another 15 reps on each set. It would be shame to ditch these but I will do what is best for me to be the best. Then it was ssb squats. The plan this time was to do max rep set with 10lbs more than what I did for working sets last time and then take off 40lbs and match those reps for two more sets. Would be easy enough if I stuck to 3 seconds on the eccentric like last time but as I mentioned, I hadn’t realized it was written as 3-5. And been doing the rdls with 5 so I figured I’d suck it up and do them for 5’s, knowing it was going to make this harder than it needed to be. But I think this is important to do as I’m seeing my ability to hold a brace tends to go as the sets go on and these altered tempos put what is only a moment in the movement into and effort. So goal was to do max set with 1-2RIR left. Definitely ended up on the closer to 1RIR as I felt my brace going on that last rep. Down sets weren’t much easier. Just that amount of time under the weight in those compromised positions. Not so much the muscles recovering between sets in the legs but more getting breathing back and having core recovered to go again. Next up was hack squats. Now most of my concerns about my left leg tendon thingy whatever were gone considering I was able to do the squats without issue but who knows how these would go. I’m just glad that I have a way to do these again. So for this week, 10lbs less than my top set last time for 3x10. I took smaller jumps warming up this time so I got in more sets to make sure knees were good and deal with anything that felt off and adjust accordingly before going up in weight. These feel odd in that the first rep is always the toughest feeling. Trying to gauge depth and how the knees are doing. After that first rep, no doubts of getting the rest of them. Last set, I was feeling my right side obliques wanting to cramp up on me near the end. Could just be from how hard I was working the bracing on stuff today. So after that was lying leg curls. This time 2x12 with 2-3RIR and then drop off 10-15% for max rep set (aiming for 15-20) with 1RIR. Like the inverse curls, the left leg was irritated by these but still able to do them. I did fewer sets with bigger jumps this time but kept the reps to the 8’s as I wanted to try 180lbs again. That first set I was definitely in the the desired difficulty and then the second set that was closer to possibly being outside of it. So took that into consideration for the down set and dropped off 30lbs. I was hoping to get 18 reps to kind of hit a rep PR (135lbs is my current I guess). Just got that. Winding down the workout here. The quad fallbacks again. Didn’t start off well like last time. I thought I had it figured out last time but nope. There was initially discomfort in the left leg area at the start but that went away. I kept falling backwards onto the bench. My center of gravity with this just wasn’t working. I had to think on what to do and think back on the changes I’ve made with this exercise. I had been doing these from the floor but that ended up being too harsh on my ankles. Then I went to using a 6” cushion to prevent that but it appears that doing this has changed the center of gravity and I don’t have enough weight on my knees to keep from falling over. So I went back to the floor but put cushioning under the ankles and it was like duh. Why didn’t I do this sooner? No discomfort, almost relaxing and I can almost touch the back of my head to the floor without any support. Last thing for the day was 5 minutes of sled drag on the turf. Alternate back and forth. I stuck to the same weight as last week after that felt way harder than I was expecting. My hope this time was to have it feel easier and move faster (ie get further). I succeed with that. I know I got further as last time I finished out on doing a forward drag and finished this time on a backward drag. I put stuff away and decided since it was late to save the stretching for when I got home (sooner to possibly get allergy meds and determine if I did have dinner defrosted or not). Stretched out and had dinner before icing my knees.
Comments: Stress at work was getting to me this week and got a reminder of that with my body deciding to rebel on me. The rumblings had started Thursday morning and thankfully didn’t really start until after training Thursday. Friday was a sucky day with my digestive tract being out of whack. No appetite and pretty much passing magma all day. Got about half of my usual meals down. On top of that, allergies hit me super hard in the late evening after work and I thought it was something more serious that would require a doctor visit to get meds but turned out to be just allergies and took a Claritin and started to clear up almost immediately. When I’m feeling like this, I do think I need to take the “mental health days” I threaten to take. Took some Nyquil to help things along and insure I got a solid sleep. I knew it was going to be a late start to the day for training. I needed to take care of some things before I went out to train anyways so it was early afternoon by the time I arrived at the gym to train. Again, no rush really as the session wasn’t really event work. Traffic was fine so that worked in my favor. No one really there today which was fine. They were people I knew at least so I could talk with them a bit to vent some haha (work and strongman shit). Mobility stuff was needed. Pairing of one legged rdls and deadbugs. Balance between sides needs that work. The pain thing I was concerned about was the left leg calf/hamstring insert or whatever it is that I made angry on Tuesday with the Nordic curl attempts. Was it going to keep me from doing what I wanted to do? Was my mobility going to be hindered, my strength down? Questions that would be answered. Starting things off with inverse curls, same thing as last time. Taking into consideration that last time was essentially me “fresh” as no real secondary workout of high intensity that week and post-contest deload and with my irritated whatever in the left leg, my plans were to try to do 5lbs less assistance on the last set. I did an extra set from last time to get more blood flow in the legs and tendons for the working sets. There was discomfort but I had full ROM and didn’t feel like my strength was hampered. Just may be irritated tendons/ligaments or something. These sets felt easier than I had expected them to be. I may need to adjust what I end up doing for the working sets, like take smaller jumps and start with less assistance. Maybe make +135lbs a warm-up set or something. After this was on to some step-ups with bands as TKEs. Idea was to warm-up the knees and see if this made them less grouchy on the leg extensions. So I thought these would be easy to setup here with all this stuff compared to at home (which is super easy) but I was wrong. First issue was finding something stable to step on to. Not trying to get anymore life alert preventative injuries here. Once I got that figured out, band tension I tried using was too much so had to swap out for a different one (I think it works better at home since I can weigh myself down with weights and this seemed to not indicate any weights to be added). Then had to move out a good bit to get enough tension on it. Once that was resolved, this was fine and easy. Indication was that if leg extensions still not feeling perfect that I’d be doing these instead. Next was leg extensions. I knew what to expect this time. Plan was to do 2x15 with 3RIR and same 2 seconds stuff. I read that and apparently ignored it and did 3x15 like last week. Oops. The only knee that doesn’t care for this is my right one and it is only on the eccentric and feels like it is the patella tendon. The thing is that these feel better as I do them and with more weight for some reason. Leg extensions are also a weird one for me in that it is a very unique sensation when they get fatigued and full of blood. The lactic acid fatigue feels way different. Whereas others it just feels like a burn, this is like a bubbling sensation of small things in my leg with mild venom stinging me. The bees as I dub it haha. But I know even at that point, I’m not close to finished and can keep on going through and eventually go above it. But these sets weren’t high enough for that to be a problem for me to have to push out another 15 reps on each set. It would be shame to ditch these but I will do what is best for me to be the best. Then it was ssb squats. The plan this time was to do max rep set with 10lbs more than what I did for working sets last time and then take off 40lbs and match those reps for two more sets. Would be easy enough if I stuck to 3 seconds on the eccentric like last time but as I mentioned, I hadn’t realized it was written as 3-5. And been doing the rdls with 5 so I figured I’d suck it up and do them for 5’s, knowing it was going to make this harder than it needed to be. But I think this is important to do as I’m seeing my ability to hold a brace tends to go as the sets go on and these altered tempos put what is only a moment in the movement into and effort. So goal was to do max set with 1-2RIR left. Definitely ended up on the closer to 1RIR as I felt my brace going on that last rep. Down sets weren’t much easier. Just that amount of time under the weight in those compromised positions. Not so much the muscles recovering between sets in the legs but more getting breathing back and having core recovered to go again. Next up was hack squats. Now most of my concerns about my left leg tendon thingy whatever were gone considering I was able to do the squats without issue but who knows how these would go. I’m just glad that I have a way to do these again. So for this week, 10lbs less than my top set last time for 3x10. I took smaller jumps warming up this time so I got in more sets to make sure knees were good and deal with anything that felt off and adjust accordingly before going up in weight. These feel odd in that the first rep is always the toughest feeling. Trying to gauge depth and how the knees are doing. After that first rep, no doubts of getting the rest of them. Last set, I was feeling my right side obliques wanting to cramp up on me near the end. Could just be from how hard I was working the bracing on stuff today. So after that was lying leg curls. This time 2x12 with 2-3RIR and then drop off 10-15% for max rep set (aiming for 15-20) with 1RIR. Like the inverse curls, the left leg was irritated by these but still able to do them. I did fewer sets with bigger jumps this time but kept the reps to the 8’s as I wanted to try 180lbs again. That first set I was definitely in the the desired difficulty and then the second set that was closer to possibly being outside of it. So took that into consideration for the down set and dropped off 30lbs. I was hoping to get 18 reps to kind of hit a rep PR (135lbs is my current I guess). Just got that. Winding down the workout here. The quad fallbacks again. Didn’t start off well like last time. I thought I had it figured out last time but nope. There was initially discomfort in the left leg area at the start but that went away. I kept falling backwards onto the bench. My center of gravity with this just wasn’t working. I had to think on what to do and think back on the changes I’ve made with this exercise. I had been doing these from the floor but that ended up being too harsh on my ankles. Then I went to using a 6” cushion to prevent that but it appears that doing this has changed the center of gravity and I don’t have enough weight on my knees to keep from falling over. So I went back to the floor but put cushioning under the ankles and it was like duh. Why didn’t I do this sooner? No discomfort, almost relaxing and I can almost touch the back of my head to the floor without any support. Last thing for the day was 5 minutes of sled drag on the turf. Alternate back and forth. I stuck to the same weight as last week after that felt way harder than I was expecting. My hope this time was to have it feel easier and move faster (ie get further). I succeed with that. I know I got further as last time I finished out on doing a forward drag and finished this time on a backward drag. I put stuff away and decided since it was late to save the stretching for when I got home (sooner to possibly get allergy meds and determine if I did have dinner defrosted or not). Stretched out and had dinner before icing my knees.
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