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opethdisciple

opethdisciple

opethdisciple

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OK.

I will post images later tonight and update the op.

I have been been in the gym since 2008 and got nowhere! I have tried, Full body routines, three times a week, Full body routines twice a week, splits where you only hit muscle once a week etc.... no thing worked for me.

Add to this, I have never been more than 3 months consistent.

I didn't understand the concept of either losing fat or gaining muscle. I tried to pull in both directions and ended up with nothing.

Fast for till now and I am back in it. My friend who has also been training for years did the same mistakes as me at the beginning but now he has made some solid progress and is in a position to give me advice.

He could see that at the end of last year I was huffing and puffing and not lacking in effort, but still not making progress.

So he said look do it my way and don’t argue with me about certain things.

The routine was simple a very basic 2 day split, done twice a week.

As I have knee issues, the leg press was tacked on at the end of one of the sessions:

So session A was:

Pull ups 3x10
Cable Rows 3x10
Barbell Curls 3x10
Leg Press 5x10
Calf Raises 3x10
35mins incline walking


Session B was:

Chest Press 3x10
OHP 3x10
Dips 3x10
Cable pull downs 3x10
35mins incline walking

The format was A,B, dayoff, A,B dayoff, dayoff.

This worked! No only did I smash previous plateaus I had, but I lost 5-6kg's in weight!

However over the last 4 weeks I haven’t really lost any more weight so it looks like my fat loss may have stalled and its time to move on to a maintenance diet and try to actually improve my lifting capacity.

The plan I think is to reach the end of April at maintenance and then go in to a bulk for two much, and try to do a rapid fat loss program to try to be as ready as possible for a summer holiday!

Sounds like a plan to me.

Here is my current maintenance diet:

Breakfast 9am:

1 egg white/ 2 whole eggs omelette fried in frylight, with 3 turkey bacon slices spinach, peppers and some tomatoes.

Sachet of quaker oats porridge plain with water



2 cups of coffee with milk (no sugar)



Lunch 1.30pm:

Sandwich: 2 wholemeal brown bread, light mayo, 3 slices of ham, lettuce and tomato

1 tin of tuna in water



Cup of tea with milk (no sugar) - I'm going to switch this to green tea



Pre gym 6pm: Chicken breast or tin salmon with a sweet or regular medium potato


Pre gym 7pm: 1 banana, double shot espresso shot and 20 Almonds


Dinner 9pm: Salad or Stir Fry with white fish/steak/seafood. (Salad consisted of: tomatoes, beetroot, radishes, lettuce, onion, cucumber, peppers - seasoned with balsamic vinegar)

Desert: Fruits (up to 5 - both of the dried and non dried variety excluding figs)

Finally the routine I’m going to start doing, is an adaptation of Lyle Mcdonald's bulking routine adapted to my needs.

Format is the same as before A,B, dayoff, A,B dayoff, dayoff.

Bench Press 4x8
Cable Rows 4x8
Shoulder Press 3x10
Pull up's 3x10
Dips 2x12
Barbell Curls 2x12
20mins incline walk


Step up's 3x10
SLDL 4x8
Leg Press 3x10
Split Squat 3x10
Calf Raises 4x8
Hyper Extensions 3x10
Hanging Leg Raises 3x10
Plank
Oblique Crunches
20mins incline walk


What I like about this routine compared to my previous routine, is that the legs get more focus, which they need and the upper body gets a good rest between sessions. Before although I was doing splits, it still felt like there was too much cross over.
 
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So my first update:

Right, so as you know I started this new routine today, new tweaked diet and even had to go to a new gym.

Firstly, the potato made a huge difference to my stamina today. I felt like I wasn’t fatiguing as quick and had enough energy in the tank to get through all the exercises, with out the later ones suffering too much.

The routine, is good, I like the fact that I am now finished totally with the upper body and can focus on the lower tomorrow with no crossover and with the same intensity as the upper body.

The gym..... well over all it's an improvement on my previous one. It's bigger, has loads of machines more than Hendon and the best bit they have more leg options for me.

Example. At Hendon they have the squat rack and the leg press for doing that kind of movement ie a squat. At Cricklewood they have a squat rack, a leg press, a sledge type press where you sit upside down and a squatting machine!! The other good thing they have at cricklewood is a hip abductor.. yes yes I hear you say 'but thats a woman’s exercise. Yes it is! But, I have knee issues and the physio told me that the adbuctors play a role in knee stability so I can finally do some solid work on that now too!

So I think tomorrow, I going to see what I can do, i.e. I will try the squat machine and see if I can do that rather than step ups, I will try the sledge machine too, either way the leg press will be in there in some capacity, but now I have more options.

The diet is good too. Far healthier, and the potato will help me increase my weights. Already today, I jumped 2.5kg on the pull up and I tried 2.5kg increase on the shoulders as I felt I had it in me, but failed, but still I had the energy levels to attempt it.

Forgot to eat my almonds before gym, but just ate them on way home.

So all in all pretty good. Lets see how tomorrow goes!


Oh the other thing is they dont have a cable row machine, but had something very similar called a low back pull (I think) similar movement, but I knoticed it did not create any sort of bicep pump, so was probably isolating the back more than the cable row. Still unless I find another option, thats my best bet.

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Oh and the pool is twice the size at the new gym!

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As the new gym I'm going to has more leg options Im gona try the squat machine tomorrow instead of step ups and I will do the 'man' leg press rather than the girly one.

Lower now looks like this:

Squat 4x8
SLDL 4x8
Leg Press 3x10
Split Squat 3x10
Calf Raises 4x8
Abductors 3x10
Hyper Extensions 3x10
Hanging Leg Raises 3x10
Plank
Oblique Crunch
 
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Lower routine update:

Right, well I tried the hack squat machine. Becuase I cant go down ass to grass, (due to pain) it's not really going to do anything for me at all.

The sledge type upside down leg press, although OK, I think will not be good for me either. At the bottom of the movement, all the weight is bearing down on you, and for me that means the knee joint is under too much stress. It will only get worse as the weights go up.

Thats fine I can stick to the regular leg press, which although a bit girlie, was fine and doing the job. I was able to go heavy without the knee being under strain and the gains where coming.

The question is what to complement it with.

My options:

Step up's
Split squats
Single leg press

I can choose just two of those. Single leg presses may be more beneficial for me than say split squats. My balance is bad and the leg press is a seated 'machine' excersise, so form isnt too much of an issue.

Im thinking: Leg press, Step up's & single leg press at least I can aim to go heavy on those three.

I'm not saying the split squats arent a good excersise, its just for me, my legs arent strong, my balance is bad, split squats are very form demanding and I cant do the bulgarian split squat yet with out a lot of practice.
 
I get the message. Squats are king. But I'm telling you, I cant do it, due to rom and how the weight is distributed accoss my knee joint during the movement.

I will never be able to go ATG on a squat. It's not something 'fixable' without surgery and thats assuming that after surgery I would be able to squat at all.

I was hoping the hack squat machine would be my middle ground, but again rom limits it so much that it wasnt even worth my time.

I could drop the step ups then for the BSS?

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But I do appreciate the offer. The new gym im going is a bit more hardcore to my old one, and dont think I feel comfotable doing baby weights on the squats with all the beef cakes asking "how long you gona be" etc...

I reckon I need strong legs first to even think about trying to squat, becuase I need the muscle mass to take the stress of the knee joint.

Maybe with a year of leg pressing and reaching some high numbers, I might be strong enough.
 
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I have a confession to make... well it's not a confession but I keep it quite non the less, becuase peoples would have trashed me.

For the past 3 months I have been using the machine chest press and machine shoulder press!! :eek:

Yes, yes, shock horror, but I did it for a reason. Which may not be neccessary any more.

At the old gym I used to go to, they had only one flat bench and 3 different olmpic bars all with about 2.5kg -1.25kg differences and thickness.

This was driving me crazy, either I would have to wait 30mins to get on the bench or, the bars where different from my last session and it would mess with my weight progression!!

So I went with the machines, and have indeed made progress. But now I have changed gyms, they have two flat benchies and perhaps the barbells are the same... so... my big question is:

Would I benefit from going back to barbell for bench and shoulders as opposed to staying on the machine.

I asked my freind a question today:

If you where to compare two people who had worked the same reps/sets over a year one on machines one on barbells (chest/shoulders). would there be a difference?

He's answer was, who ever was able to make the most progress weight wise.

What you say?

I feel like I should do as much barbell work as I can simply becuase I don't do dl's and squats. I feel like I would actually make some progress now that I am actually doing it twice a week.
 
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Syla5 said:
You don't get close to ass to grass with low bar back squats.

I know you have knee issues but to what extent have you been advised by a sports physio/coach that you can't squat?

What's stopping you making 1 video with commentary as you squat about what pain your getting and where?

Until you try to fix something, your never going to know you can't fix it. I am not saying you must squat at all. They are king yes, but if you truely cannot then don't. However it seems you are happy to say you can't, but very reluctant to actually try some of the advise that is being offered. If you can leg press, you can low bar squat.
Click to expand...

The deeper I go in the squat the more it hurts. I have either thin cartalidge or nonw at all at a certian point, and during the rom of the squat the patella (knee cap) comes in contact with the femur and causes pain.

The leg press, doesnt seem to cause this problem, becuase the forces are different. The joint is technically not bearing any weight, it is just pushing.

Another way to understand the problem as the physio showed me, he got me to sit on the edge of a bed, he bent my leg back and held it there with resistance, then asked me to push. I was able to do it up to a point, untill I suddenly felt sharp pain and obviously stoped pushing.

This is why leg extensions and leg curls are bad for me, becuase I would be doing the above, but this time with weights. It was the leg curl machine I caused ths problem on to start with.
 
Ok to answer questions above.

Before I started making progress on the leg press which started in January, my legs wrent very strong at all, and I couldnt see my self managing to lift more than 100kg on the leg press. (Which now is pretty measley)

I this point I had tried squats whist holding dumbelss, and well I hurt myself (knee) and swore never to make that mistake again.

However, I have spent the last 3 months doing leg press and sldl's and have noticed that I do have better stability and form when doing this movement. (Which is why I think one day I might even be able to dl at some point)

However is taking me to having some leg strength, to even work 'think' I might be able to squat, which ironically is meant to develop leg strength.

My only reservation squats wise, is Im thinking to the future. On the leg press, the sky is the limit as it doesnt hurt the knee. Squats.... well I may be able to go light/medium, but as soon as I migrate to man squats, my knee issues will become a limiting factor and I wont be able to progress.

---

Some one asked above about my physio etc.... well the physio is an NHS physio at an orthoeadic hospital in London.

The full story to how I injured the leg and my physio history is:

I actually ruptured my ACL in my left leg in 2000 playing football in the park. Back then I didnt know how serious it was and just left the swelling to go down. Few months later I tried to play football again, and litterally fell over with my first touch of the ball.

Went to see GP who refered me to a surgeon. I had my surgery and was told I had a ACL reconstruction, using a hamstring tendon and a menisectomy done.

But the bad news, is that the surgeon that did the graft has put the graft in a 'non optimal' position ie, it is 1cm out of it's proper alignment. I have been advised to not do anything about it, as to have another op to correct it, is very complex and not advisable.

So that was my bad leg, hwoever now my right causes me more issues.

Fast forward to about 4 years ago, I was in the gym doing hamstring curls as physio told me hams stabilise the knee, and I was using a weight too heavy for my self and suddenly felt sharp pain in my right leg. I thought thats not good and stopped.

No pain or issues at first, however over the coming weeks it started to ache, untill one day I extended my right leg and experienced a massive CRACK!

Since then, the knee aches like a (female dog) and cracks a lot! I was having issues walking down stairs as it would hurt etc...

I went back to GP and said, please can you send me to the best NHS orthopeadic hospital in london, as this time I dont have the luxury of messing about.

They sent me to the Royal National Orphopeadic hospital in london. The surgeon at first thought it ws cartilidge damage but the mri scans showed a little bit of degenerative damage but nothing too conclusive.

I ws given a choice, athroscopy or physio. I thought I'd try physio.

Physio, recommended single leg press, wall squats and glute excersies mostly.

Did help at all, and I went back eventually and had the atheroscopy, just for peace of mind to find out whatthe problem was.

They told me, that I had thined my cartildge behind knee cap and that I had a flap of carilidge removed. To be honest, knee actually feels worse now that pre surgery. But that just might be the condition getting worse with time rather than the surgery.

Having spoken to my surgeon post op, he told me there is nothing surgically that can be done further other than a partial knee replacemnt. Ie, they will shave what little cartiledge I have left and replce it with a peice of plastic.

I have since gone back to see a dfferent phsio at the orthopeadic hospital and he has me doing:

Pistol squats, but it's like only 1/5th of the movement, in order to develop my VMO.
Wall squats with a ball between my legs.
Glute excersies.

To be honest with you, all the above are useless, I have been doing the leg press, which has been the main excersies which has given me a little bit of a VMO. However this hasnt made any difference at all to my pain in the knee.

Due to thin/missing cartiledge knee gets irritated from constant rubbing so it causes me pain even at rest. All this excersies I have been doing recently has not helped.

For cardio I was doing Xtrainer and cycling, but stopped these ass it caused knee pain. I then tried jogging at a slowish pace and tryig to be light on my feet, but this too ws causing me pain.

The only cardio avialable to me is swimming and walking.

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So if Im to do squats, I need to do it in a way a beginer would do it. I need to find 3 excersies that will be beneficial too me.

I was initially thinking leg press, single leg press and step ups. But I could swap step ups for BSS or Squats.....
 
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Just to add to the above post, the surgeon told me that the arteritis which is what it is is degenerative.

It will get worse. But inactivity is worse than activity. So the point of me developing the muscle around the knee is to try and take some of the impacts of the knee joint.... and carry on for as long as I can (stand the pain, discomfort and general unhappyness) untill I finally need to have the partial knee replacement. (Most likely will not be able to squat after that!)

Whether this is next year, in 5 years or in 20 all depends on variables that no one knows.

At the moment knee is killing me. but I have been doing lots of cardio (walking) so maybe this is what has aggrevated it.

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Sometimes I think I should give up, as it's hopeless ad I'm just huffing and puffing. But, then I still have to live out the rest of my days, so I might as well carry on with weights, even if it is in a limited capacity.

The only thing I can do is try my best, carry on, stop feeling sorry for my self and do what needs to be done!
 
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icecold said:
Seriously, what's wrong with you?!

Post

A

Video

Also, just building muscle around your knee won't do any good. You need to build functional strength, ie stregth in good positions and with good movement. There is no way you're doing that now.

Why am I even bothering...
Click to expand...


Your bothering becuase Im trying! As for functional strength that makes sense.
 
I don't want you guys to get angry with me, as I do want to find leg excersises I can do to make my leg stronger.

The physio keeps banging on about VMO and yes, the internet seems to suggest that the VMO plays a big role in knee cap pain and management.

However, I have read in the past that squats are not a great idea for people with my issue.

I did a little google and if you look here under symptoms, it does say that squats and walking down stairs are examples that cause pain. (Both of which are issues for me)

You can also see here, it lists squats as a excersise that aggrevates problem.

And then it goes on to say do not do the following:

Do not do the following exercises:
lunges
squats
stair-stepper machines
leg extension machine

I'm not ruling it out. But shouldnt I do exercises to build up my leg muscle first, before I move on to trying to incoporate squats in my routine?

'Needing to learn to walk first before running' comes to mind.
 
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I'll see what I can do regarding squats.

On the topic of split squats vs step ups.

Is either good, or is there defo one I should do over the other?

I was thinking of doing some kind of step up like this.
 
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Seeing as you guys brought it up, I will update, with my thoughts.

I didn’t want to bring it, up because all I seem to be doing is infuriating people.

The squat hurts me. I understand that it is a basic functional thing that all humans can do. But I have damaged the cartilage beneath my knee cap.

The exact same injury for some one else may or may not effect them in a different way. Only I know how my knee feels when I do certain movements.

That being said, over the last 3 months I have been leg pressing I have noticed my legs are stronger and maybe, just maybe I might be able to start squatting.

But then I look at an exercise in terms of how much can be achieved. I believe that body weight squats is indeed attainable. But I think that my knee issues will be come to be a limiting factor at some point as I make progress on the squat, this would be despite how massive my quads get.

However the leg press feels difference. I don't think even if I managed to reach 250kg on the leg press that my knee problem would ever stop me from completing the lift. Which is why for ME the leg press is the better exercise.

Big pete is right that one does NOT have to squat at all. Again I did not want to bring this up because if I brought it up, you guys would have just got even more cheesed off with me.

Take a look at this article.

Regardless, my aim at the moment is to build my legs up and them maybe just maybe, after a good 6 - 12 months of work, I can test the waters again with squats.

However it may just be the case, that I may never be able to do them.

Currently my legs routine contains: leg press, split squats, lunges and step ups. The lunge is a bit tough for me, but I’m going to do body weight and build up from there.

You have to remember one thing, I am not training to be a power lifter, so power lifting movements are not necessarily of any use to me.

That not to say that if I was able to do squats I wouldnt do em and Dead lifts, but at the moment, there simply isn’t enough strength or mass in my legs to compensate for my injury.

The deadlift maybe a different kettle of fish to the squat. It just seems different, and maybe one day that is far more likely to be doable. But I need to get strong first before adding it in there.

At the end of the month, I'm going back to speak to my physio and Ill see what he has to say. I do know that the surgeon who operated on me told me to "forget about squatting ever again".

As for my upper body routine. It's a generic routine. But I am still trying to gain mass. So concentrating on one thing twice a week per body part will hopefully enable me to make gains in the fastest most consistent way.

I'm literally one week in to my new routine and I think it's going well and this is coming from some that that has been training for years (inefficiently and inconsitantly) and never made much progress.

Some of the best changes I have made to my routine is training body parts twice a week and switching to machines. Yep that's right machines! with the machine, all the variables are exactly the same, you just change the weight and go. No waiting for the bar, no problem with people asking when are you going to be finished no problem with not having a spotter, no problem with the bars being differnet width or weight from the last time.

There are people at my level who I see are still benching the same weights whilst I who have been using the mahcine have made weight increases.

Thats what it comes down to. Progress is measured by weight. Regardless whether its free weights vs machines. For me, Im looking to get somewhere first and machines are enabling me to do this.

For fairly novice level trainees, they should start on machines, make some solid progress, get some strength and then move on to free weights.

My aim is to spend the rest of this year on machines, and then if I feel I need to switch back to free weights.

But some of the biggest guys in my gym, I saw yesterday using machines, so Im not to concerned, plus I can see in my self the progress being made, so I know it works.

Honestly In about 3 months last time round I went from 40kg on the flat bench to 42.5kg! That was it. On the machines I have moved up by about 10kg already over the last 3 months and seen physiological changes in my body.
 
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Ok ok, give me about a week (honestly) and Ill update again regarding squats. I basically want to speak to physio.

I could, start with just body weight and at least have them in there and make super small baby weight increases.
 
In exaclty one week Im going back to seethe physio. I'll see what he has to say.

There is no harm in my supplemeting my routine with squats, even if I start with just body weight. Infact you'r right, I should be doing it already.

I just have to do it in a way that I wont cause damage to my self.
 
Just as an update this is what my lower and ab day looks like:

Step up's 2x10
SLDL 4x8
Lunges 2x12
Leg Press 3x10
Split Squats 3x10
Calf Raises 4x8
Crunches 3xamrap
Plank 3 sets
Dumbbell Side Bends 3x12
Flutterkick 3xamrap

Forget the fact there is no squats in there for the moment, how does that look?

I could easily lose say the step ups or split squats for squats.

It's not in that order tho, I go heavy on the leg press first, then split squats, lunges, step ups etc...
 
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