Quads

Saturday is quads again, I have been "over training" for several weeks, hitting hamstrings twice a week and quads twice a week. Soon, I will change that and go back to one quad day, one hamstring day and then a combo leg day (both quads and hams).


This over training has resulted in my legs being sore in one place or another constantly, and I mean all the time. Seems I get a moment when they start to feel OK, then I hit them all over again.


Saturday I arrived at 6:00 a.m. opening and warmed up on the treadmill, then stretched. I walked down towards my favorite power rack and as I got there Alan stuck his face in mine and says "Are ya deaf!!?" He had been following me trying to get my attention, but my music was way too loud. He was going to San Francisco and wanted to know the name of a restaurant we had talked about.


I then started in on my squats. I noticed that both of my quads were bruised, odd. They both had bruises in just about the same location. I couldn't figure out why.


I warmed up quite a bit, 45 pounds, 65 pounds, 85, 95, 115 and finally started in with 135 pounds, 10 reps. I am concentrating on maintaining the same strength in each leg as I rise up from the squat, I have been "shimmying" as one leg is stronger than the other, and I get partially up then veer to the left and then up, an odd movement and not desirable.


I actually think I may have conquered it today! But we won't find out till Roy watches me from behind on Wednesday.


I finished 3 sets and moved to the Leg Press. Again, several warm ups and then 4 sets of 10 reps at 450 pounds (plus the weight of the machine).  I know I should be able to do more on this, but it is only the second week I have used it, and haven't used it in ages since before this. 


Then up to the Leg Extension. Again, not something I typically use, and I may start using it before squats, I haven't decided yet. Warm up then 5 sets of 10 reps at 110 pounds. I am actually seeing more muscle and definition in my quads, I am super excited!


I have a busy day with my brother planned, so need to get some cardio or conditioning done now, I will not be able to do anything later. Saturdays the entire Basketball Court is taken over by men playing.....basketball! Can you imagine? So I really cannot go use the facility, I decide to hit the stairstepper for 20 minutes.  I forgot how boring it can be, at least on the stairmill my feet move! But they were all full so this is all I could do.


8:05 and I am done! Home for coffee and breakfast of 1 cup egg whites scrambled, 1 whole fried egg on top and a small serving of steel cut oats with peanut butter....


In the shower I figure out why I have bruised quads, it's the Donkey Calf Raises. The 3 plates hanging down between my legs. The chains from the dip belt hit right where the bruises are. I have got to change my calf training on Monday.

Fridays Training

Woo Hoo! I love Fridays!


Monday, Wednesday and Friday are almost like "two a days" for me, but they aren't brutal like the "two a days" I do during competition prep, that will start soon enough.


In the a.m. it's "calves and conditioning" or it could be "calfs and conditioning", I have looked it up since I see them used interchangeably and when I did, I found this hilarious site called "Legs of Steel" and this is what they had to say:

Women's legs with muscular calves come from working out regularly. Often times they are found on women body builders. Some people prefer the saying "Legs of steel" and if this is what interests you then you can go to:www.legsofsteel.com to see lots of women in this category. The women are listed in alphabetic order so if you find one you like you can find them again easily. There are over 75 different woman listed here.

Ha ha, you know you can find just about anything on the Internet!

I am not promoting the site, and no, I am not listed on the site, It was just a silly thing I wanted to share.

So my Friday morning starts with a 5 minute walk on the treadmill then I go down to the back weight room to hit the calves. I prefer to start with the donkey calf raise, but I need the incline bench and just as I have my schedule, so does another guy and he bench presses (thats ALL he does) and he does it three times a weak. Now I am not the one that will tell him this is not effective nor is it a good idea, especially when I heard him telling someone about his sore shoulders that same morning!

So he does the flat bench then the incline, so I let him do his thing and I hit the seated calf raise first. Two plates, 4 sets of 20. It is easy to throw your shoulders backwards to give yourself a little help, don't do this, keep your back straight and work your CALVES only.

Then the incline bench fellow is done so I take the Olympic bar off the rack and set it up for Donkey Calf raises. I am up to three plates now, that's 135 pounds hanging from my lower hips on a dip belt. I am doing 4 sets of 20, slowly up, slowly down. I need more weight soon, but getting up into position is the hard part with that much weight, I have to push up with one leg and I won't be able to with much more weight. I may need to ask one of the guys to sit on my back soon, and I need to be careful who I ask. Bobbie would don a Cowboy hat and scream "eeh haw" and try to kick me with spurs, I best try to find a smaller, more docile fellow... ha ha ha

Then it's off for conditioning in the Basketball court. I warm up by jogging around the perimeter four times, then I practice on the heavy bag a bit. My boxing has gotten better, but its hard to kick this bag, it's way too hard and there is some velcro at the bottom, so when I practice "knees" I scrape them on the velcro. It's not that I am a wimp, but gyms are really dirty places, and not the place you want to get a scrape.

Then I throw the gloves onto the floor and start in with my conditioning. Pushups, high knee jumps, running, burpee/sprawls, squats holding weight overhead. They have these big heavy tubes with hand holds in them, I am not sure what they are called but they are like a more stable form of sandbag training, and they have a huge stack of them in the basketball court, just waiting for me.

Sweat is dripping down my face, I have done many rounds and now a couple guys come in to play basketball, I run around them. I am then down on the floor, doing crunches, frog crunches, side crunches, then shadow boxing and high knees, down to the floor for mountain climbers.

I finish off with more boxing, my hair is plastered to my neck and face. Off I go, I have to go into work.

At 11:45 I am waiting for Roy at his place, I am early and I have a new book "The Metabolic Typing Diet" by William Wolcott and Trish Fahey, and I sit in the sun reading and waiting, actually enjoying myself.

He arrives and it's shoulder day, I love shoulders. I change into my workout clothes and stretch, then we start in with behind the neck shoulder press. I warm up, then we get up to 75 pounds, all the way down until the bar hits my rhomboids, then power up. My left is so much weaker, it struggles. I think we did 4 sets maybe? I did 10, 8, 6, then 5 if I recall. We then did a drop set, 65 pounds, 55 pounds, 45 pounds.

Roy says my stomach is looking better, that means flatter. It is, I have lost some body fat. My weight is down to 126 pounds yet my muscles still look full. This is good, I do have to start the diet soon, so it helps me "mentally" to see  some improvement when not really trying yet.

Then seated dumbbell press, bringing them slowly all the way down to stretch the muscle, and power up. This, I believe we did 5 sets of with 32.5 pounds in each hand.

Last we did dumbbell front raises, with 12.5  pounds. Several sets, my left arm is almost a joke now, it is so weak compared to the right!

No time for boxing or ropes, damn! Stacy comes in, it's her turn, I have to leave, just when I was getting warmed up.


Funny, I love doing this and could do it all day. Some people complain and whine the entire time they are in the gym- what, do you suppose makes us feel so differently about this?


Saturday will be quads, my poor legs have been beat up so much lately, but I win the battle. They might complain and moan, but I keep them in line, pushing harder and harder everyday.

Donkey Calf raise

The Donkey Calf raise is a great exercise for the calves, but my gym doesn't have a dedicated machine. I have figured out a way to do this on the incline bench and it works wonderfully!


You can obviously do this in many ways, but the problem I encountered was finding a place where I could stretch my calves down as far as possible.


Above is a picture of Dave Draper (who lives over the hill from me in Santa Cruz) with Arnold  Schwarzenegger sitting on his back as he performs this exercise. Since I don't want any of the large men at my gym sitting on my back, I have to do this on my own. 




I use the incline bench like the one below, and I take the Olympic bar off the racks, and place it on the ground. I then get a dip belt and a 45 pound plate, I stand on the platform behind the incline bench, squat down and strap the belt around my waist, and slowly straighten up, allowing the plate to hang down between my legs. 

I then lean over and rest my forearms on the top of the bench, and perform the calf raises, making sure to stand all the way up on my toes, pausing at the top and then slowly lower down stretching at the bottom.


Calves need high reps, one reason why they are so difficult to grow, it takes forever, so who has time and it is boring, boring, boring! But at my gym they are anything but boring! The incline bench is set up so the platform is against the decline bench. So anyone on the decline is laying on the bench, head in a lowered position, near the platform of the incline bench, staring right up at my butt! I can look down through my legs and chat! Makes for interesting conversation.....

Bbelow is a good video explaining the Donkey Calf Raise, and although he is using an actual dedicated machine, I think his explanation is worth listening to and watching. The video afterward is a man actually performing it in the fashion very similar as to what I am describing.


Email subscribers will need to navigate directly to the blog to view both of the following videos. 


And now the video closer to how I am describing it.

 

Hams

Hamstrings, mine are killing me! I am sore from Friday, and I have been rolling and stretching but it just takes time for the soreness to subside.


After being so sore for so long I decided to look into it. It was those snatch-grip deadlifts on a platform that I was doing on Friday.


I chose Roy as my trainer because he is Poliquin certified. I guess he took his certification all too seriously! Well, according to Charles Poliquin, the snatch-grip deadlift, his #1 go-to lift, is also called The "deadlift from hell" according to T-Nation. 


Here is an excerpt from the interview several years ago:

"The snatch-grip deadlift, specifically a snatch deadlift on a four inch  platform. The idea here is to get a large range of motion by standing on the  platform and using the wide grip.

If you told me you were going to jail and only had a barbell and didn’t want to get raped in the showers and could only do one exercise to put mass and strength on, then I’d tell you to do the snatch deadlift on a platform.

This exercise alone makes people gain weight like crazy. Any time I have someone who needs to gain weight fast and doesn’t have a whole lot of time, I have them do snatch deadlifts. And with the snatch grip deadlift, straps are okay because you’ll be doing reps above three, but don’t use them until you get to your working weight.

If you think about it, this is the opposite of the sumo deadlift, which shortens the range of motion. Likewise, some powerlifters will lift in ballet shoes to shorten the ROM. What we want to do here is lengthen it. The snatch grip and platform will take care of that."

interview from tnation.com

Some people believe that you should never train quads and hamstrings together, others feel it's fine. 

I am of the camp that says go for it- train both quads and hams on the same day BUT, be sure to train the proper one first. Hamstrings.

Hamstrings are fast twitch muscle fibers, they contract best when the central nervous system is fresh. 

Fast twitch muscles fatigue quickly but they produce a lot of force in a short amount of time.

So for hamstrings you should be doing super heavy weights, low reps, several sets. Training hamstrings for 12 to 20 reps and light weights will not recruit these muscles and they will not grow. You really need to blast these muscles.

Also, saving your hams for after your quads is a bad idea, the muscles will be too fatigued to recruit- it's wasted time in the gym.

Calves? The gastrocnemius (upper calf) is mainly fast twitch muscle fibers so you want to train that before the soleus, so train the gastrocnemius first then do your seated calf raises.