For proponents of short, intense workouts - uh huh, sure

[SteelWeaver]

Uh, OK, forgive my rudeness this morning. So I took everyone's advice for light quads today. Did 4 or 5 easy warm up sets, 8 work sets total, 3 sets for lower abs and was done in 30 minutes.

One and a quarter leg extensions 3x10, 8, 8
superset with
squats 3 x 10 (60 secs rest between each superset)
Then hack squat 2x 10, 8

Nothing to failure but worked hard. ALL the way down on squats, perfect form, pause at the bottom. Will see what happens next week on heavy quads day.

This is kind of cool - an excuse to slack off! (j/k) I was starting to dread heavy leg days. Sure makes the next 5 weeks look less like pure hell, anyway.

 

[fitmedic]

HANG IN THERE STEEL. i too do not seem to be making gains in the leg dept. no matter what i do i cant see a difference. maaaaybe a slight growth in quads but i couldnt buy myself hams. and man, what id give for 'em! i guess ultimately you have to do what feels right and works for you.

 

[b fold the truth]

HANG IN THERE STEEL. i too do not seem to be making gains in the leg dept. no matter what i do i cant see a difference. maaaaybe a slight growth in quads but i couldnt buy myself hams. and man, what id give for 'em! i guess ultimately you have to do what feels right and works for you.

Maybe it is time to rethink what you are doing for legs...maybe.

B True

 

[scruples]

i think that you are fabricating things

 

[SteelWeaver]

Uuuh..... OOOOOK, some of the posts here are getting a little weird .....

Whatever.

fitmedic - I actually made some pretty fair gains in my quads and calves straight after my May competition - I made pretty good gains all over, I think. (and some pretty good FAT gains too but I'm taking care of that now) It's kinda hard gaining in the quads when you're 5'11", anyway, but it was better than what I've achieved before.

I've cut the volume on everything I'm doing by 25% or so, and will go with that from today, working as heavy as I can for the next 5 weeks up to my comp.

If anyone has any tips they'd like to part with re my above questions, I'm wide open to suggestions.

Oh, and I just realised this doesn't make sense "to the point where my legs actually collapse
under me, and then do rest pause, or forced a few times? Or drop sets." I usually work to failure on squats, then do rest-pause. Obviously one couldn't do forced reps if one's legs had collapsed under them. I do drop sets with dumbbells or machines (mostly with with other muscle groups) - kind of hard to do with a barbell

Anyway - if ANYONE has tips for pre-contest training, and hasn't given up on this thread yet, I would much appreciate it.

 

[makedah]

A drug-free lifter trains only three, sometimes two times a week. No wonder they get sore. This style of training is similar to a weekend warrior playing basketball.

By Jove, something just CLICKED for me!

 

[JJFigure]

I met with my friend (competitive powerlifter and college strength coach), and he recommended a workout similiar to what MS is doing. Basically, every lift you do at least one pull, one push, and one leg movement using primarily multi-joint exercises. We're still working out the combos, but I'll let you know what we finally come up with.

We'll also be alternating the poundages based on the Prilipen Volumes Rule (the powerlifters have to be lovin' this thread). The Volumes Rule details based on percentage of intensity how many reps/sets should be performed. For example, if you're working at 60-69% intensity, your number of total reps should range between 18-30, and reps per set s/b 3-6. So, if you're going to hit the low end of the range, you do 3 sets of 6.

This makes planning the workouts a little harder - and more detailed than I've done in a long while. That's why it's taking so long.

 

[fitmedic]

steel, so what was different about the may post comp training that you made gains??? i HEAR YOU SISTER about the quad development being tall- im 5'10" and good grief, if i wasnt sore as all get out after deeeep wide squats and SLDL i wouldnt even know i had hams. hehehe. i have changed my leg routine soo many times i dont think theres anything left to try. if you get good advice from this thread with good results let me now. until then i will keep searching for my long lost quads...

 

[Intenceman]

I don't know how you could truly go to failure with heavy weights ands be ABLE to do 12 sets per bodypart. I do 2 drop sets of leg extensions including forced reps, followed by a squat or leg press, then 2 sets of a leg curl in the same style as leg extensions in about 35 mins or so, and by that point I have trouble walking. I can't imagine doing another 7 sets or another half hour of training. If it's really intense you can't do much.

 

[SteelWeaver]

steel, so what was different about the may post comp training that you made gains???

Weeeellllll ........ I was EATING about 2000 calories more than pre-comp, muwwaaaa ha haa haaa ha ha!!! (most of them squeaky clean). And I think being lean to start with helps a lot. Otherwise, the training itself wasn't so different.

And if you look at my new oh dear oh dear thread - you'll see that I think I've realised I could have maybe made BETTER gains. Something I noticed after the May comp was that my traps and abs kind of grew quickly. I thought that was just, you know, because those parts of me are maybe quick growing parts. BUT, maybe NOT. The thing is, I hate ab training, so I only do a few sets 2 or 3 times a week (usually 2, because I'm mostly too tired to do them after everything else). And for shrugs I was only doing 3 sets a week, as opposed to a lot more volume for other parts.

Makes you think, doesn't it?




JJ, I've heard about the volume calculations - I kind of figured it makes sense to do more sets when with lower reps and fewer sets when doing higher reps ....

Spatts, is that a suggestion for pre-comp training, fitting in extra work?

Intenceman - if I may ask - do you do leg exts before squats because of a lack of lower back strength? I often find my lower back can't cope with the weight my legs can on squats - thus, I suppose what appear to be forced reps on squats are simply someone helping to support my lower back while my legs finish what they are actually capable of. Been wondering lately if I shouldn't just do heavy leg presses to pre-exhaust quads before squats .....