Recently I celebrated my 32 birthday. I was fortunate enough to spend it with my person who is away half way across the country training for the job of her life.
I'm not gonna lie, after spending every day with someone for almost two years, and then being pulled away for six months, it isn't freaking easy. We manage to get buy through FaceTime and the occasional phone conversation, although brief. Seeing her once a month keeps me sane. Its the best money I've ever spent. If you really want to test a relationship put 700 miles in between one another. After I returned, going from a high, I definitely went to a low. Training was difficult and I was just going through the motions. I eventually pulled my head out of my ass and training is back to normal.
I'm currently going through a body re-composition phase so calories are being reduced slightly and cardio has begun. I enjoy the process as it keeps me and my mind busy. Who knows where it would go if it wasn't. So, legs...yeah it went like this
Started of with a superset of Single leg standing leg curl for 10 reps plus 10 partials superset leg extensions with slow eccentrics but with real light weight. I don't do heavy leg extensions as I feel it pushed the tibia posteriorly leading to knee and ankle issues. So after 4 sets it was on to squats. I chose smith squats this week as I had regular squats last week. I worked up doing plate flips up to 4 plates
1 plate x10, 2 plates x 10, 3 plates x 10 then 4 plates x 8 with a drop set of 3 plates x 10 then 2 plates x 12. the video below is of the 4 plates for 8. My apologies for the crotch shot.
After I caught my breath I moved onto Hack squats. Now the trick with hack squats I have found is to not worry so much about driving into the plate but more driving your feet up through your toes. This intent will help activate more quad and less ass and hamstrings. Also, you need to be pressing your low back down into the ground as hard as possible to keep your pelvis in the correct position. A lot of guys I see doing this tend to tighten their belt way to tight and arch the shit out of there low back. This actually forces the knee to travel farther forward making it less affective. I worked up to one rest pause set with 4plates and a 25 per side. Reps went 10,5,3. I was pretty spent after this.
Moved on to Single leg lunges on the smith. I elevated my working front foot to place more tension on the posterior ham and glute. 3 sets of 12 per leg at 3 quarters per side. No video.
Lastly ended with 3/4 rep DB RDL's for 12 reps a piece for three sets. Just two warm up sets to essentially see where my balance was at then used the hundreds for all threes sets.
That concluded leg training along with 30 minutes of steady state with HR around 135-145 BPM and a post training cigar!
www.performanceandrecoverysystems.com