My training History: I trained less than one year before competing in my first powerlifting meet as a teenager back in 1983. Before leaving the sport partially due to injuries in 2005 I achieved my elitefts status in the 198,220,242,275 & 308 weight class. Throughout these years I did have a 3 year run in the bodybuilding world. I have  degenerative joint disease, have had two shoulder surgeries (right shoulder now needs replaced), one full hip replacement, knee surgery, and herniation's in all three regions of my spine, Bone spurs (all joints). I can't even begin to list the number of muscle tears I have had, surgical and non surgical.  I am "The Mashed Up Meathead" and this is my story. 

You can find my training log archives HERE and my most current training log posts HERE. 

My best lifts are behind be but my best training is yet to come. 

* Unless otherwise noted the tempo of the work sets is about 1/2 of what most would consider normal. In most cases, if I did the set with normal temp what I fail at with 8-10 reps in training I could do for 20 reps with a normal tempo. This is to keep the joint stress down while increase the stress on the muscle. I have found this to work best for me provided the conditions listed in my training history above.

Tuesday: Leg Day

 

My training days are kind of getting all messed up. The reason for that is I'm going to be trying to increase the frequency on some body parts. Other ones I'm going to lower the frequency, and I'm going to move around my training time a little bit. I want to start to try to dial in and get a better handle and a better gauge on where my body is, and how I'm going to recover. I also want to figure out what's going on with my good hip or bad hip, however you want to define it. The one that wasn't replaced. I've got an appointment to see the doctor on that. The worst case scenario, it will have to be replaced like the other one. The best case scenario, it's not that big of a deal. We'll find out, but either way I've got to accommodate, move things around.

I also have a lot of meetings scheduled throughout December. It's always a heavy meeting time for me as strategies are discussed for 2016. Some supplier agreements need to be renewed, renegotiated, and all that other happy horse shit. The kind that comes along with the job.

This season, the one things that's really cool, and that I try to stress throughout my training log is the one constant throughout the year and throughout everything is training. It's there to help keep you grounded. It's there to keep you humble, and to give you something to look forward to. Your break, your time away.

 

Seated leg curls.
Four to five warm-up sets at 15 reps. Four work sets of 12 to 15 reps. All sets taken to failure, and then two sets of partials just doing the top quarter. I've never done these partials as just their own sets in themselves. I've always done them as an intensification factor at the end of the regular set. This is kind of interesting, the way it felt, and how freaking pumped they got my hamstrings. I did two sets of partials of repetitions of 50, and completely destroyed my hamstrings. I'm just going to kind of chock that up as being something I've never done before, and that's why it felt the way that it did.

 

Leg extensions.
One warm-up set to determine what weight I was going to use, and then five sets of 20 to 25 repetitions. All sets to failure, and then because it worked so well on the leg curls, I did the same thing on the leg extensions, and did two sets of partials out of the bottom for ... I could only do 20 to 25 reps. I couldn't do anymore.

 

Hip adduction.
Four sets of 15 because this was earlier in the training session than I would normally do them, typically I do these last, I used more weight and got a huge groin pump. If you want to call it that. Probably a better way to describe it was cramps. I definitely know that I need to take this movement, as stupid as it is, and prioritize it a little bit more in my training because this was the exact same cramp that I get three hours after I do a real strenuous leg day. I think I kind of dialed into something on this.

 

Hip abduction.
Four sets of 15. All sets to failure, didn't quite get 15 on the last two sets. Somewhere between 10 and 15.

 
Standing glute press.
Yeah, this is that stupid machine where you stand up, and you put your foot against the bar, and kick your leg back. Four sets of 15.

 

In case you haven't noticed, all of this hip work is the shit that I was supposed to have been doing twice, three times a week since my hip replacement a couple years ago. At least that was my desired plan. I have been doing them all at least once a week, but these are some of the items that I want to try to increase the frequency on, and like a typical meat head, I didn't start doing it until my other hip started hurting. I'm hoping the other hip is hurting just from the stupid squat shit I did the last couple weeks, but we'll find out here soon.

 

Legpress.jpeg

 

Leg presses.
I kept the weight light for sets of 20, did four sets of 20 with a moderate to slow pace. Had maybe 10, 15 reps left in the tank, and then I did one set of ... I just call them around the worlds. I don't know how else to describe it, but I do eight repetitions with my feet up high and close, and then immediately go to eight repetitions with my feet medium and high, and then eight repetitions of my feet wide and high, and then eight repetitions of my feet down low and wide, and then eight more repetitions of my feet medium and low, and then eight repetitions of close and low. It's not too bad after the first 16, 24 repetitions, then it starts to get really bad because the lower you drop your feet, the more you start to pull your quads into the movement because your taking your hamstrings and glutes out because your feet come down more. Depending on what type of leg press you're using. I've got a really, really wide based leg press, so these differences in foot positions are major.

 

Standing leg curls.
Three, double sets. Once again, a double set is you do one leg and then the other, and then you back to the original leg and then back to the other leg, all within one round without stopping. The goal here was to get eight reps on every one of the sets. What I ended up getting was eight reps on the first round, six reps on the second round for all three sets that I went through and did.

 

kettlebell dead lift.
By this time, my legs are just shot. With a medium stance, squat down, back erect, stand up with a kettle bell, squeeze your ass as hard as you can, set it back down to a dead stop, pull it up again, nothing too exciting about this. Four sets of eight reps.

No puking in a bucket. No dry heaves. No passing out. No falling over, but I can guarantee tomorrow I'm going to feel this one in a big way.