After coming off my best meet performance of my career, I am now officially a beat up powerlifter. I'm having some minor low back issues that I'm working on mending up, and then I'll begin to find a competitive option. My goals for 2017 are to compete in a bodybuilding show and also get back to the platform 100% healthy.

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Thursday's leg training was TOUGH. After writing it up, I thought it wouldn't be all that bad. Some good time under tension and a good amount of volume, but damn, this kicked my ass. I would like to say that I have more to elaborate on about the session, but it was just sucky. I felt good...my legs however, did not. The low back is feeling really good though. It's crazy to think I've still got over two weeks until I can put a little bit of load on my back.

Oh, I also found a place on campus that does free massages a few times a week. Granted it's the PT and massage therapy students doing it to get their hours in, but I'm going to hop on this and see if I can't get some tissue work done every couple of weeks. Should be good on the back/glutes too, to supplement what my chiro is already doing.

Items Used in this Training Session

Warm Up
PRI Breathing Work - 5 min
Hip Flexor Stretch - 30 sec per leg
Leg Swings (forward and side to side) - 10 each
Single Leg RDL - 10 per leg
Bulgarian Split Squat - 10 per leg
Goblet Squat - 10
Standing Band Crunch - 15

A1) Seated Leg Curls
4x10

B1) Horizontal Hack Squat
Up to a top set of 8 reps - using a pause in the bottom
Then 2x20 afterwards
*This surprisingly felt really good. I was a bit worried how my back would handle this, as this is the closest I've came to really loading my spine. The cool thing about this hack squat is that the pad is place at the low back, not over the shoulders, so there was no direct spinal loading. I think this is another one of those mini milestones that I'm happy to cross.*

C1) Leg Press
3x50
*This is was just a dumb ass idea.*

D1) Single Leg Leg Extensions
3x10 per leg
*I'll note that these are SUPER controlled. I'm not a big fan of heavy leg extensions, so dropping the weight and really focusing on about a 2-1-2 tempo was the goal.*

E1) Walking Goblet Lunges
2x12 per leg; plus a drop set on the last set

F1) DB Stiff Leg Deadlifts
3x20

G1) Seated Calf Machine
4x10-15

H1) Ab Machine
2x15
2x12