Anonymous's picture
Anonymous
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2100

need some serious help bro's

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I find myself feeling great after every monday, tuesday, and friday lift. However, every thursday i feel like dog shit, not physically, its more of a mental/emotional thing. I train legs on thursdays, and my workouts have become extremely shitty due to an acl/maniscus surgery I had last year and I kinda feel like my legs are begining to lag. I used to revolve my leg routine around squats but now when i try to do this i cant really do it unless its extremely light and i feel like that wont do shit. Can anybody help me come out with a sick leg routine to help me with my problem? None of the hamstring workouts I do bother me, but squats, leg extension, leg press (these actually dont hurt as bad as you would think) tend to bother my knee pretty bad. What would you guys recommend I do? This is serious guys, it sucks! I used to have some fuckin massive legs from football and squats and now I feel like they suck -_- ....any help is appreciated guys.

Broctavius's picture

If you played football I'm guess you squat over 400. But, now injury and age might be taking a toll. Your form could be perfect and you might still hurt some, but re-evaluating your form might be worth trying.

The squat is a compromise between load distributed between you legs and back, and always over the middle of the foot. It's the nature of the movement. Too upright and you'll shock your knees. Too bent over, and you'll pull your back or worse fall forward.

Leg Press shock loads the knees, because it takes your back out of the equation. No compromise. It's all in the knees. That might be why it makes your knees tender after leg press. I would avoid it lighter squats are a lot better than leg press anyway.

You might have a slight form problem shock loading your knees on squat, but I wouldn't be able to tell unless I was standing right next to you. Never hurts to check your basics. I still have to do it sometimes, because if it's hurting odds are form could be improved.

Kelly Starrett (physical therapist consults for NFL teams) has a really good video on how not to hurt your knees in squat, but he is alittle preachy. I don't do ass to ground squats often like he recommends, because just below parallel is my preference. Video tape yourself squatting with reasonable weight, and try to figure out if you can improve. Not saying it's form, and everyone has their opinions on form. He's Crossfit, and I have mixed opinions about Crossfit (because I'm a power lifter), but this video helped my knees a lot! Just watch it's only nine minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOH6b0jJ2bQ

hendrix's picture

man when I did my rehab, I actually did alot of resistance band movments going side to side, wide duck walks forward and backwards(that all seemed to help me alot faster) and besides that I would say lots of balance stuff putting mild pressure to where your working more then hurting but it seemed effective also

Broctavius's picture

Physical therapy exercises and ice. Ha forgot to mention those. Good luck man let me know what you think of that video.

hendrix's picture

Man I had ACL surgery and I rehabbed 3 days a week for 4 months before I was back to about 65-75%, my flexibility was at about 90%, but the strength took a while before my legs were back to strong. It takes alot of patience, the RIGHT rehabing, and post rehab training. You def. wanna just get your muscles used to 100% proper technique before you dive into going for strength

ac89's picture

Leg extensions x 6 Go light, goal is to pre-exhaust (go very slow, no momentum at all)
front squats x6 Calls for lighter weight and really hit the quads more so than glutes. Also lighter weight will be used since it's front squats and you legs will have already hit leg extensions.
walking bb lunges
hamstring curls x3
stiff leg deadlift or medicine ball leg curls x3
calfs - self explanatory.

UncleYoked's picture

Honestly bro, it sounds like you need to continue to rehab that knee. If you're still feeling discomfort in it like that, you probably need to go back to the light therapeutic stuff until its fully recovered. The last thing you want is to reinjure it. I have a torn ucl in my left elbow that needs replaced. I want a cadaver ligament. Doctors say its the best thing for me. My insurance company will only pay if I donate one to myself out of my wrist. I don't want to rehab two body parts so I've put it off for now. It's frustrating, but I think you need to do what I was advised to do and slow down for now. It's hard to do when you want to push yourself like that.

UncleYoked's picture

Well his standard of what ever you want probably doesn't fall in the range of heavy squats and leg presses. Unless he's a lifter himself, he probably doesn't realize the strain it puts on the joints. Could also be scar tissue from the surgery. Might not be a bad idea to have it checked out again.

ac89's picture

I would still start light and see how it feels over time