Monday, May 12, 2014

Squats, three ways



This is going to be fun. Leg day. nothing but legs. I remember those days. It's all coming back to me.Before I couldn't I was leg obsessed. For many many years. From 1974 when i blew out my knee and they told me ( later) that the stronger my legs got the better my knee would fare. And it was true until I took up powerlifting and forgot how to really squat in lieu of deadlifting with the bar on my back.
But that's another story.
Endless running miles. Endless hills and sprints and mile upon mile on my race bike. Huge leg pumps doing high intensity bodybuilding. All balancing my body with it's natural upper size and  toothpick legs ,lol.
Nothing made me feel more invincible than "legs that never quit." and then I couldn't even walk anymore and that sucked more than anything.
You're as young as your legs and once they go you're pretty much done.So getting another chance is pretty freaking amazing to me and I'm enjoying every second of it. Just have to not be greedy here.

Surprisingly my upper body is seemingly growing even as I do less upper body work. Must be all the leg work. I am always squatting during my work hours or I'm standing. I'm almost never sitting on the ball anymore and that's a big difference from just a few months ago.
What a gift.

KB front squat
2 16's x 5 x 2
2 20's x 5
2 24's x 5 x 5 ( medium stance- video)
2 20's x 5 x 4 ( close stance)

solo today so the pace was fast. amazing that this felt like absolutely no work at all. Compared to swings and snatches it wasn't but it used to be such an impossible goal. crazy.still lots of work to hold the damn bells and  not move too fast and not get deep enough.
if I try to pause too much I tend to lose the bells off the front.
depth is getting better slowly and I actually think the closer stance that I did on my 20'kg set was deeper. I'll tape that next week and see

Belt squat


28 kg x 12
         x 14
         x 16
         x 18
         x 20

I usually do these tug of war style holding onto Glenn so I can stay very upright but the kb front squats take care of that now. I just want to really torch the quads and this did it very nicely.
that's a monster rep ladder for me and knee movement is very good. My hips could go deeper but I can see I'm getting a solid ROM from my knee during each rep. I'll take it

Hip sled
5 x 250 feet with 85 lbs
1250 feet PR

this was tough.Super hot out and I was toast to begin with but I pushed through. Love that strong leg feeling.missed it forever.

ring tricep extension
20, 15 ,10 8

actually had some energy to throw these in as well. Nice. still felt hard on the tri's easy on the shoulders

Shoulders are feeling great lately, ever since I decided to NOT snatch or press for awhile. I think my body relaxed in anticipation of not getting hit with a hammer :) It seems to work that way these days. I can create a physical result just from imagining an exercise or technique. positive or negative.
That's how I know if an exercise is a keeper or not. Sometimes I ignore it but I know I always get the high sign from my body way in advance. I'm just stubborn sometimes. :)

datsit.
neverquit


No comments:

205, 215, 217.5,205 x 1 x 6, 190 x 1 x 3, laterals, rear delts bw pushups

 Well this went great. not perfect but the basic premise worked and I'm happy. I was not optimistic at all about this at all given recen...