Best Movement for VM (Teardrops)

Training Bodybuilding
41

[quote]FightingScott wrote:
Eightman wrote:
FightingScott wrote:

Hey FightingScott

I don’t ever post, often just read but am seriously interested in what sort of program or protocol you used with the above and your leg training. How good do you think your results were and what improvements would you make if you had your time over?

Really interested as after two ACL reconstructions and a lot of time off I am finally getting myself to a position to decently train my legs. I hope to really improve them, add some size and strenght because from my starting point they were terrible. Anyway sorry for the hijack but I am currently using squat, split squat, leg press and front squat predominantly for my quads. So there is a parallel here for me

Thanks

I’ve never had any knee problems but I’ll tell you what’s worked for me in the past.

This summer I saw a YouTube Video of Stefan Havlik (some big-time French Bodybuilder) working out legs. His workout was more high volume that what I’d been doing for legs. I changed some of the exercises and came up with this workout that I would do for leg size. I would do 1 warm-up set with the bar for 15 reps and 1 warm-up set with 135 before I went to work. I feel that mentally, your warm up set should have more reps than your working sets so you’ll be less inclined to quit in the middle of a set. I would pyramid the weight each set.

-Olympic Back Squat 15-12-10-8
-Barbell Bulgarian-Split Squat
-Romanian Deadlift 15-15-15
-Leg Press 10-10 (After completing 10 reps, do 10 high knee jumps. I usually only got to 8. This should be pretty killer)
-Leg Curl 8-8-8
-Seated Calf Raise 15-15-15
-Smith Machine Standing Calf Raise 15-15-15

This helped me put on a lot of weight, size and strength. I’d do it twice a week. I tried to PR in the Back Squat and Romanian Deadlift whenever possible and just did the other exercises for blood volume.

Now I don’t really have the physical capital to do shit like this since it’s Dual-Meet Swim-Season so I do this:

-Monday: Front Squat 8X3
-Unilateral Leg Movement (Lunge, Split Squat, or Step-up) 2X6 reps per leg
-Posterior Chain (Leg Curl, 45’ Hyper, Romanian Deadlift, etc) (3X8-15)
-Heavy Abs (3-4X15-25)

Thursday:
-Good Morning, Deadlift, or Squat Variation Max Effort (Work up to 3RM and PR every Thursday. Cycle the Max Effort movement of choice every 3 weeks mainly to prevent boredom)
-Unilateral Leg Movement (Lunge, Split Squat, or Step-up) 2X6 reps per leg
-Posterior Chain (Leg Curl, 45’ Hyper, Romanian Deadlift, etc) (3X8-15)
-Light Abs (2X50)

There was a point where at the end of Tuesday and Thursday I would do the Cybrex Leg Press for 1 set of 20 reps and I’d add a plate to each side of the machine every workout. I think this helped me add some detail pretty quickly and I was able to move up to doing as many plates as the machine would allow for 19 reps last week.

But now that I’ve accomplished that I’m just going to put more volume into my single leg movements instead. The only reason I was training the leg press like this was to prove to a prick on my team that I could leg press twice his 10RM for twice the reps he could do.

I expect that I’ll be able to continue adding size now that my unilateral leg movement is the barbell back lunge. I had been doing Bulgarian Split Squats for maybe a month and had worked my way up to doing 100 lbs in each hand. I noticed that I wasn’t really doing these with one leg so much that I was squatting with my forward leg and dong a lex extension with my rear leg when the weight got that heavy. If you do split squats, make sure you’re aware of this.

[/quote]

Thanks Mate

Always good to hear different things that others have been sucessful with. In your warm up did you incorporate a lot of stretching? I have found this really good personally the last few months.

Anyway I like the idea of a bit more volume. It is something I have actually been trying to incorporate in the right dose, but your structure in the first routine isn’t that disimilar to what I currently do.

Thanks again

42

[quote]cormac wrote:
That’s a fair point to make undeadlift, I am usually very critical of people bashing one another on the forum. The difference here though, besides finding myself on the receiving end of criticisms is that a very helpful comment directed at the OP was deemed to be useless merely because it does not fit the schema of training that Zap uses regularly.

Obviously, it takes a person with blatant disregard for the benefits of explosive lifting and their application to bodybuilding goals to make such a heedless comment.

It is infuriating to me that there is this clearly delineated limit to the educational opportunities - (in receiving and dispensing advice) - on this site. If there weren’t such a strong pervasiveness of meathead ideology this would be different.[/quote]

Hey, just returning the favor. I actually got that from you in the barbell snatch thread (but for some reason, the mods removed the quote code). It did work to stop whatever pissing contest was going on there. I was hoping posting that here would have the same impact. All these pissing contests are somehow rooted in high levels of testosterone (I think TC’s latest article says something about that).

Anyway, I agree that full oly lifts will definitely help develop that VM. The problem is that it’s hard to master. Many coaches discourage full oly lifts when it comes to bodybuilding because they’d rather their trainees spend more time on exercises that have the same effect but take less time to learn.

To take advantage of the explosive benefits of full oly lifts, they turn to their power variations which take a lot less time to learn. However, because they lack the squat required in a full oly lift, the VM won’t develop that much.

That being said, I don’t think full oly lifts are the quickest way of developing that VM.

43

[quote]undeadlift wrote:
All these pissing contests are somehow rooted in high levels of testosterone (I think TC’s latest article says something about that).

.[/quote]

I’m sorry but this site has about as much testosterone as the local knitting class sometimes. The article by TC that has more meaning to me here than his newest is the last stand of the dinosaurs one that was recently bumped up. There is a handful of people here still worth listening to(some are on this thread) and after that there is a new breed of punks who don’t deserve a voice on the forum posting advice.

44

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Come on boys, no need to go to blows over this. However Zap does have a valid point. It’s not the end of the world, but why tell a guy to do olympic lifts in response to an intelligent bodybuilding question?
[/quote]

I disagree with posters and more importantly with the coaches, including EC - who I am generally a big fan of - who refute the feasibility of implementing the full olympic lifts in order to reach bodybuilding goals (ie the Injury Prevention Roundtable). Believe it or not I have a lot of peers, “in the industry” who are downright incensed by much of the material in the recent Injury Prevention article. All I have to say is that if one is truly dedicated they will take the time, effort, and money to train under the supervision of a qualified coach in order to learn the lifts properly.

The raised heel contributes to greater VM recruitment (the primary goal of this thread, as I recall) and it for allows greater squat depth in sufferers of ankle inflexibility.

Nobody said such a thing, but do you not agree that increasing Rate of Force Development in the FULL lifts (with triple extension) is going to lead to greater potential hypertrophy gains by increasing the efficiency of the nervous system?

I mean there is an abundance of supporting scientific evidence that has even permeated the works of published authors on this site.

I made my case earlier in a less developed fashion, by expressing my disdain for the overuse of anabolic drugs, focusing on the endocrinological aspect of adaptation, by Meatheads in the BB world. There is also the ceaseless promotion of “The Big Three” as the be-all and end-all of mass building for lifters young and old. I think that this trend - Popular Meatheadness - is due to laziness and stupidity. It is fundamentally shortsighted, extremely claque-ish, and I disagree with it altogether on several different grounds.

[quote]
I never see anybody knock anyone else for pursuing growth in the oly lifts,[/quote]

Quite frankly, not many lifters here keep logs on their goals and progress in the oly lifts. This isn’t exactly a hot-spot for lifters in the sport. Perhaps this is a contributing factor?

The Original Poster’s goal is to improve Vastus Medialis development. I presume he is a bodybuilder, and I gave him an excellent suggestion on how to reach his goals. I was not making some attempt to convert him to a competitive weightlifter as has been suggested by some members lacking in the aspect of intelligence generally regarded as “common sense”.

Any outright disdain that was expressed towards Zap was not done in some conflict of Weightlifter vs. Bodybuilder. If it was seen as such by either one of us the viewpoint was entirely unilateral, I assure you. I responded with anger to a belligerent statement that attempted to denigrate my sound advice. I am obviously going to defend myself here.

I personally consider hypertrophy goals an important aspect of my overall training, but I do not subscribe to any single theory and I certainly do not take anything from this site, even the published articles, without many grains of salt. I set competitive goals for myself and push myself to competitive levels in the sports of Weightlifting and Powerlifting. Hypertrophy is a side effect, but I focus on it above all quite frequently when I implement the Repeated Effort method in my training.

So do any of these traits make me a Bodybuilder, a Powerlifter, or an Olympic Weightlifter? It may very well make me all three. But it certainly excludes me from being categorized as a Meathead, like so many others.

45

[quote]undeadlift wrote:
<<< I agree that full oly lifts will definitely help develop that VM. The problem is that it’s hard to master. >>>[/quote]

This, along with the fact that my basement ceiling is too low is why I don’t do them. I know better than to disrespect olympic lifting, it’s not warranted in any way and would be just plain ignorant.

I have selective physical coordination. As a kid I was great on a skateboard and was a damn good BMX racer, but could not play baseball, basketball or football to save my life. Similarly I have good lifting skills overall, but am pretty sure I would maim myself trying to learn stuff like snatches or or even the clean and jerk.

The thing is though with bodybuilding, which I’ll define as any non sports specific physique goal, just about anything can work for most people at least some of the time and there are hundreds of ways to tackle different aspects of it. Eventually people who learn to read their body will settle into a general philosophy that works best for them.

In that light, why do some guys find it necessary to heap implied scorn on anybody who doesn’t lift like they do? I have nothing against this Cormac guy, I’ve had no run ins with him, but it is mildly offensive after a dozen guys try to help this OP with his question for him to chime in with a statement that was clearly designed to imply that it was all fluffy bullshit because it wasn’t about olympic based, or by extension, serious lifting.

It’s not even that the suggestion of certain lifts is an abomination, but can we forego the condescending tone?

46

I feel as though my first post is being completely ignored, or somehow is being shrouded by more recent disagreements and allegations and thus is being seen as something that it was not!

47

[quote]cormac wrote:
But it certainly excludes me from being categorized as a Meathead, like so many others.[/quote]

Enter one meathead…

In my opinion can Olympic lifts(and squats) develop great legs? Of course, ignorning the fact that any of the guys lean enough to see their development will point out many have fantastic legs, some have average legs for a weight training person however. But saying they are the best route to go for a person who isn’t trained in them is bad advice in my opinion, I’m sorry.

If you take two twins and have one train with a great Olympic coach on his snatch and clean and jerk and the other train with a bodybuilding coach with squats the first is going to take months-years to learn the perfect technique and get true triple extension, the other days to weeks at most. Now while twin A is still lifting with a broomstick trying to get his timing down on his snatch balances before it would even be considered reasonably safe to try to toss a barbell over his head twin B is adding lbs to his squats every time. Which would likely be growing the best VMO and quads in general at this point?

Would taking the time to develop the skills necessary to do the full Olympic movements REALLY be of that much greater benefit than say squats or leg presses ?

48

[quote]cormac wrote:
Oh, I have to give a “serious bodybuilding answer” then, huh?

Inject so much god damn testosterone that your balls shrivel up inside of you and you grow hair on your tongue. Then do 30 rep back squats and front squats 7 days a week, you’ll be hyooge dude.[/quote]

I can’t let a comment like this go. I’ve typed a similar thing up 2-3 times lately but it is worth repeating because people don’t get it. You are in the bodybuilding section of the website, you let us play in our sandbox and you play in yours, we won’t bother each other. It would be real immature for me to go over to the strength sports section(where I don’t belong because I don’t train for a strength sport) and make some outrageous caricature of a strength athlete that doesn’t contribute anything to a thread. We are all in the same game just looking for different things out of it. It should be us against them(non lifters) but it’s always us against us.

And let’s not let your Oly lifters off the hook just yet, you are the pot calling the kettle black with your AAS remark.

49

The problem with your first post Cormack was that it was a one liner telling the OP to get some weight lifting shoes and do olympic lifts… and that was it, no how or why… thats why Zap’s response was justified and hillarious.

I have only ever seen two people perform olympic lifts properly in commercial gyms, and I’ll bet the the OP probably never has.

So what do you think the chances of him reading your one line post and actually be inspired to do what you suggested? None.

50

I did power snatches today and my VM is more sore than any other muscle right now. I thought you guys oughta know.

51

And since CT does so much of a better job explaining than me, anyone interested in this Olympic lifts for hypertrophy would be quite happy to read the second to last page of his thread.

52

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Stronghold wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
cormac wrote:
Get a pair of olympic lifting shoes, and do full snatches and full cleans with heavy ass weight.

Why do people post this shit?

Because here at T-Nation, we believe that the olympic lifts, powerlifting, high frequency, zero-isolation, and high intensity interval training are the secrets to being a good bodybuilder. And if you disagree with that, then youre either lying or on steroids.

I always forget this![/quote]

Seriously, why does everyone think that squats are the end all to everything? It’s gotten insane. Someone asks about bringing up X body part and the first think someone says is “more squats!” Leave the freaken squat alone already! It’s no doubt a great exercise but it doesn’t solve every problem!

Not too mention the people that are first to say squat more are usually 150lbs themselves�?�.

53

My vastus medialis began to develop when i did:
front squat 4 sets x 10,8,6,4 reps
leg press 3 sets x 8,8,6
bulgarian squat 2 sets x 12,10

My legs improved a bit, but my vastus medialis improved a lot, using this routine.

And i bet it was due to bulgarian split squats and maybe the front squat.

Maybe you wanna try either or both with the rep set scheme that pleases/works with you the most.

54

[quote]cormac wrote:

The Original Poster’s goal is to improve Vastus Medialis development. I presume he is a bodybuilder, and I gave him an excellent suggestion on how to reach his goals. I was not making some attempt to convert him to a competitive weightlifter as has been suggested by some members lacking in the aspect of intelligence generally regarded as “common sense”.

Any outright disdain that was expressed towards Zap was not done in some conflict of Weightlifter vs. Bodybuilder. If it was seen as such by either one of us the viewpoint was entirely unilateral, I assure you. I responded with anger to a belligerent statement that attempted to denigrate my sound advice. I am obviously going to defend myself here.

I personally consider hypertrophy goals an important aspect of my overall training, but I do not subscribe to any single theory and I certainly do not take anything from this site, even the published articles, without many grains of salt. I set competitive goals for myself and push myself to competitive levels in the sports of Weightlifting and Powerlifting. Hypertrophy is a side effect, but I focus on it above all quite frequently when I implement the Repeated Effort method in my training.

So do any of these traits make me a Bodybuilder, a Powerlifter, or an Olympic Weightlifter? It may very well make me all three. But it certainly excludes me from being categorized as a Meathead, like so many others.[/quote]

Ok, want some common sense? Here is some fucking common sense:

The OP asked a question related to how to best develop the VMO. You suggested that he go buy a pair of OLY lifting shoes, learn the OLY lifts, and build up a high level of strength in the snatch and clean.

What kind of logic on a cold day in hell would lead you to ever suggest that? Are you suggesting he go find a good OLY coach, get some fancy shoes, spend a year learning the lfits with minimal weights, and then spend the next 3 developing a proficient level of strength in said lifts when he could just squat deeper and heavier? You call this “SOUND ADVICE”? This isnt laziness talking, this is “Im not an idiot and Im not going to tell someone to go reinvent the wheel when there is a much simpler and just as effective method” talking. You bring up steroids and meatheads several times. Sounds like someone pissed in your cherios. Does it bother you that people who happen to be a hell of a lot bigger and stronger than you are giving advice that contradicts with yours? Dont you think that if the OLY lifts were effective and practical for bodybuilding purposes, then somewhere in the past 60 years that bodybuilding has been a sport, it would have caught on? I realize that many of the early bodybuilders were also olympic lifters, but maybe the fact that that trend dissapeared is telling of something?

Back to the meatheads comment: why are we meatheads? Because we dont embrace your love for the olympic lifts? Because learning to squat and becoming proficient in the squat is a much more efficient use of our time given our goals compared to learning and becoming proficient in the olympic lifts?

I dont think you quite get it. You talk about hypertrophy being one of your goals. As a competetive lifter, hypertrophy is a) a side effect of your training and b) a tool use use to strengthen the areas around your joints (ie, structural reinforcement). For competetive lifters, strength is the ends and hypertrophy is part of the means. For bodybuilders, hypertrophy is the ends.

55

[quote]undeadlift wrote:
cormac wrote:
That’s a fair point to make undeadlift, I am usually very critical of people bashing one another on the forum. The difference here though, besides finding myself on the receiving end of criticisms is that a very helpful comment directed at the OP was deemed to be useless merely because it does not fit the schema of training that Zap uses regularly.

Obviously, it takes a person with blatant disregard for the benefits of explosive lifting and their application to bodybuilding goals to make such a heedless comment.

It is infuriating to me that there is this clearly delineated limit to the educational opportunities - (in receiving and dispensing advice) - on this site. If there weren’t such a strong pervasiveness of meathead ideology this would be different.

Hey, just returning the favor. I actually got that from you in the barbell snatch thread (but for some reason, the mods removed the quote code). It did work to stop whatever pissing contest was going on there. I was hoping posting that here would have the same impact. All these pissing contests are somehow rooted in high levels of testosterone (I think TC’s latest article says something about that).

Anyway, I agree that full oly lifts will definitely help develop that VM. The problem is that it’s hard to master. Many coaches discourage full oly lifts when it comes to bodybuilding because they’d rather their trainees spend more time on exercises that have the same effect but take less time to learn.

To take advantage of the explosive benefits of full oly lifts, they turn to their power variations which take a lot less time to learn. However, because they lack the squat required in a full oly lift, the VM won’t develop that much.

That being said, I don’t think full oly lifts are the quickest way of developing that VM.[/quote]

  1. meathead mentality? Where is the meathead mentality? I think if more people had said mentality, there would be more big guys posting here instead of 150 lb teenagers who apparently “know it all” but havent gained any weight not attributed to hitting puberty.

  2. These pissing contests come from a) the huge amount of 14 year olds now posting here and b)people giving “qualified advice” that they were never qualified to give.

[quote]undeadlift wrote:
I did power snatches today and my VM is more sore than any other muscle right now. I thought you guys oughta know.[/quote]

How big are your legs? Since when did soreness indicate any sort of hypertrophy benefit?

56

[quote]Stronghold wrote:
Ok, want some common sense? Here is some fucking common sense:

The OP asked a question related to how to best develop the VMO. You suggested that he go buy a pair of OLY lifting shoes, learn the OLY lifts, and build up a high level of strength in the snatch and clean.

What kind of logic on a cold day in hell would lead you to ever suggest that? Are you suggesting he go find a good OLY coach, get some fancy shoes, spend a year learning the lfits with minimal weights, and then spend the next 3 developing a proficient level of strength in said lifts when he could just squat deeper and heavier? You call this “SOUND ADVICE”? This isnt laziness talking, this is “Im not an idiot and Im not going to tell someone to go reinvent the wheel when there is a much simpler and just as effective method” talking. You bring up steroids and meatheads several times. Sounds like someone pissed in your cherios. Does it bother you that people who happen to be a hell of a lot bigger and stronger than you are giving advice that contradicts with yours? Dont you think that if the OLY lifts were effective and practical for bodybuilding purposes, then somewhere in the past 60 years that bodybuilding has been a sport, it would have caught on? I realize that many of the early bodybuilders were also olympic lifters, but maybe the fact that that trend dissapeared is telling of something?

Back to the meatheads comment: why are we meatheads? Because we dont embrace your love for the olympic lifts? Because learning to squat and becoming proficient in the squat is a much more efficient use of our time given our goals compared to learning and becoming proficient in the olympic lifts?

I dont think you quite get it. You talk about hypertrophy being one of your goals. As a competetive lifter, hypertrophy is a) a side effect of your training and b) a tool use use to strengthen the areas around your joints (ie, structural reinforcement). For competetive lifters, strength is the ends and hypertrophy is part of the means. For bodybuilders, hypertrophy is the ends.[/quote]

Good post.

Don’t worry about cormac. He’s just an over-read under-experienced internet smartass. I remember in another thread a while ago he said that no one should bench, squat, or dead for the first three years of training. Since he’s only lifted for two, I wouldn’t ask him for any advice about those.

57

hahaha I said that?

I really think you need to re-read what I said, and try to understand that I was advocating the Three Year Rule (an idea prescribed to by most advanced coaches) to a prepubescent teenager with absolutely no training experience. The focus of strength training for such a person should be on strength topography, not on heavy compound lifts.

Are you fucking insane? The abuse some of you guys are eager to dish out to “a skinny 150 lb kid like me” (BULL SHIT) is unbelievable.

58

[quote]Stronghold wrote:
a bunch of stuff thats right.[/quote]

Nice post. And the only reason many of the bodybuilders of the past did the Oly lifts was the AAU had a required lifting portion of the competition, once that was gone most dropped the full lifts. And most of them had small(compared with todays trainees)l legs too haha.

59

[quote]cormac wrote:
…strength topography, …[/quote]

I hate guru speak. It is bad enough coming from the gurus and it is ridiculous coming from everyone else.

60

Get down from your fucking tower.

Having 12,000 posts does not earn you any superiority, it does not entitle you to make condescending remarks to another person merely on the basis of having considerably more knowledge on the matter of strength training than yourself. I mean, you are acting like an

[i]Noun: aliterate

  1. A person who can read but is disinclined to derive information from literary sources
    • aliterate person
      [/i]

Zap, what I am trying to say to you is that with 12,000 posts you have merely made your stamp on the community as the Resident Loser.