I can’t train my lower body due to being stabbed and suffered very serious wounds to my lower abdomen, thigh and groin area. Ive tried everything from squats to deadlifts, to glute isolation to leg extensions and calf raises. Whenever I try and train my lower by I get ruptures or I get huge pain in the groin.
Instead Ive been working out upper body 6 days a week doing push/pull/push/pull/push/pull. Ive seen insane upper body gains due to frequency and limited mental fatuige because im not feeling beat up trying to train my lower body and feeling constantly worried about injury. I ran my first test cycle and i gained 23lbs and added 2.5 inches to my arms. Now 17.75 inches lol. (This is after being hyper gonadal after years bed ridden from stabbing so good for where i started from)
I want to try and add at least some shape to my legs but I am basically limited to cardio. Either walking ona steep incline or the stairmill. I do 15 minutes all out on the stairmill 6 days a week after my gym session and Ive gone from 600 steps first session to 1200 steps last sesison in the same time limit. Im seeing more definition in my legs but what can I expect long term?
Is there a way to use these two cardio forms that don’t cause issues to shape my lower body? Or am I stuck with chicken legs forever?
I can push it but I can’t pull it. Sounds weird but its due to the bracing required for pulling, my gym has a prowler. Unfortunately though it can set off my groin issues so I can only do it for limited reps before I need to stop.
At any weight? That would honestly be my go-to if there’s anything you can do with it. If you can go 10m or whatever, but go heavy, I’d just do a ton of sets. The other nice thing is there is no moving belt or load on your back - if you feel a twinge, you just stop right there. You’re in total control of the movement; maybe you can find some level (low, high, more/ less bent, etc) that “fits”?
Maybe alternate that with the stairmill since it sounds like you’re getting results out of that. I’d always ride the results train, even if it doesn’t “make sense”.
I got up to loading it at about 200kg but then any more than that I run into issues. I can push it about 10 times to one end and back at that weight before I am zonked.
Years but it fucked me up in a semi permanent way. NHS is dogshit so until I can afford private healthcare I just have to get on with it unfortunately.
Does this require recovery time before you can execute the exercise again without severe pain?
It seems clearly that your stimulation of the muscles is minimal, thus muscle recovery should be quick. Could you do this daily?
I can do this daily, but the issue is that it can cause an issue at any point so I have to sort of cut it off before I hurt myself and that can be hard as the line between stopping too early and actually progressing is very thin.
For example I used to do 10 pushes one side then back a day with it, but id start feeling on the verge of upsetting my injuries so I had to dial it back, at that point doing like 6-8 a day instead of 10 didn’t seem to be doing anything and adding more weight seems to really cause issues with my abdomen and I don’t want to risk a rupture. My abs are a major problem because bracing my core is hard, painful and also leads to rupturing in a severe case.
That is why I can’t do the main lifts like squats and deadlifts too.
The human body has the remarkable ability to repair itself. You might track your pain (of course stop) to see if you are making any forward progress. That is what I would do. Though it might be slow, if you are progressing you can “see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
I can’t help but notice that you didn’t include leg presses. It is a leg exercise where your core is fixed. When you mentioned leg extensions I ruled out leg presses, but there is some core involvement with leg extensions that doesn’t occur during the leg press.
I would focus on unloaded exercises first. You can do a shit ton of body weight squats, forward lunges, step ups etc. You can have nice aesthetic legs with these alone plus the added benefit of increased mobility. No you won’t have huge legs from this, but who cares. Check out Chris Hemsworth AKA Thor, he’s got no legs but it adds to that super hero wedge shaped look.
The thing is its not even necessarily the weight, only way I can describe it is imagine you couldn’t brace your core at the bottom of a squat at all without pain and then try and go back up. It makes the whole exercise really hard to do properly.
As you can imagine this makes pressing and rowing hard but those can be done easier with chest supported rows or pressing with a loose body no leg drive or core support.
Pull
1.Lat pulldowns 4 sets (chinups once I can do 12 only do 7 now)
2.Dumbbell curls 4 sets
3.Rope facepulls 4 sets
4.Smith machine shrugs 4 sets
Making really fast gains but everyone keeps telling me that I am doing too much. But everyone i know who trains in real life looks like shit so not sure how to feel.
I dunno. That really doesn’t look like a lot of work to me, and I’m… tenured. Who can’t handle 12 sets of DB bench a week? I certainly don’t think you’re overdoing it, especially since you’re not loading your spine at all, but volume and recover are a whole picture kind of thing - there’s a lot of variables in your life that aren’t just how many work sets you’re doing on your gym days. I think long-term is always impossible to answer - you can really only look at if something fits right now.
That’s your answer then. Ride it until you don’t. I, personally, go out of my way to change nothing when the gains start coming. There’s plenty of times I’m trying to do everything right and I can’t get anything out of it; I’m definitely not going to outsmart myself if something happens to be working.
I am a beginner and have varicose veins. I used to play football professionally, but my doctor has forbidden me to put any strain on my legs. I didn’t pay attention until I was about 20 and continued to play football at an amateur level. But now, even when walking for a long time, the vein starts to swell and I use a special bandage. Do you think it’s not worth exercising your legs at all?