Why dont you stick with high pin squats for a long while? You can also do high pauses. Does leg press hurt? Single leg press? If you couple the two together with hamstring work you’ll most certainly build your squat. Do BW lunges hurt? Build some bw lunge capacity. Will help mobilize and build muscle safely.
One thing is after something’s been injured for a long while and painful, it tends to linger for a very long time. It may even be healed, but the pain/tightness hangs around. I dont believe we should always avoid pain. But knowing when to avoid it is important.
Your injury is longstanding at this point. It may very well be healed and you’re dealing with inflammation and pain receptors/nerves that won’t chill the F out. Not uncommon. Your Dr may very well be right.
It’s very difficult to train in pain though. You’re probably not optimally training the squat motion. Compensations, low weights, low volume (bc of pain), frustration.
You have to practice pain free work, mostly, bc of this. Otherwise you’ll never make progress.
I’m not a fan of the leg press any more. Due to my bone structure I need to avoid hip flexion past 90 degrees if possible. The 45 degree hip sled (traditional leg press) goes way past this.
Here’s a video of me doing single-leg leg press earlier in the year when I couldn’t use my left leg. Notice how much hip flexion this causes. I actually felt a pop in my right hip every time I did this. After seeing this video I realized how deep it forces me into flexion. Pain or no pain, this isn’t good for the way my hip is built. It will help deteriorate my hip and probably lead to another surgery.
Lunges and split squats seem to be fine. Last year I started doing something similar to pin squats. I called them three or four hole squats. That just means I set the safety bars three or four holes below the rack position and squatted to that depth. It actually ended up causing more pain in my hip due to the increased load (I was able to do supramax loads due to the short ROM).
The pain I have now is both similar and different than what I felt prior to surgery. The pain in my groin is new. I never had that last year even though it’s typical for a torn labrum. I’ve gone through 30 days of Mobic (anti inflammatory) with a six day dose pack of prednisone and I still have pain. If that won’t get rid of the inflammation then I don’t think anything will.
I don’t really have a problem with pain. If it’s just chronic pain then I can train with that. But I have to assume it’s a sign that something isn’t right. I’m hoping I can get the Dr to schedule an MRI so we can see for sure. I don’t like guessing based on moving my leg around to see how it works ---- especially when some of those movements hurt like hell. How can you ignore that?
I forgot to update ya’ll on how my day started. I woke up a bit tired and sluggish. I was walking down the stairs in the dark and thought I had one more step to reach the landing at the halfway point. I was wrong. I had two steps. The extra distance caught me off guard and I landed on the side of my foot and rolled my damn ankle. I broke the same ankle in 2013. I felt a pop but the pain wasn’t as bad as I expected. I hobbled down the rest of the stairs and instantly put on one of my lace up braces that I wear for basketball. It’s been about four hours since I did it and it’s starting to get worse. FML.
I’ll drink the pain away tonight. I have some hydrocodone left over from surgery. I could throw that in the mix and be really relaxed.
Squats are a great exercise, but they are definitely not a ‘must-do’. There’s no reason to do something that could be causing cumulative damage until you know for sure. You can get your systemic loading with deadlifts, and direct leg muscle stimulation with the unilateral stuff like split squats and lunges. You’ve gotten really good at training smart, don’t backpedal now. And hopefully the ankle thing is minor and goes away in a day or 2.
The ankle is a lifelong friend of mine. We experienced our first sprain together in 2nd grade. I can roll my ankle by stepping on a small pebble on the sidewalk. It always hurts a bit more when I roll it without shoes though.
I had two shots of whiskey with the groomsmen at the reception. The guest list was mostly State Troopers. I had a blast getting to see those guys - including several of my Academy classmates.
My ankle is hurting today and it’s swollen. I’m icing it now.
And my head hurts. I still need to go pick up my vehicle but I don’t want to leave the house.
haha I feel you man.
I went to Copenhagen today went to the harpour bath it’s located in the middle of the city, damn cold and then the sauna after that. It was awesome.
Totally relaxed after that and most hangovers where gone.
Hey JMaier, is there anywhere outside of T-nation where one would be able to reach you? I was reading a news article about some unfortunate events that have happened that are related to law enforcement and I feel unable to comprehend how some of these things can have happened.
I’d be interested in asking you about the environment you work in so that I get more background from which I can form an understanding, but I understand if you 1. don’t want to talk about it, and 2. I ask about outside of T-nation since I reckon maybe you don’t want the exchange here in your log.
Woke at 250.8 lbs. I’m pretty certain that it’ll be a few days until I can flush all the junk from my system from the weekend.
I don’t know if it’s the hangover or sprained ankle but I’m not too motivated today. It’s leg day and I’m not exactly thrilled to move heavy things. Hopefully I feel better once I get to the gym and start moving.
Sorry to hear about the ankle. Mine are sensitive as well. 20 beers + some shots is no joke. I had way too many on Saturday and woke up feeling rough so didn’t do anything. I somehow convince myself that - “Hey, I weigh a relatively lean 220 - so my 8 drinks is like a normal persons 6” lol. Then at 15 it kinda doesn’t matter how much we weigh!
I had an odd night. I was drinking and just not feeling anything. I knew I’d had about eight beers but still nothing. I had a little food and continued drinking. Eventually I stood up or walked a bit and finally felt tipsy. After that I just kept going. My body feels like I drank poison
I felt better once I started lifting. Today wasn’t an awesome day but it was pretty solid.
RFESS
45 x 5
95 x 3
115 x 3
140 x 5
150 x 4
160 x 3
170 x 2
180 x 1
BOX SQUAT 21.5"
225 x 3
275 x 3
315 x 5
335 x 4
355 x 3
375 x 2
395 x 1
POWER CLEAN
135 x 3 (hang clean)
185 x 3
205 x 3
225 x 2
235 x 2
245 x1 I was supposed to hit 215 for 3 but I forgot. I got distracted switching out plates and moving up to 2 plates per side. We have a limited number of round plates (the bumpers were being used) so I grabbed the two on the weight tree to make sure they didn’t disappear on me.
DEADLIFT
315 x 3
365 x 5
395 x 4
425 x 3
455 x 2
485 x 1 With the exception of 365, these were all rep PRs. I know for a fact that 425 is the heaviest triple I’ve ever pulled. 455 was my max prior to June of last year. 485 wasn’t easy by any means but I’m not concerned about pulling 495 next week. I think I screwed my weights up at some point. I have a printout of the last six weeks of this program and I typed in that I was going to hit 475 in week 12. I pulled that last week though…oops.
4 WAY HIP MACHINE Abduction: 130 x 10 x 2 Adduction: 145 x 15 x 2 Flexion: 130 x 10 x 2
Today’s session took about an hour and 20 minutes. I was moving slow and doubled my rest on deadlifts.
