[quote]IronDude17 wrote:
Matt McGorry wrote:
Try putting some more posteriorly dominant moves as your first movement rather than just front squats. Deadlifts and all kinds of their variations as well as box squats will allow you to work more on the glutes, hams, and low back. Knee pain is to be expected pretty often in those that are overly quad dominant.
And drop the leg extensions and sissy squats. Especially the latter, pretty terrible for your knees and with very little redeeming qualities. Try substituting cable pull through instead of the leg curls.
And lastly, maybe try a backoff week of not going to failure when you feel like you need it. If you’re doing more heavy training this will be more often. But after 8 weeks, it’s probably time to take it down a notch for a week.
-Matt
So what you’re saying is to put posterior chain working exercises in my routine because you think I’m quad dominant? Just asking. Is being quad dominant an effect of my training or just how I’m built?
And I will lay off the leg extensions (did them for the whole two months I think but no problems until now). But how are sissy squats bad for the knees? I’m not challenging you, just questioning.
And the leg curls I’m doing are standing cable curls because I did do pull-through last month and wanted to change it since the cable weights max out at 160. Standing leg curls are problematic?
I’ll take next week as a back off week but I never really did one before cuz I never had to. How does the workout change for the back off week and do you think I should back off on my upper body days too or just the lower body days? Anyone is welcome to answer these.
Thanks for your input though![/quote]
An individual’s being quad dominant would most likely be due to his training methods. I’m not sure if you’re quad dominant, but most people don’t include enough work for the posterior chain anyway. Also, keep in mind that on movements like parallel back squats, box squats, romanian deadlifts, deadlifts, good mornings, pullthroughs, and pretty much any other “rear end” movement, flat soled shoes like converse will be better. On most deadlift variations, you can even go barefoot.
I wouldn’t say standing leg curls are problematic. But they just may not be all that beneficial. I’d stick to glute ham raises and just vary the loading, sets, and reps. You don’t need more than 1 “isolation” type movement for hamstrings in a single workout. Try throwing in some more compound moves for the hamstrings as well…perhaps romanian deadlifts.
To make sure we are referring to the same sissy squat, I’ll include this video. http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Quadriceps/WTSissySquat.html
Machine would be essentially the same thing here. The farther the knees are in front of the toes during a squat, the more pressure will be placed on the knee. This is not to say that it should never pass the toes, but it should be limited. Your hamstring and glute strength should be strong enough that you can “sit back” into a squat. Sissy squats are the extreme here…the levels of pressure on the knees is great and without much benefit in my opinion. There are far better exercises for putting size and strength on the quads without putting your knee in such a disadvantaged position.
As far as your backoff goes, generally you want to reduce the volume of your work. If you were doing really heavy training, you might want to back off of reps between 1-4 as well.
http://www.elitefts.com/documents/deload.htm
As far as the upper body goes, it depends on how you feel. If you feel like you need a brake all over, then take one. If you are still progressing on upper body lifts and aren’t experiencing pain, then keep goign with it.
Good luck, keep us posted.
-Matt