[quote]Matt McGorry wrote:
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[/quote]
Thanks for the advice. Good point on the sissy squats, I’ll give em a break for now. And I did include romanian deadlifts last month and took em out for this month or so for a break. It’s hard to find lots of hamstring compound movements that I don’t use already.
And I’m not gonna take a back-off week for now since I’m gonna see what happens with changing up the exercises to make them more knee-friendly and see what happens.