Since I am not allowed to do any upper body training (dr. orders–injury) What would be the acceptable minimum rest days between leg days? I have more leg mass as compared to upper body as it is. I currently have a 6 to 8 rest day period–can I reduce it to 3-4 days of rest?
It depends on the type of injury how you approach this problem and whether or not you are on gear. Suffice it to say you can train legs 4 days apart relatively heavy if the angle of approach to the muscle group is varied enough so as to avoid overtraining to the point of developing tendonitis in such areas as your knees or hipflexors.
I’m really curious here - why are you not allowed to do upper body training but are allowed to do leg workouts??? Unless you do nothing but leg extensions I can’t think of any other exercise that doesn’t require your upper body to do at least some support work (like leg press etc.). But if your upper body can do support work (which is ‘uncontrolled’, i.e. you don’t concentrate on how you put the load on your upper body) it can take at least some light workout, which would most likely be of advantage for rehabilitation. I’m not trying to judge on your dr, I’ll just trying to understand and learn. To answer your question - since you don’t train anything but your legs and assuming the volume is not very high and you don’t train with HIT type intensity I would say you can get away with 2-4 days. But it depends on your workout and recovery ability.
From L.A. Dawg, T-mag Issue 190: “‘Extreme Recovery’ discusses a German study that confirms what many of us have noted on our own: the legs need at least 72 hours to fully recover from a bodybuilding-style workout, while the chest is ready to rock just 48 hours later.”
Read and printed out article you mentioned. The condition I have is called “medial epicondylitis” i.e. tennis or golfer’s elbow. 1/2 of my hand has hardly any grip strength. Any pulling motion I cannot do along with anything that is repetitious on the elbow. The 27th will be my first rehab day, then I will drill the therapist with “can I do this or that kind of exercise?” I can still grip with my hand to stay in the seat of most leg machines and the smith machine squat. This withdrawal from my normal routine is driving me nuts! But I must do what I can. I just never did legs so close, but I will. Even if it makes me all quads and glutes(LOL), I can catch up my upper later. Again, thanks for your input.
Sorry to hear it. Someone, though not a doctor, told me I had lateral epicondylitis, and it felt much like what you’re describing. You may already know this, but machine flys for chest, machine lateral raises for side delts, and Nautilus-type pullovers for back allow the elbows to remain in a fixed position, with virtually no pulling motion. Hardly mass builders, I know, but they might be better than nothing. You might ask your doctor about those exercises (though as a rule doctors have little to gain by allowing exercise of any kind in this context and probably increase their liability with any latitude they may give you). You may also know that legs and glutes, being the largest muscles, can stimulate an overall hypertrophy even on muscles not directly trained. So, if you had to get stuck training just a couple bodyparts, you picked the right ones.