Silver and Steel

Training Training Logs
1625

Agreed!
I did some baller box squats today really focusing on the form Matt Wenning (West Point shout-out) shows here - felt pretty good. I’m more knee-saving-focused, though; this could be the opposite of what you need.

Outstanding leg day today… first one that has felt good in a long time.

  1. Seated Leg Curl
    1p/20 x 2
    1p+25/6
    2p/5
    2.25p/3
    2p/10
    2p/10 + 3 + 6 partials + 15-second hold

  2. Box Squat
    45/8
    135/6
    185/4
    225/12
    255/8

  3. Machine Leg Press
    I don’t remember how I worked up, but I did 4 or 5 sets of 5 on the way up
    230/25 - took breaks in the locked out position to get to 25; fun burn here

  4. BSS… of Death!!
    Used KBs and worked up:
    BW/5
    20/5
    30/5
    Then the death set:
    40/8+8s + 30/8+8s + 20/8+8s + BW/8+8s
    Pure awful, but on my muscle more than joints. I did a better job of extending back through the knee rather than standing up over it if that makes sense.

  5. SSB Good Morning
    All bars weigh 45#, but this was the lighter of the two
    45/10
    95/10 x 2

  6. Standing Calf
    180/10 + 10 partials + 10s stretch

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1626

That’s a Meadows workout right? :grin:

Just did myself the other BSS of death today: 3 secs eccentric, 3 secs pause at mid-point of concentric, until failure. It was awful. My whole lower body is on fire. I love it

I used to squat like that… But I guess it really wasn’t suited to my bodytype

That’s interesting for I’ll have arthritis someday as well because of surgeries.

I don’t think there is a clear answer, for in the end, we’ll all end up decaying unfortunately. But personal experiences tell me it’s better to exercise than the other way around. That’s what I intend to do anyway!

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1627

I mean, of course!

This is definitely a lift where it seems like there’s a ton of variance. What was once comfortable for me just no longer feels good. Today may only have felt good because it was so late/ novel. Who knows?

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1628

Of course! It’s just a matter of how… Oh, well - bring on the titanium joints!

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1629

For real part of me knows that in 10-20 years when my knees will be too effed up, medicine will have progressed even more and I’ll gladly accept my new cybernetic knees

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1630

I have it in my head that I want to be able to play basketball forever. Oddly enough, I’ve only played about four times since I hurt my shoulder in October of 2018.

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1631

I trained for YEARS with the 90 degree knee-saving stuff, and it felt like it helped, except any time I did stuff like running or cycling that involved my knees being in a forward position over my toes, I was reminded of the weakness and my knees would ache. It’s been several months of me really going into deep, deep flexion with knees at least 2 inches in front of the toes, and my knees feel almost pre-military strong, plus my hips don’t hurt from the wide-stance sit-back squats. Kneesovertoesguy was definitely a big influence there for me.

Not criticizing what you’re doing, of course - you know your body - I’m just exploring a lot of things in terms of ROM and training weak points that are really helping with joint problems that have ailed me for years.

Awesome work in here too - that leg day with the BSS dropset of death as the 4th exercise is friggin’ brutal.

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1632

The same happened to me. After the surgeries I used to squat low bar and wide, but it was messing with my hip and zero quad development. Sumo deadlift messes with my knee

But since I switched to close stance high bar, and going deep (as deep as I can with good tension) well my quads got bigger, my knees pain-free, and during the last few months my ankle and knee mobility improved! And my knees are waaaay over my toes

toes
toes585×609 337 KB

I think that indeed avoiding the painful ROM entirely only makes it wither and stiffen

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1633

Hmmm. I appreciate the perspective, gents, and the logic is extraordinarily sound. I’ve never really tried this for lengths of time - it’s more just been something I do for a couple weeks while my knees hurt.

Did you do anything in particular to build up/ strengthen in the painful ROM? Maybe it’s just a matter of me being smarter with weight selection and tempo?

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1634

Not at all, I seriously want to hear more experiences than just my own reactionary brain.

Thanks! I’m pretty sure I’m talking to myself by the end.

I totally hear you though. I still have things like that I want to be able to do, and you were actually good!

That’s a much more natural style for me, but sometimes I worry I’m “powering through” the part that hurts and forcing some additional damage. Maybe I’m not or maybe I should just focus on owning the bottom better.

1635

Well I don’t have arthritis per se yet, just no meniscuses and a hamstring thet never really recovered from the graft but… Honestly I just kept going through the pain (2 weeks?) until it didn’t hurt.

Tempo and all might be great indeed. But I didn’t needed it. When I started school my left knee was in agony for two weeks. And I was just using a stick or an empty barbell, but squatting down would destroy me and I’d feel weak AF. But we had to do olifting 3 times a week and I was in my dream school, I wasn’t going to chicken out. And it got better. But it’s a process, that took months.

And I know I’ll never completely be pain-free (I have a bit of pain in my left hamstring right now when I contract it to the painful ROM)

For this body part I’ll just try to do more uni lateral work and do higher reps (15-20) with the full ROM. Slow eccentrics are also a good idea.

For my knees… I’d just push through. Increase my mobility over time. Spending a couple months with the oly shoes, then the Chucks, then the oly again…

Goblet squat or hack squatting to insane depths. Heel-elevated goblet squats, going aaaaaall the way down

I’d stretch also, but a very recent study proved that resistance training with good ROM is as effective as stretching for improving modbility

A 15 secs warm-up that I sue before my squats for ankle mobility: do 1 lunge on each leg, then 1 cossack lunge, then 1 backward rotational lunge (for instance with the right foot, you bring it behind you and a bit on your right and opening the hip so that your right foot is perpendicular to the left foot pointing forward), then you just do it again while touching the ground with your palms. I’ll film myself

I think you have several options here:

• Leg curl before quad work: THANK YOU JOHN MEADOWS I’ll probably keep this one forever

• Doing box squat and progressively using a smaller box

• Varying exercise depth, for instance you do squats or leg press at your regular depth, then you use some assistance with light weights like heel-elevated goblet squat to reach these painful ROM and work them

• Pause or pulse work in the painful ROM

• Just keep moving! Do you know when my knees start to hurt? When I don’t train them! After one week of not doing leg they instantly start to nag me. And they’ve been feeling better since I started incorporating more walking. Gonna do mine right now

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1636

That was a detailed write-up - thank you!

As you mention, you’re a bit closer to the acute phase than I am. No worries - just give it another couple of decades and we’ll be right here together!

I am completely onboard with your thoughts. My thinking, I believe, is similar - I need to do some full ROM work, but maybe not necessarily on squats. The unilateral work is a necessity for sure; otherwise it’s easy for me to just shift all the load to whichever side is less annoyed at the time.

You mentioned the Oly shoes - do you like those? It seems like that would exacerbate knee pain, but I really don’t know. I’ve worn them a handful of times and liked the stability.

To anyone reading - I love the discussion! I just don’t want to leave the false impression this is some new thing and I need a ton of answers. I’m a little older and I’m always playing with tweaks. I really appreciate all the thoughts and help and maybe even others will stumble on one of your great thoughts here (vs. my constant ramblings).

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1637

This is odd since the first suggestion for hip pain is to try going wider because there’s less impingement, but I felt better with narrow box squats when I was really battling hip pain. If I squat to parallel (ish) with a narrow stance now then I can actually feel a pinch in the front of both hips. During my last squat workout, I felt better as the weight increased. My warm ups with 120 and 170 (plates and plates+quarters on my axle) felt like garbage. My hip flexors felt all tight and weird and my balance was crap. I added another 40 lbs and all of those issues disappeared.

I still don’t know how to squat these days. Nothing really feels “right” anymore. I remember a time where I’d just unrack the bar, lower the weight and stand back up and didn’t think anything of it. I miss those days.

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1638

Well I don’t think it caused hip joint problem in itself, but (and I tried actually some of this a few weeks ago) this form strains a lot all my hip muscles, and it doesn’t feel that good. Also my knee felt at like max width, like if I were to cave in or out a bit they would explode lol. But it did feel powerful.

I haven’t box squatted in many many years, an issue I’ll tend in 4 weeks with the new program I’m writing, some kind of “powerbuilding”, bodybuilding with a bit of athletic and functional stuff inspired by the recent workouts of Meadows and CT

The weight thing… well you know when I do air squats my knee crack like an old crunchy leaf. With weight they don’t.

It took me 8 years to find a natural squat stance. I used to always think about it. Maybe you could try the closer stance high-bar? The first times I tried it, a few years ago I didn’t like it, but it’s perhaps I wasn’t mobile or just that I didn’t like the fact that I was using a bit less weight (the ego of youth)

Clearly it is… and for taller guy like me and even more @Frank_C it’s even more important. But it’s certainly less sexy than bigger lifts

I think the first 2 cycles I used them, it caused me knee pain indeed. I rotated them out and in. Perhaps the pain was something else (the inclusion of front squats and going deeper, generally working with stuff putting more pressure on my knees, which I had avoided for years). If you feel stable they certainly are great! Now I only wear them for Olympic lifting and they certainly help in that regard! It’s maybe that I should change these, they are old now and a bit little, but I feel I can screw drive and grip the floor better with my Chucks, and that my feet were moving too much inside my shoes rather that applying the best force output possible

Indeed my surgeries were only… I think 6 and 7 years ago? But when I was doing Crossfit, one of the mate who was around 40, had the same surgery when he was like 23, because of handball. He’d stop sports and as a result his knees had withered in strength and mobility to a almost crippled state. The inlclusion of Crossfit and moving his leg made them feel instantly better. I also talked with an older lady recently at Crossfit as well (around 60) and during the lockdown she had stopped working out and as a result her arthritis and pain had developped way more and now she can’t go deep or run anymore.

So this just convincts me than even when I’ll be 70 I’ll just keep working out, and won’t be skipping leg day

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1639

@aldebaran gave a really good explanation.

This is the video that got me thinking about strengthening that ROM instead of avoiding it.

I posted another of his videos on @littlesleeper’s log about strengthening your hip flexors by doing knee raises with weights on your foot/ankle because it helped so much.

Only if you’re not using lots of ankle bend and knee flexion. If you’re sitting back with a lower stance you’re pinching your hips. If you’re allowing for deep knee flexion, there’s less hip flexion. Think about the ultimate knee flexion exercise - the sissy squat - there’s 0 hip flexion. Now I’m not saying do that, but I just mean, if the knees and ankles are going through a deep rom, the hips don’t have to get pinched.

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1640

Yup!

You, sir, are counting your chickens…

I’m just kidding! I appreciate all the detailed and thoughtful responses. And this:

is going to be good stuff!

Thanks! I’ll check this out.

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1641

Did some assault bike and secondary pull workout today.

Question for the team: do you all like conditioning before or after you lift?

I prefer doing it before, even though it seems more logical in my brain to do it after.

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1642

No .

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1643

Ok, I’ll play nice.

After. Primarily because I only have 2 speeds, so I try to bury myself with conditioning, which doesn’t bode well if I try to lift afterwards.

I use the metaphor of a tube of toothpaste. I can squeeze out a bunch of myself with a lifting workout, but with conditioning at the end I can keep squeezing out just a little bit more toothpaste.

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1644

I like the first answer.

Everything you said I agree with.

My main preference for first is i like having a solid sweat when I start lifting, so it’s kind of a two birds thing. It definitely punishes some of my lifts though.

My second before reason is just that I like the mental aspect of “earning” the weights with the thing I like least.

That all said, I’ve just now started doing “heavier” methods of conditioning and I’m clearly already seeing how doing it beforehand may not be the best route.

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