I’m beginner and I want to train for hypertrophy. I had meniscus torn and my physician forbade my do do squats with a lot of weight and do them rarely. I saw that popular program is stronglifts but it makes you squat every workout so I would like to replace squats in one workout (A or B it does not matter) with some different exercise but for upper body. Can you recommend me any good exercise maybe chin-ups or bicep curls because I like doing them or maybe some different program that includes squatting at most once a week.
why not replace them with some sort of knee rehabilitation exercise?
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So the doctor specifically said should squat rarely, and your first instinct is to do a program that was calls for squatting three days a week but one day, you want to replace squats with curls?
Listen to your doctor. You can reach your goals without squatting for now. Ben Bruno has a ton of info about training with bad knees, start here. This is one training plan to consider, making intelligent substitutes for the leg work.
To put on muscle, you’ll also need to sort out your nutrition. That’s first and foremost, regardless of your training. What do you currently weigh?
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My nutrition is quite good I think. I track daily. I eat about 2800-3000kcals. 160g protein, 100g fat, 200-300g carbs. I am 186cm and 78.5kg. I’m training for few months but before I started to track calories I lost 5kg. Since I started tracking my weight is more or less constant (but I look better). I think lately it is increasing.
My main concern is training program because of my bad knee. I already rehabbed my knee but I will never be able to squat properly (only shallow one with small weight and rarely). I have time to train 3 days per week also I do not want some complicated program comprising of more than 5 exercises per workout because I can spend on gym about 60 - 90 minutes.
To be frank I tried ask this question on few different forums but everyone provides programs like strong lifts or 5/3/2 and they are composed a lot of squats and other leg work.
Your weight is what it was 5 weeks ago, yes. If you’re visually looking “better” (which should mean leaner/more definition), that’s the right track.
If you don’t have 100% full ROM, I’m not sure you fully rehabbed the knee, but whatever. You can do just fine without performing back squats. Like I said, Ben Bruno has a ton of info about training legs with bad knees. He had knee surgery himself, so it’s even more legit. Specifically, he tends to do plenty of single-leg work, and I think he’s a fan of front squats. Trying to modify a program that was designed for three-time-a-week back squats is unnecessary and ineffective.
So, exactly like the routine I linked to. (The exercises can even be superset if necessary.)