AGE: 18
HEIGHT: 6'0 (without shoes)
WEIGHT: 190lbs
SLEEP SCHEDULE: Getting to bed at around 12 and waking up at 8-9 on weekdays (only part time job atm) on weekends I stay up longer and sleep as long as I feel up to. No troubles falling asleep and I wake up pretty fast and feel fresh.
uhh, nice sleep schedule..
BODY TYPE: Muscular. Broad shoulders, broad hips... Carrying more muscle mass in my upperbody than lowerbody right now. Bodyfat is at around 13%.
GOALS: Short term: Get fitness levels up move and feel better, improve body composition (cut some weight down) keep improving strength (upper and lowerbody) while not adding too much unneeded bodyweight, jump higher.
Long term: 34''SVJ/40'' RVJ, 400lbs + squat, 275lbs militarypress, 2xBW chinup
CURRENT ABILITY: I'm coming of a long period of knee issues and still somewhat dealing with it though I feel like a lot of it is mental as I'm not experiencing much pain at all. Still I'm moving kind of clumsy/slow feel out of shape and heavy... I'm winded way too early when I play soccer, basketball or whatever and I feel the lactic acid building up way too fast with such activities. Regarding my strength levels: militarypress 180lbs x 1, Chinups + 55lbs x 4, Split squats 160lbs x 8 (submax, easy). Vert numbers: SVJ 24''/RVJ 27,5''
no pain at all? interesting, thought you were still experiencing pain, though not much of it.. I definitely see how you could be "imagining it" at this point, you've dealt with the knee issues for so long.
INJURY HISTORY: As I stated above I can look back on a long history of knee issues... Visited several specialist and got a lot of different diagnoses: jumpers knee, plica syndrom, runners knee, patella tendinitis, inflamed hoffa fat pad... Did 2 MRI's which of the last showed no damage to any knee structures (ligaments, cartilage, menisci..) which is good but also a bit frustrating as I still don't know really what it is but it's giving me still problems... it tends to get inflamed over and over again when I overdo it. Problematic things (training related): deep knee bends, high volume of max jumps, high impact (shock) plyos, high volume of training in general
deep knee bends on ANYTHING, or just squat? I imagine lunges feel better than squats?
TRAINING HISTORY & ACHIEVEMENTS: Started training when I was 14 years old... had pretty bad eating disorders before. When I started training I was like 85lbs heavy at a height of 5'2-5'3'' so maaad skinny no muscles whatsoever... So I've come a long way since then and I'm pretty proud of that. I got interested in vert training like 1-2 years after started with programs of kelly baggets vertical jump bible increased my lowerbody strength heaps and got my SVJ from 15'' to 24''. But always focused too much on hypertrophy/strength work although I'm strength dominant by nature and thus my weightroom numbers have always been a lot better than my actual performance levels on the field.
CURRENT ACTIVITY LEVEL AND/OR TRAINING PROGRAM: Training upperbody twice and lowerbody once a week in the weigthroom. In addition to that I started to do more TKE stuff besides that to help with my knee health/stability. I also try to get in some low level "plyometrics" two times a week. Like some RFI line hops, pogo hops, submax approach jumps etc... really need to start light here and improve volume/intensity over time
BRIEF OVERVIEW OF CURRENT DIET: I try to eat pretty clean but I definitely eat too much junk. A normal day for me looks like this: Morning: 3 scrambled eggs with cheese and ~0.5l milk then some fruits/nuts, some yogurt/more milk an hour or two later then for lunch I eat meat (chicken most of the time or lamb, pork) with pasta rice or potatoes, some veggies and or salad. A few hours later I drink more milk and maybe some bread with some cut up... for dinner I have whatever there is in the fridge... cheese, ham, yogurt etc. But I also like to eat a good pizza or other unhealthy food here and there... I definitely eat too much candy in between.
pizza isn't junk
diet looks good, except for the candy..
IMPORTANT ACTIVITIES: Volleyball practice 2 times a week not too intense though as I'm the setter of our team and thus I don't get all that much jumping in still don't want to be super tired here. Currently I'm inseason so I have a game on the weekend sometimes...
Haha ok I'm finally done... would be nice if you (adarq) or anyone else could give me some input. I'm a bit lost about in which direction my training should lead (especially lowerbody)... if you need to know more about some things just let me know, tried to do it as detailed as possible though, as you may see
Stay tuned!
I was going to reply to each paragraph but I think it would be better to do so here.. I think you definitely need to focus on getting in better shape, from what I gather in your posts, you definitely lack a bit of fitness that would help you when dealing with all of those forces you need to absorb, during jumping, during volleyball, etc.
This line indicates that: "Problematic things (training related): deep knee bends, high volume of max jumps, high impact (shock) plyos,
high volume of training in general"
As for the other stuff you list, i'm one who is basically, do not work through an exercise if it is causing problems, so, anything that is bugging your knees is out of the question IMO, you just need to convince yourself that exercise doesn't even exist... But that last comment, about high volume of training in general aggravating your knees, that can be improved.. That is a work capacity issue.. So, just like you focus on gradually increasing the intensity of rfi, pogos, etc, the same can be said for the volume of training overall. As you adapt to being able to handle more intense sessions, or more volume per session, you'll be able to do alot more athletically without it bugging those knees.
One of the best ways to improve work capacity, ability to handle forces/impacts, increase strength in key muscle groups, is to incorporate sprinting. For now, I would simply incorporate interval sprints. Do not go all out of course, this would need to be progressed. So, 2x/week, you'll want to get in two interval sprinting sessions, which can be done before lower or upper, doesn't matter. 2 sets of 10 @ 20m should serve as a good start.. sprint, walk back, repeat for 9 more sprints, rest ~3min, hit set 2.. etc.. Avoid going complete max though, start out light so you can progress over the course of say 4 weeks, with the goal of running @ say 90% at the end of 4 weeks, for 2 sets of 10... so right now start out at "70%". Eventually, a nice way to do it is to split it up into 2 types of sessions, say 2 x 20 @ 20m, and 2-3 x 5 @ 40-60m. Only the first one is important right now.
I would still avoid squatting for now, until you get back in much better shape, even then though, you might want to avoid it.. Nothing wrong with using unilaterals to improve SVJ/RVJ, as long as body composition/fitness/jumping/reactive work is there, SVJ/RVJ will improve on unilaterals.
So, I think the overall approach is this:
1. cut out candy (limit it too like 1-2x/week at most)
2. incorporate interval sprints, improve work capacity, keep up current training - slowly progressing lifts, jumps, and low level reactive work.. most jump sessions here will be submax, but that's anywhere from 70-95%, let's consider 100% a psyched up max effort jump.
3. incorporate more intense reactive work & low-volume intense jump session, phasing it in gradually, continue to progress strength in unilaterals
not the most eye dropping approach, but simple & effective.. steps 1 & 2 are focusing on body composition, work capacity, and overall fitness.. You need that before going on to step 3. Your jumping should improve alot just by improving alot at step 2, so..
so, nothing real crazy now, pretty much what you're doing and then adding in some other stuff to help you prepare for more intense work.
regardless of any of my advice, if it is bugging your knees, don't "suck it up and fight through it", definitely chill & re-evaluate.
pc man!
