Adarq.org

Week 101

Monday - 02/29/16
197.8lbs

-= Workout Log =-

ATG Squat
135 x 8                                >> 2min rest.
135 x 8                                >> The de-load last Thursday served me well! Scheduled for 400x3 but did 405x3 instead.
185 x 5                                >> I don't think I'll be able to repeat this on Thursday. We'll see. I was nervous today = adrenaline.
185 x 3                                >> I've done 325x8 before, but since an even heavier set came before it it's a PR this time too.
225 x 3                                >> Slightly cutting back on the volume of these.
275 x 1
315 x 1
365 x 1
405 x 3
325 x 8 PR

Bench Press
45 x 15                               >> 3min rests.
95 x 8                                 >> Switched to good ol' 3x5 with 3min rests since I was stalling.
135 x 5                               >> Did not expect 5 reps, let alone two sets of it. Nice.
185 x 3
225 x 1
235 x 5 PR
235 x 5 PR
235 x 4 PR

Romanian Deadlift
225 x 5                           
275 x 3                 >> Previous PR was 385x8 on these. Working back up slowly.
315 x 1                 >> Hope I don't get crazy sore from these, so I can do them again Thursday.
365 x 5

Incline DB Bench Press
75's x 12                     >> 2min rest.
75's x 8                       >> Upped the rest on these. May also add in a set later on. Not sure yet.

Calf Raise Machine
420 x 5                            >> 60sec rests.
480 x 12 PR                       >> Machine maxes out at 495, which is one pin away from 480!
480 x 10 PR
480 x 8 PR

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfUDOVuYFZw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfUDOVuYFZw</a>

Week 100

Friday - 02/26/16

-= Workout Log =-

Cable Rows
160 x 5                          >> 60sec rests.
180 x 3                          >> Eh...
200 x 10
200 x 8
180 x 8
180 x 6
180 x 3

Lateral Raises
35's x 5                             >> 60sec rests.
40's x 2                             >> Woohoo!
45's x 1
50's x 1
45's x 9 PR
45's x 5
40's x 8 PR
40's x 6 PR
35's x 5 PR

Pull ups
BW x 15                   >> 60sec rests.
BW x 8
BW x 3
BW x 4
BW x 4

Ab Pulldowns
95 x 5                >> 60sec rests.
155 x 12 PR
155 x 8 PR
155 x 4 PR
 130 x 4 PR
  105 x 4 PR

Incline Rear Delt W Flyes
25's x 5                  >> 60sec rests.
30's x 1
35's x 11 PR
35's x 6 PR
35's x 5 PR

Great workout overall. Progress has been very slow lately. I still have no explanation for how my squat exploded from 365x3 to 395x3 in just a couple weeks (this happened like 6 weeks ago?). I'm still PR'ing inch by inch since then. It's also harder now since I'm cutting. Not logging my food though; it's just a ~5lb cut.

196.0lbs this morning, saving for later cuz i'll forget

^^ We're back to the regular quad then 

We don't have quads. We have quints.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26732825

The quadriceps femoris is traditionally described as a muscle group composed of the rectus femoris and the three vasti. However, clinical experience and investigations of anatomical specimens are not consistent with the textbook description. We have found a second tensor-like muscle between the vastus lateralis (VL) and the vastus intermedius (VI), hereafter named the tensor VI (TVI). The aim of this study was to clarify whether this intervening muscle was a variation of the VL or the VI, or a separate head of the extensor apparatus. Twenty-six cadaveric lower limbs were investigated. The architecture of the quadriceps femoris was examined with special attention to innervation and vascularization patterns. All muscle components were traced from origin to insertion and their affiliations were determined. A TVI was found in all dissections. It was supplied by independent muscular and vascular branches of the femoral nerve and lateral circumflex femoral artery. Further distally, the TVI combined with an aponeurosis merging separately into the quadriceps tendon and inserting on the medial aspect of the patella. Four morphological types of TVI were distinguished: Independent-type (11/26), VI-type (6/26), VL-type (5/26), and Common-type (4/26). This study demonstrated that the quadriceps femoris is architecturally different from previous descriptions: there is an additional muscle belly between the VI and VL, which cannot be clearly assigned to the former or the latter. Distal exposure shows that this muscle belly becomes its own aponeurosis, which continues distally as part of the quadriceps tendon. Clin. Anat. 29:256-263, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

vag how long do you generally rest between sets of squats and the other lifts? wondering how you do it with supersets.

Week 100

Tuesday - 02/23/16

-= Workout Log =-

Weighted Pull ups
BW x 5                      >> 60sec rests.
+20lbs x 3
+40lbs x 10 PR
+40lbs x 3 PR
+35lbs x 4 PR
+30lbs x 4 PR
+25lbs x 4 PR

Lateral Raises
35's x 3                             >> 60sec rests.
35's x 2                             >> Can't exactly remember how all the weights and reps went, but the first 3 sets are correct for sure.
40's x 1
45's x 8 PR
45's x 6 PR
40's x 8 PR
40's x 5 PR
35's x 5 PR

Cable Rows
170 x 5                          >> 60sec rests.
190 x 1                          >> I can't remember and I'm too lazy to go back and see what my PR's here are (at my gym not others).
210 x 10               >> So from this point forth, anything that beats this will be labeled as a PR.
210 x 6
190 x 8
190 x 6
190 x 5

Ab Pulldowns
95 x 5                >> 60sec rests.
150 x 15 PR
150 x 8 PR
150 x 8 PR

Incline Rear Delt W Flyes
25's x 5                  >> 60sec rests.
30's x 1
35's x 10 PR
35's x 6 PR
35's x 5 PR

hey man, am i correct in thinking you had some problems with quad tenodnitis?

how did you get around it in the end?

I had patellar tendonitis. I'll try to make this as simple as possible.

The problem:
- Patellar maltracking. Aka my knee cap was shifted over laterally a bit.
- This was caused by too much tension on the lateral side, and too litte tension on the medial side to counter it.
- The effect of this is that the top of the tibia scrapes the cartilage under the knee cap since the tibia it's not fitting in the "under socket" of the kneecap perfectly.

The solution:
- Relieve tension on the lateral side by foam rolling the IT band
- Increase tension on the medial side by activating VMO and strengthening it

Longer explanation:
Relieving the tension on one side is simple. However, increasing tension on the other side was pretty cool to do. During the time I had tendonitis, I was squatting to parallel. As you know, this doesn't activate the VMO very much. What does activate it, however, is either extreme of the range of motion. So this means things like peterson step ups (http://www.jumpusa.com/PetersonStepup.jpg) and ATG squats.

Unfortunately, peterson step ups caused some pain in my knee. To mitigate this, I would foam roll my IT bands a ton before performing them. This made them nearly pain free. I also switched from parallel to ATG squats to further strengthen my VMOs. After this switch I noticed my VMO's getting crazy sore for the first few workouts, but nothing from the peterson step ups. I ditched the peterson step ups since I found them not effective enough.

But this part was damn interesting... I needed to ACTIVATE my VMO first! Take a look at this vid of my quads. My LEFT knee was the painful one. My right knee was okay. Notice how the left quad flexes all at once, but in the right quad, the VMO flexes just before the rest of the quad!

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2neCEbA6Pw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2neCEbA6Pw</a>

On the RIGHT quad (the okay one) the VMO contracts first, stabalizing the knee, and then the rest of the quad contracts.

This tells me the VMO on the left quad was a bit under active. Anyway, I learned (forgot where I read this) that the best way to change movement patterns are using NEGATIVE lifts. So what I would do before I played basketball was foam roll the IT band, and then perform negative knee extensions beforehand on my left quad. Then I could play pain free, temporarily (for as long as the effect lasted).

Over time, as I continued to foam roll the IT band, the effect became permanent. Also, my VMO's got strong as hell from the ATG squats. Finally.... see the vid I just posted? Well, once my pain was all gone, and still to this day, when I flex my left quad now, the VMO will contract just before the rest of the quad, just like my right quad!