Spliced and diced - perhaps one day, a little shredded!

In the sense that its not much food? Tbh chewing all that spinach makes it feel like a lot even when it has very little calories.

Obviously I'm going to have some more substantial meals later .

Yeah going mildly hypoglycaemic sucks! Think that happened to me on Friday as my vision went a bit blurry after some heavy sets and I started shaking a bit towards the end of the session. Its fine if I have a modest meal beforehand but I definitely don't like fasted exercise!

I can exercise as long as it doesn't hurt, been booked in for an MRI.

So as I was lol

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x

solid session. i cant outbench silent ninja but it looks like you took my mantle

Today 15 mins incline walk + 3 min run at the end, knee isn't too happy

Pullups
1 x 6
2 x 5

Dips
1 x 5
1 x 7
1 x 10



You seem to know a fair bit about rehab... any tips for knee rehab? Mines been playing up

How much do you weigh at the moment? Running lots if you are overweight, or not for that matter, can really stress your knees, particularly the patellar tendons.

Running lots while lifting lower body 2-3 days a week is more stressful, but doable.

Your programming is a little off IMO. I would stick to 4 compounds per workout, then go into isolation... one quad dominant, one hip dominant, one push and one pull. Then you can hit arms, core, some lateral raises, calves etc.

In relation to rehab - it is such a broad area. You will need to learn a lot about mobility and address your overall posture. One thing you can do immediately is address the balance of quad to hip dominant/unilateral exercises. For every quad exercise you do, do a hip dominant exercise. Also, DB lunges are slightly more stressful on the knee so you could swap them for reverse lunges, step ups or Bulgarian split squats. For hamstring/glutes, add for the hip extension pattern - Romanian deadlifts with good form, reverse hypers, barbell or banded good mornings, hip thrusts and for knee flexion - sliding leg curls (with stability ball if no other equipment available) or glute-ham raises (natural, if necessary, using lat pulldown machine of a barbell holding your legs and pads for knees).

Also, a mobility warm up is important for at least 10 mins every workout. Stretch what is tight - which for you, will probably be hip flexors, calfs, adductors, lower back, pecs, lats, traps. Then add some mobility drills and activate your glutes (clams, side lying abductions, fire hydrants and quadruped hip extension). If you have any hip pain, stretching the **** out of your hip flexors daily and adding in clams and lateral lunges a few times a week will work wonders. Knees a little more complicated and usually hurt due to overuse, acute injuries or postural imbalances elsewhere (muscular quad to hamstring, hip alignment and tight calves, coupled with kyphosis or rounding in the upper body).

How's it all going anyway?

I actually have a suspected disc problem in my back hence the way I'm programming atm, doing anything with my lower back has the potential to be painful, so I'm careful and only do lower back work once, maybe twice a week with time. However spinal compression, sitting a barbell on my back is ridiculously painful the next day, so I don't do any of it. Might give romanian deadlifts or SLDL a try, was watching a vid on them earlier. I'm 83ish kilos

Knee pain is related to a leg extension machine from a month or so ago, it's not excessively sore, it just swells up when I use it. I'm no stranger to running either, ran a marathon in September

I was doing yoga for lower body flexibility but again some stretches are bloody agony due to my back. Will take your advice and do more flexibility work before working out from now on Will try reverse lunges or step ups next time I'm in the gym. I've been playing the rest it and hopefully it will get better, but tbh it just won't go the whole hog and get fixed.

Thanks for the advice, appreciate it

This information is useful! Given the problem with your disk, I wouldn't touch RDLs, good mornings or conventional deadlifts - possibly trap bar, but you don't need them. Try hip thrusts, sliding leg curls and get on some reverse hypers (again, look up improvisations if your gym doesn't have a machine) - that is enough for your posterior chain. Also, you could try slideboard reverse lunges (look up, and you can use other stuff instead of the slideboard).

One thing that was especially emphasised after my ACL surgery was never to use a leg extension machine. Machines generally aren't as good from a physical point of view (though they build muscle!), but leg extensions place lots of stress on the knee.

You're obviously not overweight, but long distance running will have contributed to your knee issue... so just monitor that. Make sure your knee is tracking well too. Add terminal knee extensions to your warm up if you can get hold of a band and really get your VMO working (teardrop muscle) - single leg exercises work them really well (especially split squats and step ups) so it's a win-win. Single leg squats are another option.

If you are a keen runner, try not to run the day before or on the same day as your lower body sessions if you can help it... if it means you just do one hard lower body day with say, bulgarian split squats, reverse hypers, sliding leg curls and walking lunges then that is ample and will leave you able to run 3-4 times a week too.

Also, the main function of your anterior core is to protect your lower back. It won't hurt to do ab roll out variations, dragon flags and other anti-extension core exercises to help you. It will also get those abs bursting out.

Hope that helps

Interesting what you guys were saying about pressing itt the other day. Tried false grip on some of my 5x5 presses today and it did feel stronger, googled it and came up with a rippetoe article though. He was saying a thumbs around grip is better because it allows you to squeeze the bar for forearm tightness which helps off the shoulders. Tried it and sure enough it seemed to help too.. thing I'll have to do some more experimenting before coming to a conclusion

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Deadlifts are my guilty pleasure, I do them purely as I love them and it doesn't hurt too much the next day. I will try hip thrusts and sliding leg curls, don't know how I'd be able to do reverse hypers in my gym lol



I'll never use that blasted thing ever again!



Having now researched it, what I call a DB lunge is a split squat Will add them in then.



I'm trying to find ways I can work my core without murdering my back, the ab rollout thing is alright about once a week, so I'm sticking with pavlov press atm and then I'll find something else aswell. Things like planks kill my back through continuous loading of my lumbar spine.

Thank you very much for your help

RIP Cucumber, the volume was too damn high

Bench
20kg 1 x 5
40kg 1 x 5
60kg 1 x 5
80kg 1 x 5
90kg 1 x 3
100kg 1 x 3 PB and easy
82.5kg 1 x 7 Rep record
92.5kg 1 x 5
2 x 3 Being unspotted for all of this, I didn't push it too hard

2 plate reps club

Pullups
BW 1 x 5 PB
+10kg 1 x 5
2 x 3

Single leg curl
5kg 3 x 8 Jesus christ the burn

Deadlifts
70kg 1 x 5 Felt heavy...
110kg 1 x 5 Felt ungodly heavy
120kg 1 x 1
130kg 1 x 5 YES Coming up to where I was before, last rep was a hell of a grind but got it
142.5kg 1 x f Damn went for the PB, didn't budge hardly surprising

Bulgarian DB split squat
15kg DBs 2 x 5
The movement is horrendous to get into, doesn't feel safe.

DB Split squat
15kg DBs 1 x 5 Will do these from now on

Hammer curlz
17.5kg DBs 3 x 7

Ab twist thing
level 4 3 x 10

Vision was starting to go blurry which was concerning... hence I went home. Knee on split squats felt a bit tight but alright.