Friday, September 14, 2007

Day 310: Brutal Hypertrophy Lower Body Workout - Let's Share Our "Squat" Stories!

G'day,

You ever get that feeling when you can barely walk up or down stairs after a tough leg workout? I had that today...and then some!

Hypertrophy Lower Body: By The Book

My Hypertrophy Lower Body session called for 8 sets of quadriceps, hamstrings and calves today.

The recommended strategy is to perform 2 "core" exercises for 3 sets each and one "targeted" exercise for the remaining 2 sets (totaling 8 sets).

I followed this pattern for hamstrings and calves using a variety of free weight exercises (straight leg deadlifts and dumbell calf raises) and machines (leg curls and standing calf raises).

Takin' It To The Max!

However, I decided to take it to the max with quadriceps by doing all 8 sets with the granddaddy of all exercises...front squats.

The reason why I did all 8 sets on squats is simple. This is because front squats are regarded by most experts as the best exercise to stimulate the most muscle fiber across the whole body, not just the quads.

Whether this is correct or not, anyone who regularly does multiple sets back-to-back of front squats can vouch for the fact that while they are tough to do, they also build the lower body like nothing else!

Anyway, like I said at the start of today's post, I could barely walk up the stairs to the locker room after my workout...that is all the proof I need!

Do You Have A "Squat Story" To Share?

Do you a brutal squat story to share? How do you know when you've had an awesome workout?

I'd love to hear from you, just leave a comment to this post and we'll share some squat "war stories"!

Until tomorrow...

Eat Clean,
Shred Hard,
Think BIG!

Cheers,
Adam Waters, NESTA-CPT

P.S. Did you notice something about my blog today? That's right, the links on the header graphic now work! I trust you'll now find it much easier to navigate this blog (gets kinda hard with over 280 posts!)

I also want to give a special shout-out to Garry Egan again, I don't know how he did it but I am very grateful. Thanks Garry! If you need a professional to help you with your website/blog I highly recommend Garry, he's an expert! Below is a link to his website.


P.S.S. Below are Day 310 pics for September 14, 2007: Mission 3 Phase 2 - Day 16 of 70



7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Adam! Now I get it when you say that you can notice difference from one picture to another, I saw the difference in your pictures today, don't know how but defenetly there's more muscle!
I have a few squat stories, since I was a weightlifter (you know we make lots of squats) I was on vacation one summer but still had to train for a competition on fall, anyway, since I was traveling I found a local gym and did some snatch, some clean, some other weightlifting stuff and was kind of afraid to make squats in front of the people (you know, there wasn't a single woman in there, just me). So afraid of cooling down I went to the racks and told a guy that defentely I had to share the racks with him to make some squat, of course he didn't like the idea, immediatly went to the bar and was taking the weights from the 20 kg bar, asked me: how much weight do you need? (2 discs of 45 lbs. were on each side of the bar) I got mad and told him, leave it like that (my squat routine that day was: 1x5 90 kgs, 2x4 110 kgs, 2x3 120 kg, 4x2 135 kgs, and 2x5 back on 100). He stared at me like "are you nuts?"; I didn't followed exactly my routine because now we were competing, putting weight on the bar afraid of giving up, that day Adam I did 1x5 100kgs., 1x8 120kg, 1x6 130, and my personal best 1x8 140 kg.!!, in that moment the man told me "I need to finish some leg extensions, and I'll be right back after you finish", I WAS IN A GREAT PAIN AND GLAD THAT HE GAVE UP!!!, did my last set of 1x10 with I think were 80 kgs, and bravely walked out of the gym, couldn't drive and suffered the whole week. My personal best ever were 160 kgs. for a single rep on the back squat at age 21 and 65 kgs., 145 for one rep on the front squat. You know, english is not my main language but hope you understand my story. Congratulations for your great work on the page, you're really motivating. Keep it up.

Adam Waters said...

Hi Celina,

Wow! That is exactly the kind of story I wanted to hear. I can only imagine how tough that squat workout must have been becuase I have never lifted 2.5 times my bodyweight on squats (like you have!).

Kudos to you as well for sticking to your routine in the face of skepticism from another gym member. He must have been shocked! Do you still train as a weightlifter now?

Even though I have always train by myself (no training partner) since I started this journey I know what its like when things get competitive with other members because the gym I go to now only has one squat rack - so sometimes we have "work in". If this dynamic forces you to go above and beyond your personal best that's great (just as long as it not dangerous).

Thanks again for your sharing your story Celina.

Cheers,
Adam Waters

Anonymous said...

I don't have nearly a dramatic story as Celina, but my "little" story is basically, sometimes when I can't get to the gym(which is closed right now due to moving) I do squats with my 11 year old, 80 pound, daughter on my back.

Anonymous said...

Hi!! Suzette well, let me tell you I've never done that, must be difficult though, not only for the legs but for the entire body, you know, for balance and everything. Adam, since 2003 I stopped lifting, I began losing lots of weight, and now I wish I could look like you!! right now I don't try those weights, even the coaches in the gym tell me: I think you could use more weight! I will love to send you some pictures of me lifting, clean & jerk was my best movement! I was so in love with weightlifting, and I think that the reason right now that you haven't lifted those weights is because you're very lean, the body, and specially the legs need a lot of glucogen and that stuff to lift and gain lots of mass and strength, but believe me, what you've done is as hard as lifting a ton!!! Best regards from Mexico.

Adam Waters said...

Hi Suzette,

Wow! That is definitely mazimizing your time and making no excuses to get in a workout! Awesome!

Cheers,
Adam

Adam Waters said...

Hi Celina, were you a professional weight lifter before? because that is some serious weight! I am now realizing just how long (and how brutal) the training is to actually build muscle. I really belive that losing fat is quite easy in comparison. I do look forward to the days when I am squatting 2 to 3 times my bodyweight!

Cheers,
Adam

Anonymous said...

I was a weightlifting competitor, competed in 4 (2 junior, 1 senior and 1 university/college) world championships, junior panams championships and senior panamerican championships too, and several other competitions. My "problem" is that I came from track & field training (discus throw) but was very short compared to the average international competitors, I trained very hard but being a small girl compared to those huge women put me in a great disadvantage, I moved to weightlifting with excellent quick short-period results, but just lasted 2 years in the sport, mainly because people in my country were trying to take me far away from the coach I was getting results with just because they didn't want him and other personal stuff. Any way, I think that the diet is very important to gain strengh and building muscle, one thing that I can see in you (very important for your goals) is that you're always pushing yourself for more and more, and defenetely was my strategy when I was training. Sometimes my squat routine included 2 sets of 3 reps with my 85 or 90% of max. weight, and I tried to do the 6 reps without resting. I was always fighting with my coach because of that and he knew that that kind of training worked for me so he was always challenging me. Right now you have something very positive, and that's your mind, is like having a personal coach over you pushing and pushing you through!! and believe me, if you just change your bodybuilding/losing-fat training, and start squating very short reps sets, you would be squating lots of more kilograms, but I bet you're glad doing this kind of workouts and better yet, they're giving you terrific results, I'm beginning doing them!!! Good luck, and success in this mission 3 man!