ALBOB

OK, we've all heard the old cliche'; "No pain, no gain". I'm wondering what TYPE of pain. Background: I've just come off knee surgery in October and am just now able to do some decent leg work. My current routine is to super-set hack squats with regular barbell squats. When doing hacks I shoot for 20 reps and the limiting factor is "the burn". On barbell squats I shoot for 10 reps and the limiting factor is the WEIGHT.................and the pain that goes along with lifitng it. Now, my question is, which one of these "pains" is doing me the most good? Does that make sense? Pain doing somebody GOOD?

Rules? You mean we have RULES for that???

craig777

Makes sense to me, maybe not TCD with his IQ.

I always used to lift for the lactic acid failure burn and it got me nowhere. Now I lift for the weight and 6 reps. If I could do 7 or maybe 8, I still don't do them. I get 3 work sets of 6 reps and almost never have the lactic acid burn anymore.

Oh, by the way your dream girl says that hack squats are terrible on the knees and won't even let me do them.

ALBOB

Damn, I use them sort of as a pre-exhaust immediately before hitting the regular squats and it hits my quads HARD. What does she let you do?



(With weights, what does she let you do with WEIGHTS? )

Rules? You mean we have RULES for that???

craig777

Sometimes she will pre-exhaust my legs with leg press. I keep my feet up high and only go to 90 degrees at the knee. She said that leg press wasn't great on the knee either, but better than the hack squat.

Sometimes she will pre-exhaust with walking lunges with 40lb dumbbells, and I have to really concentrate on pushing up with the lead foot and not the toes of the back foot. I hate this one.

Sometimes we will go straight to the squat, and I will start with 10 @ 135, 4 @ 185, then to the work sets.

I did box squats this past saturday with 240. This was after doing leg press. I hate box squats. You actually sit down on a box with 240 on your back and then have to stand up.

I have slowly worked my way up to 8 plates on a side with leg press, and I do 15 and stop at 15.

Don't you hate being an old fart.

ALBOB

I hate leg presses, they give me a terrible headache. Yeah yeah, I know, BREATHE. I do breathe and I still get a headache from them. OK, I guess I'll try leg presses for super high reps and then hit the squats.

(My technique on the hacks is the same as yours on the presses; feet up high, press with the heels. I haven't felt any pain in my knee. )

Rules? You mean we have RULES for that???

craig777

I will see her in about 1.5 hours, I will ask her why no hack squats, but it is ok for leg press. I think the answer is that the leg press at Olympic has pins that you can set so the weight does not go any further than where the pins are set. I really really like this. On the hack squat you may by accident go too far and hurt your knee. I am almost positive that is why, but I will ask. I will tell her that you drool all over her pictures.

ALBOB

You're an ass. I DO drool all over her pictures but you're still an ass.

Rules? You mean we have RULES for that???

craig777

I do try

See you tomorrow

craig777

OK, Albob I didn't use your name, I just told her some guy on Iron Magazine Forums with the Alias of Albob has the hots for her.

No I didn't

I asked her why I could do Leg Press, but not the Hack Squat with my knee problems. Didn't they both put a lot of pressure on the knee.

Her reply was that the Hack Squat puts a great deal of pressure on the knee no matter where you place your feet, and on the Leg Press you can place your feet in such a manner to take pressure off the knee.

ALBOB

Well, I'm certainly not gonna argue with her (Unless she WANTS me to ) but, upon further reflection, I think I'm gonna stick with hacks. With the leg press I get too much hamstring recruitment. With the hacks I can isolate my quads and, if I do them correctly, don't feel any pain at all in my knee.

Anyway, back to the original question, anybody else wanna weigh in with an opinion?

Rules? You mean we have RULES for that???

craig777

Hey Albob, hate to break it to ya, but I think mine is the only opinion your going to get

ALBOB

Yeah, and yours SUCKS.

Rules? You mean we have RULES for that???

Triple Threat

I don't know which type of pain is best, but I do know that, like Craig, hack squats kill my knees. The leg press does not.

Albob, what is your goal here? Are you trying to increase endurance or build strength? I believe the "burn" is caused by lactic acid build-up, a result of your aerobic capacity. The pain caused by squats is a result of your strength levels.

I would think that if you're trying to increase strength levels, you'd perform the squats first.

As long as I'm rambling, Craig, I noticed the 6 rep sets. Are you by any chance doing a Max-OT workout?

ALBOB

Strength. My original knee injury was incurred in the squat rack and I'm trying to get my legs back to where they were pre-injury. (Actually my goal is size but I know that will happen just by increasing strength. )

Rules? You mean we have RULES for that???

craig777

Nope, I do what Jill tells me to do.

Jill is a powerlifter and I know she does sets of 3 reps, everything is 3 reps for her.

She knows that I want to do a bodybuilding competition and my legs were pathetic. I think she is of the mind that 10-12 reps is too many because she wants to build my strength as well as size. So she has me do 3 sets of 6 reps and it is working very well. My strength has gone up incredibly, and also the size of my legs has grown quite a bit also. If I get 6 reps easily, and she is the judge of easily she puts on more weight.

Triple Threat

I would think that if strength is the goal, squats should be the first exercise of the workout. Do them when the energy level is highest.

I've also been trying to increase leg strength and I've taken a somewhat unorthodox approach to it. I have a leg day once a week and I start off with 4-5 sets of squats, 6 reps (or at least, that's the goal). Then, 3 days later, I squat again (not an entire leg workout, just squats), but I'm using the Power Matrix scheme of sets of 8,5,3,1,1,1,5 reps. So far I'm getting good results. We'll see how long I can continue this routine.

dvlmn666

If your feeling the leg press to much in your hamstrings your going to deep. If your strict and only do to 90degrees your back shouldn't be trying to round at all and the hamstring involvement will be minimal.

"When I use the word intensity I mean the ability to continue past and through the pain barrier where your mind pleads to stop and in fact convinces your body that you have hit failure, but you push through. How far you push through that barrier is the level of intensity with which you train." -- Twin Peak

ALBOB

I completely agree but am still having to work around the knee injury to some extent. By doing the hacks first I pre-exhaust the quads and don't have to use as much weight when doing squats to get a good workout.

dvlmn, what up bro? I wanted to do another fat loss challenge but never got around to it. Oh well, guess we can do it again when I get settled in Vegas. I know what you mean about going too low on the leg press but that's not my problem. My problem is that my feet are so high on the platform (my toes actually hang over the edge) so I don't stress my knee, that I use almost all hamstrings to push the weight.

Rules? You mean we have RULES for that???

dvlmn666

Doing good, down here in San Diego. How about yourself? When's the big move anyway?

Forgot your kinda tall, my feet are all the way at the top of the platform to when I do them. Which hasn't been in a long time actually. lmao

Sounds like your knee is doing good. Glad to see your back to workin legs. Sure we can start up another challenge then.

"When I use the word intensity I mean the ability to continue past and through the pain barrier where your mind pleads to stop and in fact convinces your body that you have hit failure, but you push through. How far you push through that barrier is the level of intensity with which you train." -- Twin Peak

ALBOB

Next week is my last DUTY week in the Air Force. (Look for a huge good-bye thread. ) The movers are picking up our stuff on the 20th of June and we'll hit Vegas the day after that.

Yep, the knee's finally to the point I can squat again. I was a bit worried there for a while. It lets me know if I over do it but other than that the only problem is I know well in advance of any rain.

Rules? You mean we have RULES for that???