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2000:
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October
1999
Hardcore Training Well, its November and nearly time for Thanksgiving. Let's see, what do I have to be thankful for? I'm almost done with this issue, that's a big one. Let's see what else. I guess my home, my health, my girlfriend……let's see what else………oh yeah, my huge freaking quads! What's that Pilgrim? Your quads are not really anything to give thanks for, huh? Well, sit back and get ready to put some size on those wheels! Hopefully everyone's been following along and is familiar with pre-exhaustion and rest-pause drop sets. Remember, our goal is to train as heavy as possible within the constraints of this style of training. You guys out there that feel it's necessary to do the 1/4 squats so you can load the bar up all of the way probably should just stop reading now. Maybe we'll do an article for you guys next month, "How to effectively train your ego". I know the rest of us are ready to grow. We'll use my last leg workout as an example for this article. I'm meeting with my buddy who must have graduated from the Marquis De Sade school of training, he really knows how to kick my ass. We start with leg extensions. Very light, 2 sets of 40 reps. Yes, I said 40. Each rep is performed at a moderate pace with a lot of squeezing at the top of the movement. We both finish our sets and can definitely feel it in our quads. But hey, those sets didn't even count, those were just for pre-exhaustion! Moving on to leg press now. We load up the Cybex leg press, it's a great machine. If you've got one of these in your gym, I recommend that you use it for your leg presses rather than a sled. For those of you that have never seen one of these, it's basically a leg press that works by having the weight tilt up and down around a center axis rather than moving a sled on a wheeled track. It allows for more constant tension on your quads and just feels smoother. But, I digress, back to the workout. We've got 6 100 lb plates on each side of this thing. He starts with seven reps. Rests for twenty seconds. Five more. Rests for twenty seconds. 3 more. He does his set with ease, which pisses me off since now I have to act like it's cake too. I get my set, dying inside but I'll be damned if I'll show it on my face. I should win an Academy for that performance. We do one more rest-pause drop set and unload the machine. Usually that's the worst part, having to unload six 100 lb plates when you can barely walk or breathe. Next exercise. I'm letting him lead today, I can just see the Machiavellian wheels turning in his head as he decides which exercise to pick next. He usually manages to picks the one that made me throw up last time. Let's see, let's go for……….SQUATS! How did I know this was coming? Squats on a rest-pause system are brutal and not for the faint of heart. We load 315 on the bar. We've only got two sets here, but they will be two brutal sets indeed. He starts, I always make him go first so I have a goal to shoot for. Guaranteed if I go first he'll do one more rep than me even if it kills him. He does his first set, bam, bam, bam, just like clockwork, only having a bit of difficulty with the last drop set of three. Bastard. I go. Now I know some of you may think that 315 lbs in the squat is no big deal. Normally I would agree with you. However, 315 lbs in the squat after everything else we've just done is a killer. My quads are already swollen and shaky as I get underneath the bar for this set. Seven, I'm straining on the last two. 20 seconds and five, he's helping me up with the last rep. 20 seconds and three, he's spotting me on 2 and three. My quads are on fire. Here comes the fun part. It's now time to stretch. Stretching is good right? Yeah, stretching is good until you workout with Captain Insano who requires that all stretches are as full as humanly possible and held for several seconds. Stretching is followed by flexing, contracting the quads as hard as possible and holding it for several seconds. Great, now we can do our last set. He busts his out with little fanfare, only needing a bit of assistance on the last set of three again. Christ, am I up again already? I do my set without too much in the way of tears, and we're done with squats. THANK YOU GOD! Have you ever done legs to the point where walking to the drinking fountain is a chore? Where you think they might collapse underneath you at any moment? That's where I'm at right now. We've only got one exercise left for quads, adductors. Adductors you laugh? Isn't that a girl exercise? I used to think so too until I saw the tremendous growth I got out of them. We do two very heavy straight sets to failure. Thank God we're done with quads. We head on over to the juice bar and have some Super-XXX-Creamy-Muscle Builder drink while we rest for a few minutes. Normally I train my hamstrings separately from quads. However, when I train with the Taskmaster, we have to do them after quads. Fortunately, our respective schedules ensure we can't train together on a regular basis. R&R is up, time to resume lifting! Since we've already worked our hamstrings to a great degree from our previous quad exercises, we skip the pre-exhaustion I would normally do when training hams alone. We start with heavy stiff-legged deadlifts. We do straight sets, it's too hard on the lower back to try and do rest-pause drop sets on this exercise. We both do two heavy sets with 225 with our front of our feet resting on 10 lb plates. This ensures a maximum stretch of the hamstrings. Very slow and controlled with no bouncing out of the bottom stretch position and no over-extension at the top. If you're throwing your hips forward and locking them at the top, you're pulling too far back. Next exercise. We move on the to leg press. Leg press again? Yes, but this time we're going to be training hamstrings. Now, if you've never done these before, you may not feel it in your hams while performing the exercise. Trust me, you'll feel it over the next few days. Take your feet and spread them so that they are at the left and right edges of the foot plate. Now move your feet so the upper half of each foot is hanging off the top of the plate. This foot position will require your hamstrings to do the majority of the work as the sled moves up and down. We load it up with four 100 lb plates on each side. We use a normal sled leg press this time, it's more effective for the hams. He goes first and gets his 7,5,3 set with ease. My set is fairly easy as well. We throw another 100 on each side and do it again. This set is significantly harder but we both make it through without needing a spot. One more exercise to go. We finish up hams with standing leg curls. We do two heavy straight sets, too shredded to worry about drop sets at this point. These are performed in a slow, strict fashion. As each foot comes up, we try and point our toes towards the ceiling. This will make the exercise harder and will isolate each hamstring to a greater extent. Hey! We're done! We make it in and out of the gym in less than an hour and our legs our completely fried. Joking aside, training in this fashion causes muscular growth. PERIOD. I'm not one of these guys that can go into the gym and workout by myself to this level of intensity. I have to have someone with me that can create somewhat of a competitive atmosphere. That's ok. The bottom line is that your body can never adapt to training in this fashion, because it's simply too intense of a stimuli. At the same time, as long as you're eating and resting properly, you won't over train because the workouts are so short. Good luck and happy growth! Copyright 1999 Jason Meuller and Anabolic Extreme. This material may not be copied, reproduced, or transmitted without the express written permission of the copyright owners. |
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