Anna's Training Log Part 2 (Part 1)

Actually I don’t like em. Limited by balance too much. Recommending them because u don’t have much equipment and are a light weight

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This.

Plus, I think that the temptation to dive bomb a pistol squat in order to override the balance element is huge, and likely to cause knee pain if repeated.

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I treat the pistols like regular squats- brace, control and everything except the belt
The heavy sets actually feel surprisingly similar to heavy squats

That’s a good sign actually. Worth progressing. How many can u smash out strict

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3 reps w/the 45
12with the 25- going to try 13 this week

I can’t help but think of this exchange

FWIW, that was one of the greatest things about Fortitude Training IMHO is that exercises were selected to work around equipment availability and nagging injuries.

I know there are readers here with more kinks in their armor than I have in mine whose philosophy has them lifting despite injury.

Honestly, I don’t always heed my own advice as I currently have some tendonitis that should see me lay-off back work and climbing and regrettable as it is the same tendonitis affect my ability to back- and front squat. If only SSB was an option…

But in general I try to think that a better approach might be to not continually perform an irritating exercise as that pattern of behaviour is what has brought on many of the chronic overuse injuries that many of us deal with regularly. Continuing to “solve” this by ignoring the feedback for years can lead to an inability to perform that exercise forever.

Injuries that could resolve in a matter of weeks might be perpetuated and worsened for months by refusing to work around the injury (via exercise selection) or laying off a given muscle group for a while.

And I just wrote all of that for myself and will now mull over it…

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If u got some injury going on something shelve this until ur healthy but pistols sounds good to me.

It’s basic accumulation of volume/hypertrophy block action:

Start conservative volume/intensity wise but within minimum adaptive volume, intensity and reps in reserve range. Work. Reassess and progress or regress volume and/or intensity as appropriate.

Can link u resources if u want more info.

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That guinea pig bloke sounds pretty wise. FWIW depending on the stage of your tendinitis loading/activity may be indicated and straight rest contraindicted aka no-no

No injury- knees just get annoyingly sore sometimes. It’s that way with regular squats too, so I just ignore it

You do you but doesn’t sound optimal to me. In a volume block can limit how much work u can do or worse. If we are after maximally efficient progression maybe sort out the niggles so u can push

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I’m hoping the pistols will help sort out my hip shift so I can squat more

They could… depending on the root of the issue. Wouldn’t be my first port of call though.

I’m guessing weak abductors and strength imbalance. I squatted barefoot and was/am very careful of foot placement
Given I can do ass to grass pistols, I doubt mobility is the issue

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No guess. Assess + screen. Address and reassess.

Should probably do that myself actually. I’ve had some hip shift / rotation issues myself that pop up when I’m fatigued / near max. I suspect it’s uneven glute/hip coordination, activation, force/strength

It’s possible to do things through atrocious compensations elsewhere.

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True, I rarely employ full rest. But, okay so back to my isolated case. My tendonitis would be helped by SSB squats (unload the tissue as it takes too much stress during back/front squats further damaging it) while performing rehab by training the afflicted area primarily through eccentric strengthening. And restoring some mobility.

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Probs I dunno I’m no physical therapist / physiotherapist. Managing volume/intensity/frequency was sufficient for my knee tendinitis. Didn’t need proactive preventative rehab/prehab for myself.

Squat U has got solid info

Pistol squats could either make the pain better or worse, unfortunately that depends on a multitude of factors that make it difficult to decide online.

Did the knee pain begin after or before the use of pistol squats? Did you change your program (particularly increase weekly volume) recently? If so, did you start doing pistol squats before or after that program change? How long have you used pistol squats?

Of course, the simplest (and possibly most important) question is: do pistol squats hurt your knees?

EDIT: Another biggie, is the pain diffuse, all around or behind the kneecap, or is it localised to the patellar tendon (the thick “cable” running from the bottom of your kneecap), or is it best described as something else?

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It’s not really pain, more like an annoying soreness that comes and goes. It’s sore on the lower inside part. It’s been going on for a while, even when I went a while without pistols

No

My tendonitis is in my forearm. Not sure Squat U is down with that