Whoâs this stalker? 
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My elbows feel terrible, so Iâm definitely trying this out. Thanks!
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For real! I did lower body today, so it was easier to remember - but on an upper body day, all bets are off!
Yeah, letâs do this. Weâll die together for a month! Itâs perfect. lol
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Itâs surprising how common the elbow pain problem is! Itâs hard to know which solution will work because it all depends on whatâs causing it.
For a while ânerve flossingâ kinda helped mine, but it wasnât a permanent fix⌠even when I did it constantly. Then I used those forearm bands that place pressure on certain muscles to ease the pain. That was super helpful too, but still didnât eliminate it altogether.
The banded straight arm pull downs â and really squeezing that tricep at the bottom â have worked wonders for my elbows, so I hope it helps yours too!
The trainer who taught it to me recommended higher reps for it, like 15-25.
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Sounds like a plan! 
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Leg Day!
This is the first official day of the 100-reps of leg press to start every workout. Weâre going from Jan 20 to Feb 20. Quad Queen is doing this with me, and given her name, I suspect itâs a total breeze for her!
Wanna join us? Whatâs really cool is that you get significantly better each time you do it.
Leg Press
⢠100 controlled reps, no weight
Knees felt incredible! I think pumping a ton of blood into the quads and warming up the joints like this may be what Iâve been needing all along. Last time I had to pause every 25 reps. This time I only paused at 50 reps and 75 reps. My goal is to get through all 100 reps without having to pause for a few seconds at the top.
More Leg Press
⢠4 sets of 6 slow controlled reps, every minute on the 2 minutes (EMO2M)
This ended up giving me well over a minute of rest between sets. I inched the weight up a bit every set for funsies.
First set: 90 pounds
Second set: 100 pounds
Third set: 110 pounds
Fourth set: 120 pounds
Abductor Machine
4 sets of 15-20 reps, drop set and repeat, then partials
This is such an isolated movement that going to failure doesnât seem to negatively affect me. No CNS fatigue, just burning pain and a massive pump in the glutes. I donât care that this isnât a big lift. It feels incredible and makes my butt perky.
Ham Curl on Ball
4 sets: 15 reps, 12 reps, 10 reps, 8 reps
Slow and controlled with a pause at the lengthened position. This doesnât just hit the hams, you also feel it in the glutes and calves.
Treadmill walk. Every muscle group in my lower body was pumped. My workouts are minimal right now, but is there a point in doing more if youâre already getting the results you want?
Random Thought
Loaded carries translate the most to real-life activities that require strength.
Our contractor is in his late 60s, so Iâve insisted on hauling the heavy stuff up to the second floor for him. Iâd feel like an utter slob if I made him go up two flights of stairs holding slabs of sheet rock, bags of cement, floor tiles, etc. This is a real-life situation where strength is required.
Would maxing out for one rep on anything make me more efficient at this task? I have doubts about that since I did it relatively quickly without having worried about 1RMs since about 2019.
Another real-life situation Iâve been in recently? Carrying a dog with a hurt paw. Again, loaded carries are the thing thatâll prepare you best for that. Bicep curls too. Not even joking.
Even a dog as light as 35-pounds will make your biceps BURN if you have to carry her down a mountain or even just a few blocks from your house. Deadlifting translates here too, but youâre kind of only doing it once. And you donât even have to be that strong in the deadlift. If your dog is under 100 pounds, then that shouldnât be too hard⌠aside from the fact that theyâre dog-shaped.
Another recent real-life situation where strength was involved? Moving furniture around the living room. Aside from loaded carries, sled work translates here too. Youâll be able to push an awkwardly shaped, ever-moving swivel chair on carpet fairly easily if youâre decent at moving a heavy prowler.
Question: What exercises would prepare you for the real-life things youâve found yourself doing recently?
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I am definitely guilty of being too judgmental of other lifters, but it would never occur to me to think someone who wasnât very strong shouldnât be wearing knee sleeves. I might have that though about knee wraps, but never about sleeves.
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I appreciate your honesty! Ha! Okay well you guys have me convinced, and now Iâm going to have to grab some knee sleeves. I kind of forgot to order them because my knees are feeling awesome right now, but it may be wise to have them on hand.
Hereâs a question: what would you tell someone who thinks itâs better to fix the underlying issues causing the achy knees instead of using things like sleeves to ameliorate the pain?
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Iâd say absolutely work on the underlying issues, but put the knee sleeves on so that your knees stay warm and happier. For some people, the underlying issues arenât fixable or at least arenât completely fixable and so waiting to use the sleeves until fixing the issue doesnât make a lot of sense to me.
Now if you change knee sleeves to knee wraps and you tell me that the lifter is wrapping his/her knees up so they can keep squatting heavy and they are in pain after every workout, then my answer would be quite a bit different. But the light knee sleeves folks talked about above donât come anywhere near this category.
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Deadlifts and loaded carries (of any kind)
There is no amount of groceries I cannot lift.
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If the underlying issue is years under the bar, this is akin to asking for better parents to improve my draft prospects.
That sounded more black and white than I intended. I do think a lot of times we outsmart ourselves, though. Why not find a way to train? Sometimes it really is just our anthropometry or injury history creating the issue, and not that we are too lazy to stretch or whatever. I donât know a great way to say which is which, other than to know thyself (or post pictures on the site and weâre all too happy to tell you youâre a fat bum that isnât close to maxing your genetic potential, but I digress).
Itâs a super interesting subject, though, because we see both. On the one end, youâve got the folks that never actually make it to the workout because they have to activate and prehab muscle fibers I canât find in a textbook. On the other, weâve got folks that will wrap and strap everything and take 14 minutes between every single rep rather than address why their hips wonât budge. 
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Noted. I can hope!! lol
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Awesome feedback. And yeah the underlying issue for me seems to be completely hormonal, which means that spending a lot of time doing activation drills and mobility work wonât solve the problem⌠but sleeves might do the trick!
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Oh this is awesome. I think we need a video of you carrying your next grocery haul into the house. Or maybe we need grocery-carrying tutorial. 
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TRUE. I got a little irritated recently when a fit pro podcaster said that the only reason people deal with pain in the gym is because theyâre either using bad form, too much weight, or too much intensity.
But my knee and hip pain is dictated largely by my hormones. If I were to stop training legs completely, theyâd still hurt if my hormones are out of whack.
I know this because Iâve tried it. I went a year without any lower body lifting because my hips were aching so badly⌠then realized that theyâd hurt with or without lifting. And now that Iâm on HRT, theyâve nearly stopped.
The luteal phase still makes my knees ache on some mornings though, so Iâm glad youâve encouraged me to get knee sleeves.
Say black and white stuff! Say super nuanced, gray stuff! Your thoughts are always appreciated because you help me get a different perspective that I usually end up agreeing with. Or sometimes we completely agree and I feel validated which is great too. LOL
Totally agree on too much prehab. When I hired a trainer specifically for that purpose, she gave me a lot of valuable activation drills and mobility things, but if I were to run through her whole list of exercises before every session, thereâd be no time to lift. So I just pick and choose one or two things to weave into each workout.
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You know what, I take it back! 
Todayâs 100 reps did NOT feel significantly better. Hopefully they did for you though. 
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Happy I donât have a leg press or I might try thisâŚlol
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Upper Body-ish
Still trying to avoid the pinchy pain in my back. The chiro I worked with most recently believes that my traps and lats are stressed and I need regular massages. I just havenât made time for that. So here I am still skipping back work. If it atrophies a bit, Iâm not worried because my back responds quickly. I can âbuild back betterâ unlike the US government.
⢠100 reps of leg press (took about 4:45)
The instructions say not to rush the reps, so I tried to take my time and keep them controlled. I had to pause for 5 seconds at the 75-rep mark. Seriously, ouch.
⢠Dips: 4x7 smooth reps
⢠Lateral raise machine: 3 sets starting with full ROM reps, then partials, then a drop in weight, then full ROM reps, partials, then another drop in weight, etc. Each set = lot of burning reps and I stop keeping count.
⢠Incline DB bench: 3x10
I had a poppy feeling in my shoulder on the bottom part of the eccentric, which didnât go away with stretching or lifting, so this wasnât a great exercise for me today. I need to call that massage therapist.
⢠Hammer Strength Chest Press: 3x10 with partials at the top
Despite the previous exercise, this one felt fantastic.
⢠Banded straight arm pulldowns: 3x10-20
I ought to have started with these after the leg presses. Luckily my elbows didnât protest too much.
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Air squats might give you a similar effect if youâd like to join us!
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Well played.
Super curious about the massage therapy. I hear good things, and itâs certainly become popular with athletes, but itâs something I also havenât tried.
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