[quote]Quiet Warrior wrote:
[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
Did your therapist clear you 100% for unrestricted exercise and relatively-heavy lifting?[/quote]
[b]no he did not completely.[/b] The last time we were talking he told me that single limb exercises would be a good idea if I wanted to work back to the actual big 3 because of the decreased poundage. That was about 2 weeks ago and I’m propably going to be clear with heavy ass lifting in 15 to 20 weeks. It really depends on how my rehab is going. [/quote]
Okay then. I wanted to highlight that part, because that’s going to color every bit of advice you get on this forum. Until your therapist, who knows your case and is seeing you in person, says “QW, you’re good as new, buddy. Get back into the gym and go balls out”, you’ve got to take online advice with a grain of salt, and consider running your plans by them first.
If The Mighty Stu, an experienced professional bodybuilder, can spend a few months post-injury being patient and just doing what his therapist says, so can you.
http://tnation.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/sports_body_training_performance_bodybuilding/mighty_stu_yellin_wnbf_pro_updates_n_qa?pageNo=1
[quote]That’s a good point but I hardly believe that my case requires any machine training so far.
…
Of course I practice different kinds of rehab exercises given by my therapist to help me get back to torque movements, none of them are machine exercises.[/quote]
Fair enough about your current rehab exercises, though depending on the injury a lot of rehab work is machine based. And the point remains, machines can be an invaluable tool for building muscle. Saying something like “I won’t ‘resort’ to machine training” is not only cutting you off from several effective exercises, but it’s a general mindset that could slow down progress overall. I’ll make the general sweeping statement that routines involving free weights and machines have built bigger and better bodies than routines involving free weights and excluding machines.
Add in the fact that we’re trying not to directly load the spine, and you need all the tools available.
Being too weak to start training for hypertrophy is like being too hungry to fall asleep. They’re not exactly connected, but taking care of one will take care of the other good enough for now. If everybody avoided training for size until they reached a 1,000 pound total in the powerlifts, Powerlifting USA and MILO magazine would be on newsstands and Flex and Muscle and Fitness would be hard to find.
I would be definitely VERY glad about some advice on this topic :)[/quote]
We all generally understand that the big, basic compound movements are some of the biggest players when training for size or strength. They let us hit the most muscle and generally move the biggest weights to efficiently train those bodyparts. But even while the “big basics” are cornerstones, there are other exercises that are still along those same lines (arguably comparable) and let us hit a bunch of muscles and move a good amount of weight. Leg press, trap bar squat, front squat, dumbbell squat, etc. Not to mention single-leg compound exercises (split squat, lunge, and step-up variations) which will also train the entire leg musculature, and add in the large number of single-joint isolation exercises that will also allow progression.
If the goal is to get bigger, and for whatever reason we can’t do back squats or deadlifts, there are still plenty of legitimate and effective exercises available to work with. The hyper-macho attitude of “if you don’t squat, you’re shit” might sound hardcore, but when we look at the reality of it, not everyone is able to do every exercise for whatever reason (physical restriction, equipment issue, etc.). If someone is physically able to squat in a decent gym and chooses not to… that’s when they’ve got some explaining to do.
If we can’t rely on an increased load, we can either rely on increased volume/low-to-moderate load:
Or increased intensity/moderate load:
Either of those methods will let you train primarily for hypertrophy without needing to go relatively-heavy. By using a higher volume and shorter rest periods or using intensity-boosting techniques like rest-pause or negatives, you can make the most out of a lighter weight and get a great muscle-building stimulus.