Location: Belgium
native language: Dutch
Age: 23
Length: 1.82m
Weight: 66kg
Injury: avascular necrosis of the left femur head. Permanent, painfull and problems with all exercises that involve standing on my legs and/or using my hip.
Bench press max: 76kg
Training since about 3,5 years.
The avasculair necrosis was formed due to a hipfracture, a gift from some guy in a minivan. Basically, it means my femur head doesn’t receive enough blood, so the cartilage slowly dies. I don’t have to tell you cartilage chipping off slowly hurts like hell.
This means I can’t really train any exercises that involve standing with a heavy load: squats, deadlifts, bent over rows, cleans, standing press,… you know, all the good stuff.
The goal I have in mind is getting as strong as my situation allows. At this moment, I want to achieve a 100kg bench press before anything else.
After that…more bench probably, not that many choices.
One might wonder how it is possible that I still weigh 66kg and bench only 76kg, after 3,5 years of training. The following summary of those 3,5 years might shine some light on the situation:
* training like an idiot and not eating
* stopped training
* training like an idiot and not eating
* stopped training
* ...
* getting a clue of what strength training actually is, not eating
* lower back injury, no training
* doing Rippetoe's Starting Strength routine, drinking milk and gaining 10kg
* hip hurts, docter says its permanent => no more squatting, deads... no rippetoe => stopped training
* There should be a thoracic diaphragm injury somewhere in this list
* a couple of months I can't remember (possibly drugs)
* training and eating, gotta bench more!
* elbow bursitis, stopped training for many months
* eating food, drinking milk, gotta bench more!
* elbow bursitis turns out to be chronic. Sometimes it gets infected en swells up, but most of the time it feels fine. The doctor suggests removing the bursa with surgery.
*Today: training when my elbow feels fine; drinking lots of milk; getting that elbow surgery somewhere in the near future.
My current workout schedule is based on Starr’s H/L/M system:
Monday: Heavy day
bench 5x5 ramped to friday’s triple
Chins, lots
upperback/rear delts
Wednesday: Light
Seated press 1x5
Rows, some sets
core & hamstrings
Friday: medium
bench 4x5, 1x3, 1x8-12
chins, work up to a top set
curls & dips
I’m not planning any leg work because it still requires some experimentation. But to be honest, I also lack the motivation. Squatting and pulling is fun, trying to find out what doesn’t hurt is not.
This is the material I have available:
-rack
-bench
-“olympic” bar that actually weighs less than 20kg, so I rounded off to 15kg
-lat pulley
-jumpstretch bands
-some chains
-dipping belt
-1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6-board
-gravity boots
-short DB bars
-dip station
