Nothing we can do will help you. Best words said ever.

I did the "Manly" thing this week and went to the first physical therapy appointment as prescribed by my Orthopedic doctor last month. I'm not sure if I posted on this but I have had some reoccurring leg issues in my right leg (quad to ankle) which have manifested more frequently with my piss poor squatting. So, the general premise here was to identify what is making my knee hurt while also causing my leg to make the most god awful noises ever. We did an X-ray on the first visit and the good and bad news is that there was not a sign of anything peculiar, nor was there any evidence of arthritis. Leaving me with a choice for the follow up steps, which were basically A. to do an MRI and determine if it was a torn meniscus which would result in surgery, or B. Go get some PT and see if some age-old injuries had just caused my leg to go full retard. Being that I'm like many others and loathes the idea of surgery, I elected to start with a PT regimen before MRI's. In an effort to not sound like a pussy, I justified this decision by claiming that the expense was going to be generally lower. I'm a cheap bastard.

So I enter into the world of Physical Therapy. I'd never been prior to this...

God bless Google for showing this shit.

My "Therapist" (I think that is officially what they are called) directed me to one of those sturdy tables covered in red vinyl for the initial part of the assessment. So, some small talk and a history lesson later, I'm getting felt up. (Not in the bad touch, I need an adult kind of way.) She was looking at muscle tone (my T-Rex quads, paid off here and I was complemented. Ego trip activate!) flexibility, and strength of the joints, etc...Then we got into some of the push here, pull here stuff, all of which came up completely "normal". Apparently normal is apparently a relative term in these places, because I was informed that passing a test, didn't actually mean you passed anything. That seemed a little confusing, but hey, I was there for answers, regardless if they made sense or not. Next up was the circuit of weight machines.

Informing the PT that I had done a full blown squat workout about 4 hours earlier, she was hesitant to have me perform any of the movements. It was week one of the cycle, so it was like a 75% workout at a top work set of 260 for 8. She immediately became concerned of "HOW MUCH" weight this was, while I was crying inside at how bullshit my number is. Regardless, I shrugged it off as no big deal, and let her know that I would be happy to run through the exercises with her. I started out with a leg extension, which immediately reflected the quad dominance I have been seeing in my poorly executed squats. Double leg for most of the rack, and on to single legs for sets of 10 with 100 pounds, she shut me down pretty quick on that apparatus.

How a PT want you to squat. Notice how much weight is on this kid's back.

Next up, my old friend the seated leg curl. BTW, I have never mentioned this, but I apparently have the ham's of a 10 year old paraplegic girl. The double legs I was doing were fine, but when I isolated, HOLY SHIT! I couldn't do 30 pounds without a huge swing down. I reinforced something I had already suspected after watching this video series from EliteFTS, I need more assistance work and this is more than likely my biggest weak spot for squatting. I started adding in reverse hypers a few weeks back as a matter of fact. I guess I should really consider the glute-ham raises too. I am devising a whole plan for extra assistance work, but I'll save that for another post.

Finally I did their stupid leg press machine for the rack and we decided to call it quits. That's when she complemented me in a way by telling me that there wasn't anything that she could do for me that I wasn't trying already with higher volume and intensity then they could offer. I guess the next step is going to have to be a strict MTFU mindset, or an MRI.

A whole bunch of downtime and not a word to say.

I was effectively "Out of Commission" due the the injury reported in the previous post which re-aggravated soon after that writing. Rather than whining about it, I laid low, flew out to California for work, drank a bunch of beers, and saw how the other half lived. The other half, meaning those of us who aren't fortunate enough to work in a "hardcore" setting. (God, I fucking hate using that word as a descriptive term) The hotel I was in was pretty swanky digs, and it came all inclusive with a resort type spa and gym. I however will use the word gym very loosely. They had a few rows of Matrix machines, treadmills, elliptical, and a few other cardio things I have never seen. They also had some dumbbells which went to 75's and the typical triceps press down/lat pull machine. Not wanting to lumber around for 10 full days, I got some light assistance work in which at least kept me in hock with the calorie police that live in my head. It's increasingly difficult to justify 3500+ calories sitting on my ass.

This is the enemy of strength

None the less, I came to a few conclusions on my time away from the rack.

First of all...That treadmill and band pulley weight machine shit sucks. I mean fucking terrible. I have never felt so close to injury while attempting any group of exercises in my life. This includes the notorious SMITH MACHINE SQUAT. Much like that mess, the physics of these contraptions are all wrong, and the weight which you can "say" you are using is a farce.

Secondly. I'm not doing enough. I'm "trying" hard, and I'm gaining and I'm injuring myself pretty regularly and fighting through it,but I can do more. As dumb as it sounds, the injuries are actually bringing me to this conclusion.  So I went back to my 5/3/1 where I left off and I have had some "Week 3" pretty heavy, and overall successful sessions since I landed back at home on Saturday including another Squat PR for reps. My bench fell off a bit, but I have added some accessories which I think will elevate that within the next 6 or so. Here's the "I'm not doing enough" part. More squats!

MORE SQUATS! and squat accessories.

This technically is a squat accessory

I have to add a high volume light weight day, or box jumps, or good mornings or fuck, maybe even some pause work into the lower end of my movement. I don't know, maybe all of it! My squat is terrible still. 280's for 5-6 isn't fucking good enough. And I noticed the other day, I am slow out of the hole. Not just at heavier weights either, I mean at 135, I'm slow some days. Other days, I could probably do jumps with that. I'll figure that training day out and report on it's physical effectiveness at a later date...

I know what you're thinking Blah, Blah, Blah, get to the fucking point of this. I have one. It's corny and kinda lame but I got really excited by this earlier. It has nothing to do with the new Thursday morning session I'm adding, but it ticks off the "More" from the list. It has everything to do with three things below..

This is actually learning. This is actually wanting to try harder.  This is actually growing.

All of that to me is being better, and what this has become all about.