Best workouts for special circumstances...

[Kharth]

Okay, first post in this forum...didn't really know they had one, but I've ordered a few supplements from this site, hi and such. Now, to the real problem, I'll just start out with some background.

I started getting into weight lifting when I was fifteen, I made extremely fast gains, and built up muscle very fast. I would suspect this has to do with genetics, considering my dad used to be into and did bodybuilding all the time when he was younger, and at 46, is still the strongest person I know, and have met. So, tenth grade I kind of flew into out of shape into decent shape, getting decent maxes, all that.

Junior year is when I shined, my bench was skyrocketing, I was working out about three times a day, and it had become a kind of obsession. Around May, I was weighing 180, and had just maxed out on benchpress at 300 lbs. My military press max was 185, My incline benchpress max was 200 lbs, I did dum bell bench press with 100 lbs for my last set, four times. Pretty much bench was what I was about. I did curls, and hammer curls as well. Almost nothing at all for my legs/lower body. Besides sit ups and crunches. I also did tons of push ups.

Now not too long after I hit those maxes, and was feeling pretty good about myself. Me and my friend took a lunch break, and he was driving us back to work, where on the way. He lost control of the car, plowed through a fence, and rolled it. My seatbelt broke off of me, and I was thrown out of the car through the sunroof. I suffered near fatal injuries. My left wrist bone was shattered into pieces, one jagged fragment exited the flesh. My right upper arm bone was also shattered into pieces. My right femur was snapped in half. Along with severe brain damage/injury/concussion, bruised lungs/heart. Etc. Anyways. Lifeflight picked me up. Took me to the Intensive Care Unit. I was put in a coma because I had no memory of being hurt, and so would hurt myself far worse if I was concscious.

Now, I was 5'9 180 at that time. I was in a coma for two weeks being feed through a feeding tube. Suffice it to say two months later I was 5'10.5 (yes, grew an inch, ha) and 145 lbs. All the really bad breaks I mentioned were..."rebuilt" with titanimum. Everything is back to normal now, nearly. My left wrist is still very weak. But it hadn't stopped me, as soon as I could actually grip things after rehab, I got right back into weight lifting...

Here's the thing though. Something to do with the head trauma causes the healing factor in the body to go into overdrive. So, where my wrist bone took so much damage, it was healing at about 300%, or trying to rather. As such, it grew too fast, and too much. There's a small piece of bone, that fused together with the other. As such, it is phsyically impossible for me to turn my left arm over. That means standard curls and anything else involving those moments are out the window.

Beyond that, I still managed to get a lot of my muscle back. I'm 170 now, 12% body fat. And decently strong.

My current workout is:

6 sets of 5 on Military press
3 sets of 10 on hammer curl (only kind of curl I can do)
3 sets of 10 on lat pulls
3 sets of 10 on pec deck
3 sets of 10 lat pulldowns

15 minutes on a punching/kick bag

Run 1/2 a mile on the treadmill

200 push ups
200 sit ups
200 crunches

I'm going to try and throw bench into the mix. Incline, along with standard. I've been afraid to because when I first tried my wrist...it couldn't handle it at all, let's just say almost dropping the bar with weight right on you kind of makes you wary to ever try it again. And let's not forget the pain I got in my wrist from it. Which, I can deal with. I have been for 11 months now.

But, here's what I really need to know. Apparently, and I can see why...that's not a real good workout plan. But. I see my surgeon on Monday. To schedule the last surgery I have from this wreck. Where he cuts apart that fused bone, and after some therapy. I will have full mobility in that arm again.

So, I want to know what the ideal/best work outs would be after that?

Goals are just to gain muscle mass/size, while burning fat. Pretty standard I guess.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I'm eighteen now.

[wannaBmoy]

First hand I know the trauma that car accidents can cause to you and your loved ones, and I'm just glad that you are still able to share your story. Have you consulted your doctors about weight lifting? If not, I would definitely ask their opinions or see a specialist about what you can or cannot do. The last thing that you want to do is cause more injury to your body and set yourself back. I would focus primarily on healing and getting yourself back together. It seems as if you spent alot of time worrying about your upper body but completely neglected your lower body. After your rehab, I would look into a full body program that works both and would help you to progress to your old maxes as fast as possible. You might want to read up on the Starting Strength sticky.

[Kharth]

Thanks, it was a rough time for a good while...

Anyways, yes I know all of that. My orthopedic surgeon encouraged me to get back into weight lifting, gave me the go ahead on all of it. And even said it'd be really good rehab for all of it.

[HYP3R]

Take the advice of the surgeon / orthopedic doctor as to how long you should take off lifting weights first. Then when thats all said in done, start off light with just your typical bench and arm curls. Your wrist will not take long to recover. The best thing for your type of injury is to just not focus on it. Do your normal workouts as you would without speical attention to that area. I have heard that gripping the bars bare handed and such will really build up your grip well. Thats truley the only thing I can see what you really need to work on more than likely is the grip. Once you get that mastered, the wrist and forearm area will come along nicely.

Reps to you for not giving up and becoming fat and lazy. After a severe trauma like that, its very easy to sit around and feel sorry for yourself and I can tell just by your story that its not like you.

Hang tuff!

[Kharth]

Originally Posted by HYP3R

Take the advice of the surgeon / orthopedic doctor as to how long you should take off lifting weights first. Then when thats all said in done, start off light with just your typical bench and arm curls. Your wrist will not take long to recover. The best thing for your type of injury is to just not focus on it. Do your normal workouts as you would without speical attention to that area. I have heard that gripping the bars bare handed and such will really build up your grip well. Thats truley the only thing I can see what you really need to work on more than likely is the grip. Once you get that mastered, the wrist and forearm area will come along nicely.

Reps to you for not giving up and becoming fat and lazy. After a severe trauma like that, its very easy to sit around and feel sorry for yourself and I can tell just by your story that its not like you.

Hang tuff!

Thanks man. Yeah, the way I saw it. It took away all of what I worked so hard to get. Instead of just feeling sorry for myself about it, and whining to anyone and everyone. I made it a goal to become even better, stronger, and in far better shape than I ever was before. And it's working wonderfully. I'm also starting Akido (the martial art) after my sugery. Which I hope will count as my cardio, haha.

[Kharth]

Oh yeah. I guess I should probably tell you that the only supplement I use is NO-XPLODE. If you have any other suggestions for supplements, let me know. But know that I have a food allergy to soy...and for some reason WHEY protein has soy in it. So pretty much all protein is out. I'm also allergic to corn, a lot of the stuff has corn strach, corn syrup, etc.