Woohoo!!! Squatted 200-lbs yesterday!!!

[gnatz]

Never got seriously into squats or doing leg work in the past, so this is somewhat new to me (especially Squatting. Incorporated squats into my leg routine in May).

Anyhoo, I've managed to work and progress to a personal best for squats for me yesterday...200-lbs; 3 sets; 8-reps. I could have pushed 200-lbs for 10-reps, or maybe 12, but I'm taking it slow since, again, squats are fairly new to me. Also, I have a reconstructed right knee (thanks to a softball injury), and want to be cautious in not re-injuring it again (I keep having to mentally block out everytime I step under the bar envisioning the knee blowing out as I squat with the weight). Since I was able to get 8-reps out of 200-lbs, I think that I'm going to try 210-lbs for 6, if not 8-reps, next week. Woohoo...I'm stoked!!!

BTW, I'm doing this at 135-lbs. I don't know if that is good or bad, but I feel good in my accomplishment.

[Nino]

Congrats Gnatz!

A little tip to help safeguard your knees is to sit back into your squats so your knees do not stick out past your toes. The more upright your shins stay, the safer your knees seem to stay.

Keep up the good work. Squats rule!

[Gator]

Congrats !!

Gator

[Bob45]

Great job!

[giantfan43]

Way to go Gnatz!

[Dutchman]

Ausgezeichnet Gnatz! I would say you are really closing in on one of the true measures of strength. The old "squat double your body weight" measure that is. I always consider someone, (I'm not there yet myself) an exceptional workout warrior if they can do the double. With 8 to 10 reps at 200 lbs while weighing only 135 you are probably able, already, to do about 250 for a single rep. Boost that another 20 lbs and you are real competitive. What's your age category, may I ask?

[A-rod]

There you go , 300 lbs is next !

[phikappa]

Originally posted by Nino
Congrats Gnatz!

A little tip to help safeguard your knees is to sit back into your squats so your knees do not stick out past your toes. The more upright your shins stay, the safer your knees seem to stay.

Keep up the good work. Squats rule!

Good tip.


Great job, Gnatz! Keep it up and take care of that knee.

[Gollan]

BTW, I'm doing this at 135-lbs. I don't know if that is good or bad, but I feel good in my accomplishment

As another "135lber" I can say that is an impressive accomplishment and it is very motivating for me. A 200lb squat is a milestone goal for me on the way to my big goal of a 2x body weight squat. Do you also deadlift? You are wise to progress on these lifts very carefully. I lost a lot of ground to a back injury early this year caused by a training error.

[gnatz]

Thank you all for the kind words, tips and inspiration. You guys have me really excited about next week's leg workout. As you all may have guessed, my legs and glutes are sore...mind you, not a bad kind of sore, but more like a "I busted my a$$ working my legs kind of sore".

Funny thing about yesterday was that a friend called me last-minute and asked me to attend the Redskins/Jets football game. We had to trek about 1-1.25 miles to the stadium from where we had to park our vehicle. That had to have been one of the toughest "walks" that I had to do. My legs felt like rubberbands. Walking up and down the concourse ramps was ahem...interesting.

Dutchman, I am at the ripe young age of 38.

[sequitur]

I read your post and thought "that's a nice start" and then read your weight and put it in perspective. That's awesome. I have been working legs on and off for years and think it's a shame when people ignore legs. You have to go heavy. I weigh 215 and I remember my first try at 455 when I went down and didn't start going up until the second effort. I shook but I forced out 6 reps while young people watched waiting for me to crater on the safety bars. Some leg days are hell. ;-)

I don''t have the injury you did, but my knees used to pop out the day after training legs 15 years ago when I squatted near 400. Now I use GH releasers, a good belt and knee wraps. Paranoia is healthy squatting heavy.

Here's this week's progress pic showing off some 46 year old landing gear.

[Overload]

Way to go G! Love to see fellow lightweights do the heavy stuff. We need to stick together. lol

The tip about sitting back and not letting your knees go past your toes is so key in keeping the knees pain free and being able to lift more IMO. Someone also mentioned once to stick your gut out or push out with your gut when you're ready to rise and this will help with balance and/or make you feel stronger. Works for me.

I haven't squatted in years until this past summer when I got serious about training. I knew if I was to get any bigger I needed to squat. So I worked on my form because I have bad knees as it is. Needless to say, the squat is an unbelievable exercise. I went from being able to squat only my bodyweight (155lbs) to hitting my goal of 300 by the end of the summer. Plus my thighs grew 2". Kind of like newbie gains since I never squatted since my early 20's.

Stick with it and you'll being breaking 300 in no time. Just think, the stronger your thighs get, the bigger they're getting

Good luck.

[gnatz]

Overload...Sequitur...thanks for the props. I'm up to 210#/8-reps/3-sets. Still taking it slow. No need to incur major injury. While painful, I'm really liking my leg workouts. Thanks for the tips. Here's my current leg routine:

Squats;
Hack Squat;
Stiff Leg Deadlifts;
Leg Extensions;
Leg Curls;
Standing Calf Raise

By the time I finish the leg curls, my legs feel like rubberbands. Makes the walk back upstairs from my basement that much more interesting.

[Overload]

Just a suggestion. You may want to get rid of leg extensions. They put a lot of strain on the knees. Really don't need them if you're squatting.

Also, if you're doing SLDL you can probably get away with not doing leg curls as well. Although I do like leg curls myself. But this may save you some time and you can focus more on squats.

Just my 2 cents.

[sequitur]

Hi gnatz. It sounds like you're on your way to some great legs. I've been told squats will help you get stronger at everything else and it seems to be true. It's good that you are including hack squats too. I used to not do them until I wondered why my outer quad sweep was all I had going on there. I do them deep and toes in for the inner head over the knee.

You should remember there are nutritional factors that can reduce the risk to your knees like glucosamine and MSM. Also even extra glutamine helps GH which will strengthen ligiments and cartiledge. I'm going for over 500 lbs for the first time this week and 400 used to mess up my knees.

BTW probably my most insane leg workout was when I did Cybergenics in the 1980s. They had you go to negative failure with a partner. You would warm up and then do your max 10 rep set, strip 50% off the bar and immediately do another set, strip 50% again for your last squat followed immediately by plyometric jumps until you couldn't stand up. They had you do 4 giant sets of that. I don't recommend it, but I remember having trouble walking on flat and level after that.

Keep at it. You'll be amazed how fast gradual gains add up.