Intensive Tempo

I know that the Intensive tempo range is not the best to work at. I like to avoid it in my programmes. But I have an injury these days and I guess everyone knows that rehabilitation is so hard and dangerous. I mean you just keep rubbing close to injury again. And if it happens then its worse and worse.

So I’ve been rehabilitating from a knee injury and I’ve just been doing ext. tempo and I want to put some more on my knee. I don’t do any weight training on my lower body at the moment which quite bothers me. But I can do my ext. sessions quite easily now. Can I step up into doing Intensive tempo along with Ext. tempo. I mean I’ll exchange the high CNS stressing days by Tempo and ext. tempo recovery stays the same. And since I can’t run anything at 100% anyway then there is no use for the CNS recovery everyday. So would Int. Tempo fit in there or would it still be usless. I’m sure that the 80 - 95% should be of some use during recovery out of an injury! OR what?

Just what i can say is:
I stoped full squat because this was killing my right knee ( high portion ).
Since that, i fell stronger on the back part of the legs, i don´t know why…

Even though full squats have been causeing me a lot of problems over the years I just can’t stop them. I love full squats. I love them more than the half sqauts. It is just about right. It feels like the right and exact range of motion that should be worked at. I can’t wait to going back to working on them.

Is it a particular reason full squats give your right knee trouble?

I don´t know why, but i remembered when i was a child, i guess 5 or 6 years old, i got up on TV´s Hack and all the things droped over my legs,
the TV was a 26" old model ( wood box with thick glass ) that television probabily weights more than 50 quilos…
But, at that time, doesn´t happened nothing. God gave me very strong legs.
Then, when i was 17, 18 and 19, i was doing regular weight works every day, and i guess 80% for upper body and 20% lower body, then, i stoped the lower totally and just did upper until now ( 26y/o ).
And now, even with low weights ( 160lb ) my right knee doesn´t like Full Squat.
But i love Jump Squats !!!

Very Strange! Jump squat , from my opinion , is much more stressful on the joints than full squat! So how come?

Maybe cos the ROM on a jump sq is partial ?

Still no suggestion on using Intensive tempo in the period of recovery. Putting I.T. in the hard day instead of 100% running since I can’t do 100% yet. So any help there?

I guess that´s exactly the reason,
when i perform Jump Squat i started the moviment about 10º between quadriceps and floor ( over a paralel line ), so, the range of motion is after my “pain”.
And for hips, i do Paralel Squat.
On the other hand, i´m taking anti-inflamatories for the first time in my life,
so, let´s see what will happen.

I still would stay away from intensive tempo. You can better monitor the load on the injured area and maintain proper form- which is critical during the rehab period if you stay with shorter sub max work, combined with extensive tempo. The sub max work might well be at a pace similar to intensive tempo, just with more recovery.

Thank you so much Charlie. I’ll keep away from it and I’ll try the sub max. To say the truth I actually did that yesterday before you tell me, because I wanted to stay away from Int. Tempo until I’m 100% sure that its a wise idea. There is another question, if I may ask. The pain in my knee has shifted from place to place. I mean it was right below the tip end of my inner quad. Then it moved downwards towards the bony bit in the knee inside ( medial ) and then now its the ligmant at the back of the knee. The inside one! Is that a good sgin. Or are things getting worse. I have had loads of injuries over the years and I treat this one with extra exrta care. I know that if it would’ve came like a year before I wouldn’t have dealt with it this way. So I’m not over doing anything. Just a few 50s on a wet grass track, bare foot. I was able to do a few 5.9s. I calculated that and its about 90% of max. So I guess its getting better. But the pain fades and shifts so slow. Why is that?

It’s hard to speculate about the nature of the injury. You need to see a specialist to determine what’s going on, but,I’d suspect that the fact that the pain is shifting around is probably a good sign.

Charlie. I’ve always been improving from year to year. I have been training for about 8 years now and I have NEVER failed to improve from year to year. May be the only time I failed was when I improved from a hand 10.53 to a hand 10.52. But still it was improvment. I mean I can still say that I never missed on improveing. Starting off from 14.2 and now running 10.57 FAT. The problem is that I have NEVER had the chance to train for a full year. I always get injuries. VERY bad ones that leave me training 2-6 months a year depending on the injury. I had hopes of going to Athenes 4 years ago. But I missed out this time. Injuries never go forever. each one lets some traces for a couple of years before fading. Its so annoying. My coach is an overseas one. I never had the chance to train WITH a coach beside me. Which I believe is part of the problem. But then I still never do massage and never do static streatching. Its kinda like rowing against the wind. Its getting too slow and I don’t want to give up. What can I do about this. I mean if I can just have a way to protect my self from all these injuries and train for one good full year. I know its gonna be a whole different story. But how? Whats wrong?

Like Charlie said, you need to see a specialist who can help you on your rehab process and I do assume that you periodize your training?

If u kept a training journal - look back or think back and see if u can suss out when the injuries occurred - any increases in volume/inroduction of componants etc see if anything adds up

Good luck - it’ll be great if u can get a full year in sometime