Havent squatted heavy since end of march/early april… just a little bit of jump squats here and there. School season finished a couple weeks ago and I still have till 1st week of august before im done for the year. Anyone have any experience with not squatting for a while? (cause i certainly cant reintroduce it back in)
quads definitely are smaller, not sure about hams/glutes…
If you can’t add them back in why are you worrying about them?
I don’t do any sqauts, i do standing bent over rows…
And funny enough, my hamstrings and Quads and Glutes get worked off this…quite a tough exercise.
My legs always feel heavy, when i’m sprinting…when i sqaut.
i had similar results. Right now in fact. I have started to develop a tendonitis type feeling in my rectus femoris tendon… generally due to lack of strength in the RF. I squatted for the first time in months on monday, and I have been unbelieveably sore. So sore that Im not sure if I will even be able to run tomorrow!
RF tendon pain could also be due to inflexibility, so I have been stretching too btw
i would look for knotts in ya thighs! SMFR or massage till they are gone, then stretch.
Imagine trying to un-tie your shoe laces by pulling the loop pieces really tight…
And as for tendonitis type problem…
Start taking a magnesium + calcium supplement. Every health shop in the western world, probably the whole world, will have plenty of “Magnesium + Calcium” tablets.
Quite cheap as well. Some of the tablets are; “Magnesium + calcum + Vitamin D3, + zinc.” Don’t take (magnesium only) tablets. It is much better when taken with calcium, as those two minerals support each other.
Ofcourse, certain foods like brown rice, are stacked with magnesium. 420mg of magnesium a day, is the RDA. But that is for a non-athletic person. Most peeps don’t get that much unless they have a very healthy diet. A medium sized banana has about 30mg of magnesium.
I hesistate to recomend brown rice though, as you don’t want to be eating too many high glyceamic carbohydrates, as you need to stay lean.
You are better off just adding a “Magnesium + calcium” supplement.
The magnesium helps the muscle to relax. This in turn, takes some of the pressure of the tendon. And therefor; the tendon will have less problems.
… And go easy on the stretches, because stretching can cause allmost as much soreness as strength work, if you haven’t stretched fo a while.
Light gentle stretches. Start with light weights for low reps in the quadriceps (way below what you are capable of doing, for the first several sessions. )
Have you tried sit ups with your feet on the wall? Very good for rectus femoris muscle.
Your heel is on floor, with ball of foot on wall. Or if you prefer, your heel is several inches above the floor, touching wall, with rest of foot.
Legs are only slightly bent, when your torso is near ground, and as you curl yourslef up, your legs inevitabley bend a bit more.
“Feet on the wall” sit ups, muscularize the rctus femoris, without you having to do squats.
If it is spacifically the rectus femoris you are concerned with, there are plenty of alternatives to the squat. If however, it is general thigh mass & strength per se’ that you want, then back to a varient of the squat or similar.
thanks for the advise! Its kind of funny, the knee pain is gone when I train and warm up properly, but just kills when I stand for awhile … at anytime of the day.
Im going to try all the stuff you mentioned
Is that such a bad thing.