Doms Recovery and Restart

Q

quadancer

New Member
I had stopped workouts two mondays ago, went in for a heart procedure on wed., then did a cardio experiment (successfully) on Sat. - Then I resumed my workouts (in the tens) on Sunday, continuing up to yesterday in the following week, which was Sunday again. I had not done any squats due to the incision points in my groin, until yesterday.
I had stopped at 470, and stupidly restarted at that weight, which slightly pulled a hamstring, and now I have major DOMS in the upper quads and hams.
I figure I can either take two days off from workouts, or
just skip squats and continue with leg extensions to keep my strength up, until I'm not sore, or grin and bear it with the same weight until my legs are ready to advance.
Any thoughts or advice on restart weights?
 
Keep squatting, if the doctor says it is okay for your muscle tissue, stitches, whatever. But you should definitely cut the weight back a little and work yourself slowly back to your previous load.
 
It might be helpful to back off the weight a little and do squats for another 2-3 days in a row.  This might not do much for hypertrophy, but I've found it the quickest way to make DOMS go away.  I don't see it discussed much, but Casey Viator trained for 3 consecutive days at the start of the Colorado Experiment so that DOMS didn't prevent him from training hard.  Good luck!
 
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(quadancer @ Aug. 07 2006,20:51)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I had stopped workouts two mondays ago, went in for a heart procedure on wed., then did a cardio experiment (successfully) on Sat. - Then I resumed my workouts (in the tens) on Sunday, continuing up to yesterday in the following week, which was Sunday again. I had not done any squats due to the incision points in my groin, until yesterday.
   I had stopped at 470, and stupidly restarted at that weight, which slightly pulled a hamstring, and now I have major DOMS in the upper quads and hams.
I figure I can either take two days off from workouts, or
just skip squats and continue with leg extensions to keep my strength up, until I'm not sore, or grin and bear it with the same weight until my legs are ready to advance.
   Any thoughts or advice on restart weights?</div>
Are these real squats or squats on that machine you have ?  If they are real squats, then I would take a week off from squatting and just do leg presses.  If those hurt, then leg extensions.  After a week, I'd start machine squatting, see how it goes.  

If this happened doing machine squats, then your hams are obviously pretty sensitive right now, and I'd stop doing any kind of squatting for 2 weeks and just work on leg extensions or light dumbbell lunges.
 
Quad

I think you could ease back a little on the weights, if it has caused more DOMS than normal, it means you need to back off a little...be cautious.

Taking some time off helps the healing process for sure, you can always keep doing the lunges or extensions so long.
 
I wish I had a leg press here to replace it, but these are squats done in my lever machine...you're standing, but just like barbell squats, you &quot;sit down&quot; in the movement. It's like having a smith machine with the pads from a hack squat machine. No difference to the legs. It sounds to me like the D/B lunges would be most beneficial, to incorporate all your responses in one.
Interestingly enough, I had been on schedule with leg extensions, and as soon as I squatted (stupidly heavy, but still 20 lbs. under schedule) BANG! There went my hams, quads and now glutes. This is avid proof to me that leg extensions are NOTHING like squats in any way. Which also tells me that we should ALSO do them, if we want development just over the knees.
That idea with Casey Viator scares me though. That was an experiment, and I'm feeling that it might just be too much on these old bones!
 
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(quadancer @ Aug. 08 2006,05:00)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I wish I had a leg press here to replace it, but these are squats done in my lever machine...you're standing, but just like barbell squats, you &quot;sit down&quot; in the movement. It's like having a smith machine with the pads from a hack squat machine. No difference to the legs. It sounds to me like the D/B lunges would be most beneficial, to incorporate all your responses in one.
    Interestingly enough, I had been on schedule with leg extensions, and as soon as I squatted (stupidly heavy, but still 20 lbs. under schedule) BANG! There went my hams, quads and now glutes. This is avid proof to me that leg extensions are NOTHING like squats in any way. Which also tells me that we should ALSO do them, if we want development just over the knees.
    That idea with Casey Viator scares me though. That was an experiment, and I'm feeling that it might just be too much on these old bones!</div>
I still believe that squats are far superior in every way to leg extensions, although I am biased because leg extensions hurt my knees. When you talk about development over the knee, you are referring to the teardrop.

You might not get the same results on a machine as you will with a free bb, but keeping your feet angled at 65 degrees and slightly greater than shoulder width will work on teardrops. A closer parallel stance with feet pointed straight will work on your sweep (outer part of quads).
 
Yeah, you got me doing the parallel stance 6 months or so ago and I'm still doing them. Didn't notice any growth until the bulk, but my legs just get strong, not big anyway.
The only thing missing from this type of machine compared to BB squats is balancing, which is why I say it's like a smythe machine: you ARE pushing whatever you have on the bar and the posture is the same as BB.

Believe me, my legs are tellin' me ALL ABOUT IT!
wow.gif
 
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(quadancer @ Aug. 08 2006,17:27)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Yeah, you got me doing the parallel stance 6 months or so ago and I'm still doing them. Didn't notice any growth until the bulk, but my legs just get strong, not big anyway.
The only thing missing from this type of machine compared to BB squats is balancing, which is why I say it's like a smythe machine: you ARE pushing whatever you have on the bar and the posture is the same as BB.

Believe me, my legs are tellin' me ALL ABOUT IT!  
wow.gif
</div>
I've done those machine squats on a powertec leverage machine.  Sure, you're pushing the weight up, but it's not even close to being the same as a real squat, it's far easier.  Therefore, I don't think you get the same kind of stimulation.  This is why I think your legs might not be responding as well as they would by doing regular squats.  It's why my thighs are 31.5&quot; and quads just above the knee are 22.5&quot; though.  I understand you are injured, so real squats are out of the question.  I guess that maybe leg extensions can build alot of quad mass, I wouldn't know.  I've only experimented with them for small periods of time.  

So, you don't belong to a gym anymore, right ?  Man, with all those great gyms over there in Atlanta, I'd just sell my equipment and get into one of those good gyms where you have access to a leg press and so many other things, like awesome dumbbells.  I workout in a home gym too, but I live in bumfu(k egypt where there are no good gyms.
 
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