Thanks for the replies, for some reason it's not letting me quote, I am glad that you clarified Freakshow, I was going to ask what you were doing as far as reps and weight...
Al Fresco, you made some great points, the first part was exactly right... I did have good quad size when I was younger, but not nearly as much definition as I did the last time I competed, I think I'd be happy with the size I had before in my 20's;, maybe a little more, but the definition I had the last show I did...
I am not an idiot, I had a couple of quad tears that occurred from very little weight when I first started back after a 7 year lay off, the weight felt light, I jumped to about 255 on my very first workout, felt something minor, the next day when I went to the toilet, I saw black and blue marks on the inside of my thighs, in fact it was the day after my son was born right in the hospital toilet that I noticed that...
I agree that it can be overtraining, but I am going to progress very slowly, keeping the reps at 20, going rock bottom with a close stance, if I miss the 20 reps, I will stay at that weight until I reach those goals, that way I can stay away from the heavy weights that cause a danger... Obviously since I am doing 20 reps, it's a weight I am comfortable with... The rest of my workout is pretty short, direct and heavy...
Chest is dumbbell flyes, dumbbell presses, decline bench presses and dips weighted dips... 4 sets of each...
back is the same day, I do weighted pullups, first one warmup set with no weight, then I add 45, 45 and 45, the final set is a drop 135, 90, 45... then reverse grip barbell rows, warm-up, three work sets... I do traps maybe once every two weeks... that's it...
delts arms, side laterals, same scheme, dumbbell presses and rear flyes on the cable machine...
tri, tricep pushdowns, overhead dumbbell tricep presses and sometimes close grip dumbbell presses palms facing each other, or rope overhead extensions...
biceps, barbell curls, dumbbell curls, that's it...
So the workouts are pretty short, what I do need to do is get more sleep, it's very tough for me... I am very cautious though, that's for sure, I've had my share of injuries, so I'm not as reckless as I was in my teens and early 20's...
So my workouts aren't brutal, they are intense, I keep the rest short, but their not Branch Warren nor Ronnie Coleman by any means...
However, I am definitely not lazy, I was a boxer... My daily routine was this, wake up at 5am run 8 miles, that's 8 figure 8's around my park... Go to school, run more during gym class... Go to boxing practice, that's 3 rounds of shadow boxing, 3 rounds of focus gloves, then sparring, I'd spar up to 3 different guys, 3 rounds each... Then I'd hit the double end bag, speed bag and heavy bag... The running was every day, even weekends and the boxing was Monday, Weds and Friday... That was definitely harder than anything I've ever done in the gym... The sparring sessions were brutal, especially when we'd go to rival parks or gyms and spar new guys...
Getting punched in the nose and ribs over and over is no fun, especially on the South Side of Chicago, those parks like Bessemer and Trumbull are a far cry from Disneyland...