Really enjoyed reading this thread and find your story very interesting. I love high intensity training but am a low volume guy. Something about pushing that final rep and forcing your body well outside of its comfort zone, fucking love it. How the fuck you do it with volume I'll never know, I sometimes do 4 working sets for legs total and can hardly function next day. Im talking absolute failure every set, but damn the shit you do is impressive. I could not gain for shit training that way but you've made it work.
Do you find the lower foot position on leg press hard on knees? I find higher far more forgiving with the heavy weights
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Appreciate you taking the time brother. In the earlier years it was tough as hell to push myself to train all day. When I was 14 thats what I would do though. Id stay at the gym and just train. I remember feeling weak and like shit, and at that time it was just grueling work to do set after set. There was no satisfaction in that stage. Since I started high volume failure training in the beginning it became a foundation , and something I progressively built on. Eventually it got pretty rediculous with the amount of volume and intensity per session.
At one point I was biking 7 miles each way to get to the gym and clearing out trucks , moving furniture, which I worked for some scumbag and did most of the unloading myself. No ramp on truck, no AC. I would train massive sessions ontop of this. My system is so torn up these days that I would crash if I tried to do that now. My energy levels are shit. I use stimulants just to get ready to take stimulants to get ready to train. ha ha. When I wake up I am exhausted. It seems I get almost no rest from sleep. So if you do this for 20 years expect to fuck up various systems in your body. Maybe my adrenal glands are drained. The fuck I know.
Keep in mind though that my inner demons are what consumes most of my energy. Those are what have exhausted me for years, non stop noise, before I even begin to start my day. I used to want to blow my fucking brains out just to stop the noise. There came a point where I had to embrace the fucking noise and become one with it. That mental noise is why my nerves were so fucked up, stomach torn up and fucked digestion, couldnt sit down to eat, it was always torturous to force feed, etc. This in itself burns massive calories and kept it very difficult to gain any weight, to even keep my weight.
So its a combination of this brutal excessive training and the mental demons that has really drained my body of life. Still its what keeps my blood boiling, that rage, and I force myself into this slavery. Its double edged sword. If I dont do it my mind is fucked, and to do it takes extreme dedication and exhaustion. For me the eating is the hardest part. I hate to eat. So I force feed all day.
In my mind there really isnt a choice. To explain what I mean about noise in my head, its a few things. First there is the extreme way I am wired, which is all or nothing. There is no balance. Ive set things in motion that I couldve easily turned back away from, but I went through anyway. Once I move in a direction its like a machine, very difficult for me to turn that off. I will do very destructive shit once Ive gone in a direction. Thats how I ruptured 4 discs, maybe more in my back. It applies to everything in life though. Not just lifting. Aside from that extreme nature is constant obsessive thoughts that dont stop. Maybe for a normal person its like when a song gets stuck in your head. Except this isnt a fucking song. When I was younger I remember cringing for hours as I envisioned sharp points piercing into my sternum and eyes. I would cringe for hours because the visualization was so intense and strong. I almost lost my eye when I was younger, maybe that made it worse. Its the type of intensity and insanity that can fucking crush you if you let it. Its difficult to explain unless your mind is wired like that.
Since my mind is a warzone at all times, what I do in the gym is the fun part. The easy part. It still consumes all my energy to push myself like this on a regular basis. My mind now is more managable overall but still very bad. I take a few painkillers not for the pain. To take the edge off of my noise and demons. Thats the main reason. It puts me in a better zone for training these days. I dont follow convention and dont believe that using something constitutes addiction. If you cant restrain and abuse anything then you set yourself up for that. Dont fuck with it if you cant handle it, is how I see it. I use them as a tool and so far its worked well. I also smoke 5-10 clove cigarettes a week, usually after training. This is more recent, and comes in phases. Sometimes Ill smoke , sometimes I wont. It doesnt mean I need to smoke 2 packs a day. The things I take seriously are what become more extreme.
Just to give some insight of why I am able to push myself to those limits. The mind and perspective is everything.
Most of my muscle doesnt get too sore anymore. Somewhat tender but nothing that affects me too much. Then again Im accustomed to discomfort. My knees today are very sore. Much more then the muscles in my legs. I find the muscle becomes very stubborn and adaptive with continuous abuse. Part of my perception was that my body was adjusting and I needed to constantly increase my intensity and volume to force that shit to grow. That is part of it as well. Ultimately it comes back to that vent and exorcism though. I dont want that feeling to end, when Im training. It keeps me somewhat removed from certain parts of my mind. I get tunnel vision while training, severely, and I like that. Less noise to deal with. When Im not training is when the nightmare begins.
Yes, higher is much better for my knees. Thats why my feet are up pretty high. I remember at one point having my toes hanging off the top of the foot plate. I dont even know if I can get my feet up that high anymore. My flexibility is shit. There are a few factors restricting my ROM on leg press. One is me trying to listen to my knee pain. The second factor is that my legs actually stop at that point. I let the weight take my legs down after each rep. That is basically where my legs stop. It may be upper thigh mass pushing against my ribs, or it may be extreme lack of flexability. Maybe even the postion of that machine on my structure. I can tell you that on the cybex squat press leg machine, i can get much deeper. Its a leg press as well. They have one at another location of my gym. Next time I hit legs there Ill make a video and the depth should be better.
I try to get the best depth my body will allow on a given day, but regardless after 65 reps with 800 lbs, or whatever the weight may be, the entire leg does get activated. It has no choice. I do remember when I was smaller and legs were smaller I got down deeper with 800 for 50 reps or so. Back then I would dry heave or vomit every leg session. I dreaded traning legs back then but also derived satisfaction from conquering the sessions.
I do not get nauseous anymore from leg training really. It may be because my depth is not what it was. Im very limited to what movements I can do , so have to make the best out of what I can do. Now I gag and dry heave for no apparent reason. Throat tightness and constriction always. Thats another issue.
If low volume works for you then it works. No one can ever tell you how to train or what to do. Anyone who does is full of shit. You know your body best. There are some universal concepts that apply to everyone, but outside of that its really just experimentation. I dont know how long you tried high volume and intensity, but it can be very difficult to do for long periods of time. Many wouldnt see it through, even on a level that would be low volume for me.
Its better to train for results than the way I do shit. You should live longer with more balance . Long life is not my goal.
About to hit back
KILLLLLLLLLLLLLL THAT SHIT !!
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