Why Squats Rule, and a New Workout

It's been four months since my last blog on this site. The amount of time is excessive mainly because I stopped working out in February and for most of March. I got my chest up to 48 inches before I stopped working out, then went on an extended rest period. I lost 40kg off of most of my lifts during the break and my waist got up to 43 inches (from 40.5 in November).

We ended our gym contract and hd trouble finding something good enough for home use, but we eventually got it.



We bought 140kg of weights and mats for the floor. We were ready to go. The problem was time. We just didn't seem to have more than 45 minutes to work out. That's not much of a seesion, so we had to make them counts. Here's our new plan:

A 6-day rotating schedule over a 7-day week. There are no schedules days off. We can take one or two a week if we think we are over-training. The nature of the rotation helps ensure that we don't lose the same workout every week.

Day 1
Morning: 30 minute core workout with planks, supermans, and other core exercises.
Evening: 40-minute chest workout featuring the straight and inclined chest press.

Day 2
Morning: 30-minute kickboxing workout
Evening: 40-minute back workout with BB rows, deadlift/shrugs, and pull-ups

Day 3
Morning: 30-minute callisthenic workout with push-ups, scissor kicks, squat jumps, and the like.
Evening: 40-minute shoulder workout with seated BBpresses and Arnold DB presses.

Day 4
Morning: 30-minute jiujitsu workout on a mat.
Evening: 40-minute chest workout with DB straight and inclined presses

Day 5
Morning: 30-minute endurance stairs workout carrying weights up and down my front stairs in pyramids
Evening: 40-minute back workout with DB rows, deadlift/shrugs, and pull-ups

Day 6
Morning: 30-minute kickboxing workout
Evening: 40-minute leg workout with squats, cleans, and the like.

Other daily activities:
Workday: Two 15-minute biking sessions going and coming to work.
Saturday: Some extra jiujitsu
Sunday: A forced march with weight.

Needless to say, we're exhausted. Sometimes we don't have time for the full workouts, but we try. For example, we only had about 15 minutes for lifting yesterday, so I just did squats. I figure if you're going to only do one leg exercise, that would be it.

I did five sets of 6-8 reps, with my ass just about hitting the floor. My thighs hit my claves, anyway. The weights were:
40kg
70kg
90kg
110kg
125kg

The funny thing is ... I don't have any knee pain now. Before I started lifting, my knees were shit. I couldn't walk around without problems. If I made a hard right turn, my knee would collapse and I'd go down on the floor like a sack of potatoes. When I started doing squats, I died. I did them the recommended way, stopping at 90 degrees (sometimes not even to there), but mt knees screamed every day.

Now that I drop to the bottom, I don't have knee pain. I only wore braces for that last, heaviest set. Isn't that odd?

Anyway, that one exercise ruined my legs for today. Real muscle soreness. Squats are great that way!