20240204 Day 665 Part-2 - Lower Body: Split Squats & Calves

20240204 Day 665 Part-2
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Lower Body: Split Squats & Calves
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After the bike and toes to bar I hit the legs real quick with 10 total sets comprised of some rear foot elevated split squats and standing calf raises.
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Rear-Foot Elevated Split Squats are a game changer for both rehab and athletics. You can really punish the glute, quad and hamstring with a VERY robust training effect without a ton of weight and no axial loading.
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The other beauty of this exercise is that it transfers significantly to athletic movement patterns like running, cycling, jumping etc. Depending on foot position, upper body posture and how you position the load, you can also shift the bias to more glute/posterior chain, or quad focus although you’ll get some of both regardless of positioning.
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Why train calves? Isn’t calf size mostly a genetics thing? Well, like I have to explain often on my Tik Tok, not ALL lifting is “Bodybuilding.” There’s other reasons to train a muscle besides aesthetics and/or hypertrophy for its own sake.
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The Gastrocs, the big pork chop calf muscle is responsible for assisting the hamstring in supporting the knee joint from behind. After a decade as an Active Duty Warfighter and not as the youngest man (my entire 30s) much of my training is for sustainability, not for size or strength in terms of maximum force production.
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Most of my worst injuries have come from overuse not overload. The goal with these, doing lighter, higher rep sets of 20+ is to improve tissue durability, to keep my knees healthy into my 50s and beyond. This is an investment in my freedom of action for later, not to have cool looking calves. However much hypertrophy results in the training (a significant amount with this kind of volume) is an added bonus.
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In either case, the method is similar, cultivate a stretch and squeeze at the top with a lot of repetitions for several sets 🤷🏿‍♂️
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And that’s it for Week 95! Despite a lot of traveling, I got in everything, push/pull/lower with a high volume pull day (4x plates/arm on hammer strength rows for 5x10/arm) and 2 iterations of pressing for 45 total sets! My MRV is starting to creep up again. You can only train what you can recover from so this is a good indicator that my fatigue management strategies are on point. Good stuff!
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Stay in the fight 🇺🇸🇰🇪
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