Today was a day that I won’t forget in a hurry. After doing leg extensions I went onto the leg press. The gaffa came over just before I started and gave me a PT session for the remainder of my quad session.

Julian gave me some great tips with feet position, tension on the muscle and rest pause techniques to make sure I get the best results whilst in the gym.

Whilst on the leg press, I felt like I coped ok during the sets and reps as my quads were quite strong due to it being the second exercise. By the end of leg press though, I had a lot of muscular pain from the lactic acid build up and a lot less strength.

Moving onto hack squats (this is the exercise I feel works great for me, even though I hate the pain it puts me in. I just have to do it down to my discipline and I want to better myself) we did one set which was comfortable with 20kg and then I decided that 10kg extra per side would be adequate as I have tried 40kg per side before and it was way too heavy at the time. Coming up to my last couple of reps I could hear Julian telling me to do more. I did do more, I felt determined and wanted to push myself as hard as I could. I did it to complete failure and it left me feeling sick and my legs were like stone at that point. Heavy and hard to move is another way to say it.

We then did front squats on the machine. Again, Julian was behind me and I felt like I needed to give it my all despite feeling sick and my legs in agony. I did my first set with 120kg and did as many as I could do. After a minute Julian got me back under it and told me to just keep going. I kept the tension on the muscle throughout all the reps apart from the last few where I did rest pause as the lactic acid build up created and excruciating pain and I had no choice but to rest pause. I was in so much pain that I stood up to finish the set. I heard Julian shout one more. Within a split second I found my body going for another rep, I know it was a partial rep if even much of a rep at all, and then he shouted one more again. I went for another and probably got down an inch or two.

I got of the machine and I could hear Julian talking to me. Without sounding like sound ignorant chap that doesn’t love the advice, all I heard was some other language. I just wanted to get as close to the door as fast as I could as I could feel myself about to be sick. The next 10 minutes was spent trying to stand up, going to the toilet trying to be sick and just in excruciating pain in my legs.

Let me try to explain the feeling… Imagine sitting on the bottom step of some stairs. Then imagine getting a long bolt and putting it through your knee, down through your leg, through your foot and into the floor. Now tighten that bolt just enough to make sure it is pressed solid against the floor. Now try moving that leg, you can’t! (This is just an example of how heavy and painful my legs felt)

The question is, will I do that again? The answer is simply yes! I didn’t enjoy a second of the pain, but I know what I am up against now if I want to eventually compete. I won’t try to be brave and will admit that it scares me knowing how difficult it is training at this level. Half hour after finishing legs, I felt fine and all day I have been so happy, proud and more understanding of how to train harder. If every time I went through that pain and then felt better half hour after, full of energy and knowing I did my very best, I would seriously look forward to it and do that in every session. It’s very hard to be prepared for that level of pain though, but I hope that over time I will have a much better idea of what to do when I feel sick and how to deal with the pain.

I know I may come across as a cry baby moaning about the pain etc, but it’s pain I haven’t experienced before. I’m certainly not moaning about it, I’m just documenting it on here to remind myself of what it was like.

Here’s a video I made once I composed myself a bit…

And shortly after that…

I still managed to get my hours walking cardio done just now. I will also update my weight progress tomorrow…

I’m bound to have forgot a few major details, so I will update this tomorrow as I’m just shattered now…