Good leg workout?

I used to have fairly good size legs, but I broke my left foot and right
ankle and as a result of being in casts my entire legs shrunk up including
my feet!! Everything is healed now, but my ankle is swollen and was told
that it will be for the rest of my life because of the way it healed. I
can move it, but sometimes it hurts and feels like it is locked up.

Anyway, I am back in the gym and noticed that I cannot do squats and other
leg exercises like I used to. Any suggestions on a good leg workout or
alternate forms of the lifts?

Thanks

Dnia 2007-01-21 Brooke napisa³(a):
> I used to have fairly good size legs, but I broke my left foot and right
> ankle and as a result of being in casts my entire legs shrunk up including
> my feet!! Everything is healed now, but my ankle is swollen and was told
> that it will be for the rest of my life because of the way it healed. I
> can move it, but sometimes it hurts and feels like it is locked up.
>
> Anyway, I am back in the gym and noticed that I cannot do squats and other
> leg exercises like I used to. Any suggestions on a good leg workout or
> alternate forms of the lifts?

Try high step-ups with whatever weight and/or hight you are able to
tolerate. Deadlifts are good, machine hack squats should be fine for
you, free weight partial squat (with depth being primary goal and
weight a secondary one), Smith machine squats (strongmen do them, so
please no non-functional bull), free weight hack squats, split squats,
leg presses, leg curls and leg extensions, wall sits. Do whatever you
can do, but remember that with every exercise you are supposed to train
your weakest link. If your ankle happens to be the weakest link in a
move, you must limit the amount of weight you use in accordance of how
much it can take, not how much the rest of your body could take.
Persist with your training (I mean time wise, but do not push too hard)
and you'll see a lot of progress in your ankle. It has a fair chance
of healing. Mine did heal completely.

--
Andrzej Rosa 1127R

Brooke <tbrooked@hotmail.com> wrote:

> I used to have fairly good size legs, but I broke my left foot and right
> ankle and as a result of being in casts my entire legs shrunk up including
> my feet!! Everything is healed now, but my ankle is swollen and was told
> that it will be for the rest of my life because of the way it healed. I
> can move it, but sometimes it hurts and feels like it is locked up.

I was told exactly the same after breaking my wrist and having it heal
up considerably larger than the other one. It took more than ten
years, but it did eventually diminish back to exactly the same size as
the other one. Then I broke the other one. Same increase in size, same
erroneous medical prediction that it would stay bigger for ever. I was
also told in each case that I'd never recover the full range of wrist
movement I used to have. They were wrong about that as well.

I suspect doctors make these predictions on the basis of averages over
large populations, and the weight of couch potatoes in the average
skews the results. I also keep reading about cases where doctors
express great surprise about how rapidly and well an injured sportsman
or woman has recovered from an injury. I am, BTW, very far from any
kind of sportman. I just get more exercise than average, and have a
very determined attitude about recovering from injuries.

--
Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]