Originally Posted by sogood
Not to lower your expectation, but I know people who have had major injuries who never get back their pre-injury muscle mass. Despite being still quite athletic, this guys Rt leg is so much thinner than his Lt, all result of fractures and knee surgeries many years ago. So it comes back to the nature of injury you've had in the first place and whether there's sufficient capacity to regenerate amongst all the scar tissues and dead motor nerve endings. If you've had a major injury as what sounded like by your description, your first goal really should be functional recovery rather than for shape.
+1
I suffered a busted knee cap (whacked it on my aero bar clamp sailing over the bars). This was 6 years ago, and my right leg is still significantly thinner than the left. I would bulk it up with weights, but the accident has given me patellar tendonitis, so I can do very few weightlifting exercises on that leg. Luckily, it doesn't seem to be killing my performance -- this has been my fastest year in my 16 years of racing...
I haven't lifted weights in 8 years, and I'm not quite as strong in a sprint as I used to be -- but I'm much much stronger in TTs and climbs due to other changes in my training. I do miss when I could squat 405 ten reps and push 1200 lbs on the leg press. Those were the days
If you have no joint injuries, here are the exercises I used to do to develop my sprint (I'm a sprinter by nature):
Reps:
Start off high rep. Don't do anything you can't do 20 times. Every month through the winter drop to 15 reps, 10 reps, then 5 reps. Up the weight each month so that you're getting just as tough of a workout for the given number of reps. I always stopped lifting in the spring.
All these exercises are 3 sets of 10, increasing weight until the last rep of the last set can barely be done. If you can only do one leg workout, the standing lunges with dumbells can't be beat (they work every leg muscle intensely -- the hamstring soreness really surprised me).
Each leg workout do:
Squats (freeweight): Once you get down to 10 reps, get a spotter. Make sure the rack is adjusted for you. Don't drop below a perpendicular knee angle, but go all the way down to it. Stay back on your heels, possibly with a 3/4" thick board under them. Keep head up and back arched. Wear a belt.
Standing lunges: put your toes on floor seam and remember where they are. Grab some dumbells with wrist straps, step out and bend that knee until it's perpendicular. When your knee is perpendicular, your tibia should be vertical and your femur horizontal (this helps figure out how far out to step). Push yourself back up fast enough to carry your toe back to the floor seam. Alternate legs each rep, and double the reps (20 per leg = 40).
Leg press: don't come back past a perpendicular knee. Every other week, do a burnout set. Get two spotters to help. Throw 5 plates on each side (depending on strength, but I did 45s), do 10 reps and hold the sled up. Spotters each pull one plate from their side, and you do 10 reps. They pull a plate each, 10 reps. Do this until it's just the sled, and work the sled until you can't get it back up again without a spotter (it will probably only take 10 reps anyway).
Leg extensions: Every workout, alternate between one leg at a time and both legs at the same time. Don't come back past perpendicular.
Leg curls: Again, alternate one legged and two legged. Don't pull beyond perpendicular.
Hip flexors: pad on knee with a straight leg, and lift to perpendicular hip.