1/ I joined a gym >3 months ago and started up with my old routine of 1 day on/1 day off, upper/lower split, doing slower reps at lighter weights to failure, like I learnt from @mangan150 a few years ago. I was hospitalized with pneumonia 2 years ago, which set me back a lot.

2/ I used to also do HIIT, getting my pulse up to 160/94% of theoretical max. After the pneumonia, I'd struggled to get it >145. A cardiologist recommended I resume regular HIIT over a year ago to aid recovery. I failed to do so.

I also switched focus to
strength/hypertrophy
3/ as I'd lost some muscle. That led me to cut HIIT entirely, on the advice of gym staff and Twitter folk.

My lifting regimen has been 1 warmup & 2-4 work sets. I feel I've been progressing and have been adding weight over time. My squats feel limited by my CV system though.
4/ So I decided to add HIIT back to leg days to train my CV system. I did 7 sets of v-squats yesterday, ramping up to 360 (very heavy for me) and back down to 2 "burn out" sets at 180. This video's of the previous leg day's 360 set, to give an idea of my approach.
5/ The last 2 sets at 180 were like this video, also from the previous session. I found my pulse to be 152-156 after the last 2 sets, which was very gratifying. That showed my CV was improving, and my squats were really intense, as I'd hoped they'd be. I did hip ad- & abduct,
6/ as well as calves, and then finished up with 4 intervals on the elliptical machine, going all-out for 45 or 30 seconds. I was delighted to find my pulse nearly up to 160, which is great for me now. Today, my glutes are lightly and uniformly sore, as well as my inner quads.
7/7 This all tells me that higher volume (7 sets!) ramping up to "heavy" (6 reps @ 360) and back down, going slow-ish to failure is a good leg day routine for me now, and I'm going to keep with HIIT and not worry about possible deleterious effects on hypertrophy...for now.
Oh...anyone who doesn't agree can come kick my ass and show me a better approach. Or just train with me; I could REALLY use a partner.

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I'll begin with the ancient history ... and it goes way back. Because modern humans - and before that, the ancestors of humans - almost certainly originated in Ethiopia. 🇪🇹 (sub-thread):


The first likely historical reference to Ethiopia is ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to the "Land of Punt" in search of gold, ebony, ivory, incense, and wild animals, starting in c 2500 BC 🇪🇹


Ethiopians themselves believe that the Queen of Sheba, who visited Israel's King Solomon in the Bible (c 950 BC), came from Ethiopia (not Yemen, as others believe). Here she is meeting Solomon in a stain-glassed window in Addis Ababa's Holy Trinity Church. 🇪🇹


References to the Queen of Sheba are everywhere in Ethiopia. The national airline's frequent flier miles are even called "ShebaMiles". 🇪🇹