I want mass but I'm not really interested in building non-functional muscle.  If it's not going to make me actually perform better, then I don't want it, my physique is already pretty good for aesthetics right now after only 2ish years of training, most of it not even done in a gym.  Another 3 years and I'll be a beast without trying to pump my muscles full of fluid!

I've tried to improvise leg workouts, I work in a warehouse with a company that stocks some very heavy hoses for oilfield drilling and suction.  I've done hose flipping, grabbing reels of hose and walking, all kinds of stuff.

The problem I'm hving is finding a way to get sufficient weight on my back, that won't crush me (no spotters at work), and that will really push my muscles to grow.  It's a balancing act that I haven't found a solution for and it's not for a lack of trying!

I'll be back in school in August, which has a weight room, so right now I'm pretty okay with just working on perfecting the pistol squats until I can get access to a barbell and a squat rack.

Edit:  Not just pistol squats obviously, I've been trying as hard as possible to work my entire body with compound exercises, like weighted pushups (I throw a 50lb bag of ice melting salt on my back), dips, chin ups and pull ups, and intense sprinting.

My legs were being very neglected though, not anymore!

The most effective exercise I've found for building ripped functional muscles is tree climbing. The act of manipulating your body weight, hanging, and climbing gets you stronger that any other exercise I've tried. Plus, the muscles that tree climbing develops are highly functional.

Granted, it's not great for adding mass, but if you're looking for shredded, fully functional muscles... I advise you try it.

Plus, It's freakin fun to be a monkey 

Cheers,

Logan

What should I focus on to achieve more sarcoplasmic hypertrophy?  Right now I aim for weight that I can just barely handle 7-8 reps max with (hopefully more like 5-6 before failure), should I up the reps to shift more towards sarcoplasmic and less myofibrillar?

What you're doing now will pay off when you get back to school.
You'll get a sort of "novice effect" without being a novice.

It would be awesome to see some "newbie" gains after being able to really hit the heavy weights again.

Awesome, that's exactly the kind of info I need, pretty excited to try this out   I really haven't trained in th3 other two rep ranges at all.

I should still be focusing on pumping out fast, intense sets to recruit as many motor units as possible right?

That was a gruelling workout, chin-ups supersetted with pistol squats (3 sets of 10-12 reps of each) and dips, 3 sets of 10-12.

After the first sets of chin ups and pistol squats I found myself slowing down too much, so I ended up pumping out a good number of very fast negatives which seemed to challenge the muscles nicely, I was DEAD afterwards.