Random Fitness Questions

Full ROM, good tempo and being in being in proximity to failure is more important than a specific number… 12+ sounds fine. Agree quite high reps are better for calves as for some other muscle groups for accessory work for hypertrophy.

With a movement like this you want stability and to be able to just focus on the muscle being worked. Tottering about to any degree, or resisting it, if I’m charitable, might be en vogue for an athlete into functional training, but for someone focused on hypertrophy it’s counter productive. If there is an element of instability or a grip work element going on then yeah, it’s not optimal. Holding on to the bar with your fingers doesn’t sound like that was ideal for the highest quality set you could do for your calves.

I have done barbell calf raises before and I used straps. The balance element I addressed by putting my back to an upright on a rack. For added ROM I used a bumper on the ground.

Personal view, let your warm up and sub 85% deadlifts be minus straps and then after that if you want to do grip work just do grip work, don’t take away from performance of other movements unless you’re really stuck for time.

Regarding the "grinding the tendons" behind your knees... You're going to have to make a call on this yourself. People report pain and discomfort with a variety of movements. Sometime's it due to incorrect execution, sometimes it's just a bad fit for their body type and roster of injuries. With a leg curl most machines are pretty adjustable, it should be possible to properly set it up for you.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with training using isolation movements, and particularly machines like the leg curl, but if you're doing a number of sets to failure then they can be pretty ... Impactful. I don't want to say painful, because people associate pain with injury in the gym, and that's usually correct, but a max effort set on a leg curl or a leg extension probably will feel pretty intense, particularly if you're doing them properly and really extending the negative.... Which is why some bodybuilders will talk about pushing into the pain zone to illicit progress (Dorian Yates has talked a lot about this over the years, particular as he is a high intensity training advocate).

In terms of whether leg curls are a 'good' movement to perform - yes, by any metric, they're a staple of a lot of programs for good reason.

I think the idea of "athletic carry over" is a a bit of questionable idea, as I've seen people performing wacky movements that achieve very little in the name of doing something they think has a more direct carry over to their sport. But for the sake of argument if someone is an athlete or wants to train like that then leg curls still have a place. You can do your compound lower body lifts first, say squat as a main movement and you do RDL for assistance, or whatever it is, and then you can move on to things like leg presses, leg extensions leg curls and to get further volume without beating the **** out of yourself and particularly your back (For example, you mention RDLs - a good assistance movement but can't slot in a high volume of them as an accessory without a price). This is the way all many of my lower body days are. A novice on a linear progression doesn't need to do this, but if someone has been training for a while then it's pretty smart I think.

If you were focused on hypertrophy / physique then isolation movements like machine movements like leg curls would be even more valuable. The fact that it is an isolation movement specifically targeting the hamstrings is precisely why it might be of more value to you, if hamstrings are a focus, than a deadlift variant that involves a variety of others.

Very easily used for particularly protocols like rest/pause, drop sets and so on also, can't do them safely for the lower body with free weights very easily.

Assuming you're washing them at a high enough temperature, and with detergent, and assuming they are not very worn-out t-shirts, then the next thing to try something extra with them before the wash. People use a solution of water and white vinegar but if you take baking soda and use a small amount of water with it to create a kind of paste, and then apply that to areas where you think the sweat is hanging on, and then leave it for a while before doing a wash, you might find that helps.

There are some t-shirts from the likes of Lululemon that have specific anti-odour treatments, but your average cotton t-shirt they're all going to be much the same, it's down to the individual and the washing process.