FT Questions....

[bill2]

hello there!
i was wondering guys and maybe dr Scott and Altamir can give their opinion t
also on this subject..
-how can we make sure we gave our "body and soul" on the loading sets -MRs-pump sets ? what sighns we must looking for and be sure we "earned" those sets and accomplished our purpose off stimulating our muscles to grow?
Very often many people in the industry ( dorian nyates ,jordan peters,dr Scott stevenson ) talking about training hard and with a purpose and we should make sure we "milk"every sesion and EVERY set to the max in order to give our body no other way but GROW...( you dr Scott talk about advanced bodybuilders using tier 1 and be able to make tremendous gains and often they are unable to go to tier 2 due to their max effort.... )
I guess im asking how i can make sure im in that zone too?

[Altamir]

hello there!
i was wondering guys and maybe dr Scott and Altamir can give their opinion t
also on this subject..
-how can we make sure we gave our "body and soul" on the loading sets -MRs-pump sets ? what sighns we must looking for and be sure we "earned" those sets and accomplished our purpose off stimulating our muscles to grow?
Very often many people in the industry ( dorian nyates ,jordan peters,dr Scott stevenson ) talking about training hard and with a purpose and we should make sure we "milk"every sesion and EVERY set to the max in order to give our body no other way but GROW...( you dr Scott talk about advanced bodybuilders using tier 1 and be able to make tremendous gains and often they are unable to go to tier 2 due to their max effort.... )
I guess im asking how i can make sure im in that zone too?

This is probably better answered by Scott as he's most likely better able to articulate this. But I'll give a wack at it. My apologies if it's not the best answer.

For reference I don't have any other way to draw experience from that myself, so this may be a bit more personal than you hoped. I'll do my best to try and draw some parallels or lessons learned that maybe might be helpful.

I've always more or less trained in the gym with a "do or die" mentality and I have always pushed myself as hard as I possibly could. For myself it's always been a mental / emotional thing. Very early in my training, I had a HUGE chip on my shoulder. I was skinny and small, I was picked on and bullied through out middle and high school, I had doctors tell me growing muscle and getting big and lean was not in my future. And basically every single training session, set, rep, was a huge fuck you to everyone. I am sure some found it hysterical seeing a guy weighting 145lbs, squatting 135lbs with all the fury of someone squatting 5 plates, but I cared only about my goal. And not one damn thing was going to stop me.

That sort of rage and anger only lasts so long and eventually after hitting some milestones, I began to seek other avenues of motivation, drive, and focus. Which I found it with in myself. That over the years of grinding and trying to give every damn thing I had into my training sessions, I really loved it, purely for what it was. And it became much more internal. And while making improvements on my physique is a very very external thing, I would train exactly the same way if I never made one single physical improvement and I would be (mostly) ok with it. It satisfies something inside me, it's an outlet for a lot of things, but also feeds who I am. It's only my nature but try and push my self, grind every damn rep I can, and push myself into pump sets that I know will be extremely painful and beyond. Basically there is a point where the safety switch gets flipped off. The overarching theme of this is that I was passionate and determined. I wanted to set PRs every damn set, every damn week.

So that was a lot of words. Probably a little superfluous, but hopefully gives you an idea of the point. Which finally is, as far as I know, the only way to give your body and soul to anything, not just lifting, but a hobby, work, life partner, etc, is to GIVE it, truly. If you are being truly honest with yourself, you should know if you are doing this or not. (If you are unsure, then do some deep thinking and soul searching) On pump sets are you stopping because of a burn, or because your legs literally will not move. Do you push for every single rep, every single time, (while being safe), if you think it you can get it or not? Does your thigh loading sets fill you with equal amounts of dread and excitement? If you are great, keep grinding and feeding the passion. If you are not, but you want to. You have to become engaged, fully invested in it.

If you are not, how do you? That's really damn tricky. It's really easy to change outside parts of your personality, but much more difficult to change who you are are your core. (which is why gyms make money off of New Years people) I personally think this is something that has to come from the "core". Something that you personally identify with as "who you are". There are probably a million self help books out there on how to be more engaged / invested in life/work/etc. My best suggestion would be find something personal and internal about what you are passionate about at the gym. Even if it's a small thing, find ways to make it grow, nurture it. Become obsessed with beating your log book, try and eliminate your preconceived limitations, and push yourself beyond what you think is possible, because it is. Celebrate every PR and learn from every failure.

I hope there is something there that answers your question. It's a lot of words, but I think this is a difficult (but good) question to answer. I'm interested to see what Scott chimes in with.

[Scott Stevenson]

Hi again, been a while since i have been on here but thinking of delving into FT again after a while away on a PHUL type routine.

If i am honest, the reason i stopped FT after 4 blasts was just that i missed the regular progression on a particular exercise week in week out and wanted to simplify it a bit.

Of course, you can do this with your exercises for the MRs. Just bang away at the same ones until you plateau.

With hindsight, i believe there are many aspects of FT that suit me but not all and being a customisable style of program (as i understand it!) nothing is set in stone so i wonder if i could do the following with it:

Make loading sets the same exercise per body part each week for the duration of a blast, so say squats, inc bench, rack deads etc every week?

You can do whatever you'd like of course. It doesn't sound like using bands and chains to mix it up (three variations on squats, for instance) would scratch your itch here but you could also simply use different isolation exercises (and a different order - putting before vs. after the compound exercise).

Also, with 3 kids and daddy duties i am limited to training 2on 2 off 2on 1 off, you dont see any issue with this do you assuming nutrition etc is on point?

You can make that work, of course. (Well, it sounds as if you'll have to.) There are lots of ways to set this up based on how you recovery and how Pump sets affect you but aside from the "obvious" set up of having the 2 days off following the two loading set days you could do this:

Upper MR
Lower load / upper pump (autoregulating pump set exercises carefully here)
OFF
OFF
Upper Load / Lower pump
Lower MR
OFF

[masonator]

Upper MR
Lower load / upper pump (autoregulating pump set exercises carefully here)
OFF
OFF
Upper Load / Lower pump
Lower MR
OFF

Thanks for the help ! What do you mean "autoregulating"?

[Scott Stevenson]

hello there!
i was wondering guys and maybe dr Scott and Altamir can give their opinion t
also on this subject..
-how can we make sure we gave our "body and soul" on the loading sets -MRs-pump sets ? what sighns we must looking for and be sure we "earned" those sets and accomplished our purpose off stimulating our muscles to grow?
Very often many people in the industry ( dorian nyates ,jordan peters,dr Scott stevenson ) talking about training hard and with a purpose and we should make sure we "milk"every sesion and EVERY set to the max in order to give our body no other way but GROW...( you dr Scott talk about advanced bodybuilders using tier 1 and be able to make tremendous gains and often they are unable to go to tier 2 due to their max effort.... )
I guess im asking how i can make sure im in that zone too?

I think that some of what you're seeking is something that is, to some degree, inborn and/or brought about via one's experiences.

You question is similar to asking why you haven't become a painter (or perhaps you are), a musician, a race car driver or delved deeply into any particular pursuits that you're not *inclined* to engage in...

Both of my parents, when the do so, exercise pretty hard. My mom has no desire to do so without a trainer there counting reps. My Dad will do it on his own, as he's (by nature and nuture) highly disciplined and knows that exercising is important for his health, and being able to spend time with my Mom doing the things they want to do together.

So, the first question is perhaps how does know that they've left it all in a set or left it all in a gym. The second question might center around how one can develop a desire to do that. In psycho-babble, this is sometimes connected to the concept of "internal motivation:" The drive to do a behavior because it's intrinsically valuable or desirable, in and of itself.

(The below are my personal thoughts and probably not in alignment with how a psychologist might see this...)

Some behavior could be internally motivated because it's rewarding per se, like eating or having sex for instance, or because it satisfies some other desire or drive that one has (and thus releases the tension between one's current state and what one desires to become). You might also do something because you feel it solidifies your sense of self (your ego).

So, someone might dig the anxiolytic, endorphin-filled sense that comes from a ball-busting workout as well as that one knows that those training sessions will bring him / her closer to a desired physique. It could also be that the ego is driving you to re-affirm your sense of not being a quitter, being "hard core" or having whatever other attributes come along with training as hard as humanly possible.

So, the question for you bill2, might come down to why in the world you'd want to train like Dorian, Jordan, me or Altamir?... What's the intrinsic reward in that?.. What's the value in that?... Why in Sam Hell would you want to torture yourself in such a way?... Most people don't exercise for the sake of exercise (health benefits, etc.) and very few want to exercise to the point of maximum self-imposed pain and agony, so why would you do such a thing?...

Another way of looking at it that I use often is differentiating between pain and suffering. Suffering is pain that one would rather not endure, whereas pain is just that, and is not suffering if one chooses it, and perhaps even desires it, because it is a means to a desirable end, be it down the road (physique) or immediate (ego satisfaction, relieving the sense of not having done something exceptional, etc.).

-----------

So, here are some things you can ask yourself...

Did I train such that if someone had a gun to my head and was going to kill me and the people I love, I'd not have been able to get another rep?...

Did I put into my head each and every set the above?

Did I visualize my sets rep by rep and know beforehand that I'd beat the logbook and essentially do so?...

Am I consistently doing the above (esp. with the log book)?...

Am I damn certain Im' training as hard as anyone in the gym and pretty damn certina I'm training harder than anyone there?...

Wlll people look at me when I'm training and think, "My God!" or "How in the Hell?..." or "he's out of his mind?" Or "THAT's how you get shit done" or "I want to train with that sum bitch!" and the like?...

Am I scared shitless sometimes before I go to train?...

Am I doing things int he gym that would be totally socially unacceptable anywhere else in terms of displays of aggression / focus, etc?...

Am I feeling like I might puke, pass out, shit myself, etc. now n' again?...

Am I most definitely in an altered state of consciousness at times, where there's no chance of doing higher order processing or having a conversation of any depth whatsoever?

-------

Hope this helps, Bud.

The short version though, really, is that you likely either have this killer instinct in you and it needs to be brought out (which should be easy) or it's not there such that you simply need to express this because it's part of (as Altamir said) who you are.

-S

[bill2]

I think that some of what you're seeking is something that is, to some degree, inborn and/or brought about via one's experiences.

You question is similar to asking why you haven't become a painter (or perhaps you are), a musician, a race car driver or delved deeply into any particular pursuits that you're not *inclined* to engage in...

Both of my parents, when the do so, exercise pretty hard. My mom has no desire to do so without a trainer there counting reps. My Dad will do it on his own, as he's (by nature and nuture) highly disciplined and knows that exercising is important for his health, and being able to spend time with my Mom doing the things they want to do together.

So, the first question is perhaps how does know that they've left it all in a set or left it all in a gym. The second question might center around how one can develop a desire to do that. In psycho-babble, this is sometimes connected to the concept of "internal motivation:" The drive to do a behavior because it's intrinsically valuable or desirable, in and of itself.

(The below are my personal thoughts and probably not in alignment with how a psychologist might see this...)

Some behavior could be internally motivated because it's rewarding per se, like eating or having sex for instance, or because it satisfies some other desire or drive that one has (and thus releases the tension between one's current state and what one desires to become). You might also do something because you feel it solidifies your sense of self (your ego).

So, someone might dig the anxiolytic, endorphin-filled sense that comes from a ball-busting workout as well as that one knows that those training sessions will bring him / her closer to a desired physique. It could also be that the ego is driving you to re-affirm your sense of not being a quitter, being "hard core" or having whatever other attributes come along with training as hard as humanly possible.

So, the question for you bill2, might come down to why in the world you'd want to train like Dorian, Jordan, me or Altamir?... What's the intrinsic reward in that?.. What's the value in that?... Why in Sam Hell would you want to torture yourself in such a way?... Most people don't exercise for the sake of exercise (health benefits, etc.) and very few want to exercise to the point of maximum self-imposed pain and agony, so why would you do such a thing?...

Another way of looking at it that I use often is differentiating between pain and suffering. Suffering is pain that one would rather not endure, whereas pain is just that, and is not suffering if one chooses it, and perhaps even desires it, because it is a means to a desirable end, be it down the road (physique) or immediate (ego satisfaction, relieving the sense of not having done something exceptional, etc.).

-----------

So, here are some things you can ask yourself...

Did I train such that if someone had a gun to my head and was going to kill me and the people I love, I'd not have been able to get another rep?...

Did I put into my head each and every set the above?

Did I visualize my sets rep by rep and know beforehand that I'd beat the logbook and essentially do so?...

Am I consistently doing the above (esp. with the log book)?...

Am I damn certain Im' training as hard as anyone in the gym and pretty damn certina I'm training harder than anyone there?...

Wlll people look at me when I'm training and think, "My God!" or "How in the Hell?..." or "he's out of his mind?" Or "THAT's how you get shit done" or "I want to train with that sum bitch!" and the like?...

Am I scared shitless sometimes before I go to train?...

Am I doing things int he gym that would be totally socially unacceptable anywhere else in terms of displays of aggression / focus, etc?...

Am I feeling like I might puke, pass out, shit myself, etc. now n' again?...

Am I most definitely in an altered state of consciousness at times, where there's no chance of doing higher order processing or having a conversation of any depth whatsoever?

-------

Hope this helps, Bud.

The short version though, really, is that you likely either have this killer instinct in you and it needs to be brought out (which should be easy) or it's not there such that you simply need to express this because it's part of (as Altamir said) who you are.

-S

Good points guys..thanks!
well i started bodybuilding at 18 trying to gain some mass and get in love with my body cause until that time i was a fatty kid..i grew up at 90s era and Dorian was mr olympia and as expected he and his training philosophies and attitude affected me greatly until today..hiit ,progresive overload,hard balls to the wall training is my style..
i just trying to be better and better in that game until nowadays...for this reason i asked my guestion to you guys..to listen your experiences and your state of mind and how you approach bodybuilding differently then me and maybe use your points...

how i possibly be even better? how i can dig deeper into the mind -muscle connection and drive mass gains even more..?
the points you gave mr Scott helped a lot...

[Scott Stevenson]

Good points guys..thanks!
well i started bodybuilding at 18 trying to gain some mass and get in love with my body cause until that time i was a fatty kid..i grew up at 90s era and Dorian was mr olympia and as expected he and his training philosophies and attitude affected me greatly until today..hiit ,progresive overload,hard balls to the wall training is my style..
i just trying to be better and better in that game until nowadays...for this reason i asked my guestion to you guys..to listen your experiences and your state of mind and how you approach bodybuilding differently then me and maybe use your points...

how i possibly be even better? how i can dig deeper into the mind -muscle connection and drive mass gains even more..?
the points you gave mr Scott helped a lot...

Glad it helped!

I'd find a training partner who is trains, is stronger and/or has a better physique. Preferably all three.

-S

[bill2]

Glad it helped!

I'd find a training partner who is trains, is stronger and/or has a better physique. Preferably all three.

-S

hhmm that could be a gift for me..!
i always have in my mind ( and want to reach..) the words from dorian when everybody was asking him how the hell he used only one set per exercise and he gained so much muscle...his "secret" was his ability to generate so much focus and intensity into that and ONLY set that he didnt needed any other set ...
in fact he said he feels all his injuries occured due to that mentality and extracuricular focus that his muscles didnt stand the stress his mind was able to give into that ONE set

[Kleen]

Good points guys..thanks!
well i started bodybuilding at 18 trying to gain some mass and get in love with my body cause until that time i was a fatty kid..i grew up at 90s era and Dorian was mr olympia and as expected he and his training philosophies and attitude affected me greatly until today..hiit ,progresive overload,hard balls to the wall training is my style..
i just trying to be better and better in that game until nowadays...for this reason i asked my guestion to you guys..to listen your experiences and your state of mind and how you approach bodybuilding differently then me and maybe use your points...

how i possibly be even better? how i can dig deeper into the mind -muscle connection and drive mass gains even more..?
the points you gave mr Scott helped a lot...

Wow Scott's explanation was pretty good.

It's funny I often question my intensity, and I feel that is part of why I have such high intensity.

When I fail, I have to ask myself did I really fail or did I wuss out... Could I have done more? Well if to failure that is just never really a question because i do failure until I can't perform a rep in proper form on load work, and take pump sets down into micro - partials or pulses before calling it failure.

I do find it funny that sometimes while questioning my own intensity or if I am pushing hard enough others have actually come up to me and said things like "Man I would die on the spot if I tried to train like you!" or Watching you is making me exhausted, and my 2 favorite ones. "Man I was watching you and you are so intense. YOu look like a lion pacing back and forth inbetween sets." This one is the best for last and it was just very simple. I was just getting ready to get under the squat bar, and was in the zone and finish the set when this guy says "OMG Dude, you actually just growled at the weightsl?"

He was right. I mentioned it to my wife and she said, Oh Honey I thought you knew you did that sometimes before a big set. I had never noticed because my music was so loud.

I think the reality is that if you are giving one hell of an effort and are still asking if you are intense enough then you probably are. If you feel you can never get intense enough, but you are giving it all kinds of hell trying to achieve intense enough. You are surely going to be intense enough.

Glad it helped!

I'd find a training partner who is trains, is stronger and/or has a better physique. Preferably all three.

-S

Yeah, I have a buddy who was a pro ball player is 6'2 and 340lbs with 25 inch arms... I love to workout with him. His 2nd and 3rd warm up set inspire me to push just so I am not lifting his warm up weights for working sets!!!! I love it!

[thethinker48]

You ever experiment with higher rep MRs Scott?

I've been taking my 6th set of MR for close stance leg press into the 6-10 rep range instead of 4 and then upping the weight; legs have been responding better but man is it a form of medieval torture.

I wonder if you've ever done (and knowing your masochistic mind, I'm betting you have) done MRs with 5 or 6 reps each per set for legs?

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