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+--- Thread: Help Fortitude Training Design and Questions? (/thread-1619.html)
Fortitude Training Design and Questions? - coachbabybear - 12-02-2023
Hey everyone,
I've been a huge fan of DC and Fortitude Training, read the book multiple times, and used Fortitude for 8 months from 2021-2022.
To me, the logic behind high frequency and moderate/low volume just makes sense.
For the past year, I've been working with a coach that uses Rennaissance Periodization principles. Quick idea of what that looks like:
PPL, 6x week
5 Week Phases w/ 1 Week Deload
Increase 1 set of each exercise each week (only on exercises that can handle additional work)
Reducing RIR each week until final weeks, everything is 0RIR, 3-4 sets per exercises per session.
I've grown the most using this style of programming, but I loved fortitude when I used it.
So, Scott, I was wondering if you could help me understand, why I saw more growth RP style programming, and how can I take what I learned from this style of programming, and integrate it into fortitude?
Perhaps I misunderstood FT and how to work through the Tiers Effectively?
My last question is;
I wasn't a fan of the supersets on Day 1. Again, maybe I misunderstood the book, but is there a way to break up the workload so I don't have to superset?
Looking forward to your answers!
RE: Fortitude Training Design and Questions? - Scott Stevenson - 12-03-2023
(12-02-2023, 10:45 AM)coachbabybear Wrote: Hey everyone,
I've been a huge fan of DC and Fortitude Training, read the book multiple times, and used Fortitude for 8 months from 2021-2022.
To me, the logic behind high frequency and moderate/low volume just makes sense.
For the past year, I've been working with a coach that uses Rennaissance Periodization principles. Quick idea of what that looks like:
PPL, 6x week
5 Week Phases w/ 1 Week Deload
Increase 1 set of each exercise each week (only on exercises that can handle additional work)
Reducing RIR each week until final weeks, everything is 0RIR, 3-4 sets per exercises per session.
I've grown the most using this style of programming, but I loved fortitude when I used it.
So, Scott, I was wondering if you could help me understand, why I saw more growth RP style programming, and how can I take what I learned from this style of programming, and integrate it into fortitude?
Perhaps I misunderstood FT and how to work through the Tiers Effectively?
My last question is;
I wasn't a fan of the supersets on Day 1. Again, maybe I misunderstood the book, but is there a way to break up the workload so I don't have to superset?
Looking forward to your answers!
Hey Brother!
There could be multiple reasons why one approach was more effective that another for you, but ultimately it comes down to the balance between the stimulus and the extent to which you can recover. Different stimuli will be differentially hypertrophic depending on the person. Here are some possibilities in the context of your experience :
-The return on investment for training to failure isn't as great doing more sets (further from failure): Those closer to failure reps are perhaps more stimulatory, but also call for a greater demand on your recovery resources in a way that your recovery is limiting. This could be because
- The muscle damage is simply to great (this varies a good bit for various reasons).
- Your frequency is not set up to allow enough time to recover.
In the context of FT, you might have been training with too high of a Volume Tier, given the frequency (Version) of training you chose.
-Another way of looking at the above is that your ability to autoregulate (which is vital with FT) wasn't what is could be. The RP style training could have been prescribed better to fit your recovery ability, so it was more productive. (The one study I know of using an RP style approach actually produced no muscle growth on average, but 50% of folks did make gains, so there is some variability there.)
-We have evidence that some folks do better with higher volume and others the other way around (Damas et al) and that higher reps work better for some than others (Carneira et al.). 3-4 sets per exercise in the RP training doesn't tell me much without knowing how many exercises, but it could be you do better with higher volume, accumulating effective reps without the negative impact on recovery that comes with training to failure.
-The RP strategy might have been creating a nice overreaching phenomenon, too: The last weeks of training followed by the 1 week deload could have been the magic there (although I know the idea is that you're more sensitive after a deload and adjust the RIR as sensitivity to training stimulus reduces over the course of a meso cycle.)
-I hear VERY often that folks need to eat more when switching to FT. If you didn't wasn't adjusted properly on FT (vs. when you worked with a coach doing RP), then it doesn't really matter how well the program might be suited for you if the dietary support wasn't in place.
-Last thing on autoregulation is that you might have needed to deload (Intensive Cruise) more often on FT. This can be a very hard things for many folks to do (even though the frequency of the deload doesn't actually reduce the relative blast / cruise ratio over time, if you follow my general suggestions on how to set up the Intensive Cruise duration relative to the previous Progressive Blast.
-------------
There actually aren't any supersets in FT. Supersets are one set followed by another (different exercise) with as little rest as possible.
Check out ~p. 100 in the book for a description on Loading sets and how those are done with the zig-zagging. (There are prescribed rest intervals between the sets / exercises, found in the book and in the Overview sheets, too.)
How to practically manage the "zig-zagging" of the Loading sets has been discussed here on this board numerous times: you should be able to find that easily with a search.
If you don't want to / can't realistically zig-zag your Loading Sets, you can just do straight sets with the compound Loading Set exercises, one after another, and do the same with the isolation exercises, and, if you like, you can also stick with a prescribed rest interval (of your liking) between those sets to minimize the effect of variation in inter-set rest interval (resting longer some days) on your progress during those sets. Doing the isolation exercises first can also create the pre-fatiguing effect sought after with the zig-zagging strategy.
Hope this helps!!!
-Scott
RE: Fortitude Training Design and Questions? - coachbabybear - 12-04-2023
Thank you! I'm already seeing where I messed up my interpretation of FT.
upon reviewing, you mention supersettimg 2 exercises at a time for pump exercises on Day 1. See Page 92
Am I misunderstanding what you mean by superset?
RE: Fortitude Training Design and Questions? - Scott Stevenson - 12-05-2023
(12-04-2023, 08:57 AM)coachbabybear Wrote: Thank you! I'm already seeing where I messed up my interpretation of FT.
upon reviewing, you mention supersettimg 2 exercises at a time for pump exercises on Day 1. See Page 92
Am I misunderstanding what you mean by superset?
Yes, the Pump sets are supersetted, the loading sets are zig-zagged. (I explain what I mean by superset here in this post, above, so if your understanding matches that, then we are on the same page as far as what a superset is.)
You didn't specify whether you were referring to Pump sets or Loading Sets, so it's my fault for presuming you meant Loading sets, as zigzagging has been a repeated topic dozens of times over the years.
This is a new one for me as far as I can recall, as no one has has ever mentioned having an issue about supersetting Pump sets: It's not been asked here, that I can recall.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're inquiring about, as the simplest (dare I say obvious, but again, I might be missing what your'e asking) way to break up the workload of a superset is simply not to superset: Just rest between the sets instead of supersetting them.
-S