FT Questions....

[Scott Stevenson]

Hey Scott and FT vets. I just have a question about neural demand of muscle rounds.

Today I did a smith split squat muscle round for the first time, inspired by the most recent muscle minds podcast lol. Absolutely brutal. Felt like my quads were going to rip of the bone, lungs were screaming. Needless to say I was pretty destroyed after. Went to do my pump set of leg extensions for quads and only mustered 11 reps at a Wright I did last time for 15. Quads just felt dead. This is my first week back after a week off during my cruise and have felt pretty good all week, so this concerned me a bit.

I guess my question is, is it normal too see a big drop in performance on a pump set after a really hard MR like that? Normally I do a leg press variation for my MR and ive never had this happen. I've had issues with CNS recovery in the past so I'm just concerned about the performance drop being due to overtaxing the CNS vs my quads themselves just being killed by the MR and the rest of the training week. Quads have been a bit sore all week since loading day on Tuesday, but felt decent going into the session today.

Thanks for your help!

This sounds pretty normal to me, given how much harder the smith split squat MR was for you.

(This is why the context of the workout matters when it comes to MR's where you can mix them up in terms of order, etc. What would matter if / when you come back and repeat this sequence of exercises that you find that you increase the reps / weight for one or both exercises.

OTOH, you could do a MR for leg press next week and then follow that with knee extensions. In this case, if you're progressing, you'd expect an improvement in one or both of these exercises (when performed in this context).



-S

[B_Forge]

This sounds pretty normal to me, given how much harder the smith split squat MR was for you.

(This is why the context of the workout matters when it comes to MR's where you can mix them up in terms of order, etc. What would matter if / when you come back and repeat this sequence of exercises that you find that you increase the reps / weight for one or both exercises.

OTOH, you could do a MR for leg press next week and then follow that with knee extensions. In this case, if you're progressing, you'd expect an improvement in one or both of these exercises (when performed in this context).



-S

As always, thank you for being the voice of reason Doc, definitely makes sense in that context. Will go back to a leg press movement next week to see what kind of difference that makes.

[Scott Stevenson]

As always, thank you for being the voice of reason Doc, definitely makes sense in that context. Will go back to a leg press movement next week to see what kind of difference that makes.

Right on!

You're welcome!

-Scott

[Altamir]

And as far as programming, have you tried this

Sat: Day 2 (Loading Upper, lower Pump)
Sun: Day 1 (Loading Lower, Upper Pump)

Tues: Day 4 (Upper MR's)

Thurs: Day 3 (lower MR's)

This would address a couple of the issues that may be in play here all at once (Upper MR's being easier than Lower on the CNS, in the context of Loading Set days grouped together on the weekend; legs being especially sedentary d/t working conditions).

I know you really annihilate yourself with the Pump sets, so you might need to adjust strategy there if you adopt the above strategy, or perhaps even <gasp> use a different Tier for Lower Pump Sets since this training would be just 24hr before your Loading Sets for legs.

This is a stretch, but a thought. I think this order of leg training (Pump first, the Loading) might be advantageous b/c, depending upon diet and the extent of muscle damage you're incurring, this would avoid a situation where you're possibly coming up a bit short in terms of recovering glycogen. *IF* you happen to have enough muscle damage to significantly impair glycogen formation and you're really using up a good bit of your stores with SUNDAY Pump Sessions (That you really kick ass on, thus causing a good bit of glycogen loss), then you've got a double whammy preceding your Tuesday workout with your current week's layout.

Flip this around and the glycogen loss form the pump sets in and of itself shouldn't be as much of an issue for the Loading sets b/c the reps are lower (relative contribution from CP vs. glycogen is greater here) and you may even be able to get those loading sets in on Sunday (24hr after the Pump sets) before the DOMS of the pump sets hits you full force (which can be more like ~48hr post workout, but this varies a good bit). And then, of course, after you've survived the weekend, you've got a full 4 days before you hit the Lower MR's.

[And of course you could use a TURBO set up with the above flip flopping of days and then you'd have lesser inroad into your legs on Thurs, which woudl leave you more recovered for the Weekend's trauma compared to putting all of your Lower MR's on that day (just 48hr before your weekend's fun). So, the above Day 2,1,4,3 ordering with a Turbo set up might be your best bet, and you might even have the sense that that is the case already, given how much experience you have with FT. ]

-Scott

Thought I'd bounce back on here and give some feedback for this set up. Let folks know how this is working for me and maybe how others can glean some useful programming information from this.

So overall my verdict is a success. Two weeks in and this is going MUCH better than the previous set up. It's not perfect, and probably requires a little bit more tweaking, but its a good step in the right direction. I'll try and break down some bullet points as to what I've noticed.

- For myself, Day 2 is easier than Day 1. I'm assuming this has a large part to do with my legs being more advanced than my upper body (though we are catching up!!). But also the CNS burden training legs heavy will put on you. Simply switching these days gave me more energy for Day 2, and while I don't quite have the same amount of drive for Day 1 as before doing it first, but I certainty have more in tank for than the reverse.

- Better Energy and training drive on the training day following both Loading Days. This was my biggest concern and what I wanted to solve here. Really had a hard time training Lower MRs following the back to back loading days. Again this has been a bit of a trade. I don't have the same energy I used to have with Upper MRs so far away from the weekend, but I have way more on this particular day than before. Thankfully with Turbo, this dilutes the direct upper/lower focus a bit, basically not all my eggs in one basket. Personally I think I am better off with having more energy over the course of the week, than simply just having more energy on one or two days.

- More advantageous muscle fatigue overlap (for me). What I mean by this is, for example, lets take arms. One of my weaker body parts. With my old set up, I'd hit arms hard with pump sets on Saturday, a little bit of carry over to loading on Sunday. They would be fairly fresh for Tuesday for bicep MRs, and fairly fresh for Thursday for Tricep MRs. Currently, Sunday they get hit a little bit by loading. The following day they are slightly fatigued, and then hit hard with pump sets. By Tuesday for Upper Turbo, they are still slightly fatigued from the pump sets on Sunday, and both get hit directly again. By Thursday for Lower Focused MRs, they are still slightly fatigued. I hit tricep with compound movements and biceps with direct MRs, and the cycle repeats. Despite the increased fatigue overlap, I'm progressing. When I hit certain sets, especially biceps on Tuesday (in which I usually do some sort of hammer curl variation), because of the pump sets from Sunday, I can feel the fatigue, but also the strength underneath it. The power is there, just the muscle is a little tired. Makes for some GREAT sets to power through and really go strong and fight for reps. It's more than just arms, but that was the best example

- Not seeing diminished performance in legs loading (or not enough to concern me). One of my bigger concerns and again this remains to be seen as the blast continues, but so far so good. I need to work very hard on my hips between the pump sets and loading, as just being a little tight has made it difficult to load properly for thighs. Still hanging at tier 1 for lower and I'll push forward a bit into tier 2 and see how that goes. I'm about 50/50 on if it's sustainable or not. Only one way to find out.

Happy to answer any questions or clarify some stuff as this got a bit rambling. And again thanks for the guidance Scott. One of the things I love about this program is the very subtle and small nuances of changing a few things and what the large scale impact they can have. For example, some of my biggest "break throughs" in programming for this was as simply as switching one MR set to a pump set on turbo, and my progress accelerated like never before. Thanks again man!

[732mikee]

Hey Scott, in terms of beating the log book when currently in a fat loss period, should I still try to beat the book until I stall, then just try to maintain?

[Scott Stevenson]

Hey Scott, in terms of beating the log book when currently in a fat loss period, should I still try to beat the book until I stall, then just try to maintain?

Well, for the sake of a bit of a thought experiment and depth of understanding, let me flip that around a bit and ask why would you not try to beat the log book?...

Also, what do you mean by "try to maintain."

(HINT: The nature of how Loading sets exercises are rotated in and out, deepening on progression, will answer a good bit of the above. )

-S

[732mikee]

Well, for the sake of a bit of a thought experiment and depth of understanding, let me flip that around a bit and ask why would you not try to beat the log book?...

Also, what do you mean by "try to maintain."

(HINT: The nature of how Loading sets exercises are rotated in and out, deepening on progression, will answer a good bit of the above. )

-S

Thanks for the reply. I am still trying to beat the book, just asking because I did horrible on incline DB loading sets this week. I went down in weight and reps. Altamir mentioned it sounded like I was carb depleted and went hypo so it could of been a fluke... I will give it a go again, and will rotate out if need be.

For "try to maintain" I just mean try to hit the same weight / reps.

I'm just thinking (or overthinking) that being in a calorie deficit and losing weight / body fat my numbers might suffer as far as weight / reps. Maybe I have the wrong mind set and should not even worry about it.

[Scott Stevenson]

Thanks for the reply. I am still trying to beat the book, just asking because I did horrible on incline DB loading sets this week. I went down in weight and reps. Altamir mentioned it sounded like I was carb depleted and went hypo so it could of been a fluke... I will give it a go again, and will rotate out if need be.

For "try to maintain" I just mean try to hit the same weight / reps.

I'm just thinking (or overthinking) that being in a calorie deficit and losing weight / body fat my numbers might suffer as far as weight / reps. Maybe I have the wrong mind set and should not even worry about it.

Did you feel hypoglycemic?... (Foggy head, dizzy, shaking, sweating perhaps...)

So, but "trying to maintain" you would either be training as hard as you can and (barely) able to maintain performance, or holding back to match reps with a given load.

On the other hand if your performance plateaus when you've got all your ducks lined up for a good performance in the gym (in the context of dieting), then, as you say, rotating out exercises is a great idea...

[Hint: Most folks, even when dieting, can progress on an exercise for a few rotations if adding back an exercise that they've not done for a while... although progress will stall more quickly. So, dieting typically means you rotate exercises out more frequently, but still can progress or *end up* maintaining gym performance on the exercises you use. OTOH, if you're getting whooped on an exercise, this is something to avoid IMO.

In essence you're exchanging he novel stimulus of those sets of a progressively overloaded exercise for the novel stimulus of a newly rotated in exercise. ]

-S

[732mikee]

Did you feel hypoglycemic?... (Foggy head, dizzy, shaking, sweating perhaps...)

So, but "trying to maintain" you would either be training as hard as you can and (barely) able to maintain performance, or holding back to match reps with a given load.

On the other hand if your performance plateaus when you've got all your ducks lined up for a good performance in the gym (in the context of dieting), then, as you say, rotating out exercises is a great idea...

[Hint: Most folks, even when dieting, can progress on an exercise for a few rotations if adding back an exercise that they've not done for a while... although progress will stall more quickly. So, dieting typically means you rotate exercises out more frequently, but still can progress or *end up* maintaining gym performance on the exercises you use. OTOH, if you're getting whooped on an exercise, this is something to avoid IMO.

In essence you're exchanging he novel stimulus of those sets of a progressively overloaded exercise for the novel stimulus of a newly rotated in exercise. ]

-S

Yes, I felt dizzy mid rep and shaky after. Made it through the rest of the workout, just wasn't optimal overall.

This helps a lot Scott, thanks! I will rotate exercises more often to keep the novel stimulus going instead of pushing the stimulus of progressive overload.

I'm still pushing as hard as I can, and progressing on 90% of my lifts.

[Scott Stevenson]

Yes, I felt dizzy mid rep and shaky after. Made it through the rest of the workout, just wasn't optimal overall.

This helps a lot Scott, thanks! I will rotate exercises more often to keep the novel stimulus going instead of pushing the stimulus of progressive overload.

I'm still pushing as hard as I can, and progressing on 90% of my lifts.

You're welcome!

Yes, push as hard as possible but rotate as necessary.

-S