05-03-2016, 11:05 PM
(05-03-2016, 10:00 PM)scousedave Wrote: Blast/Cruise: you need the cruise I broke my prep up into 4 blocks; 1 six week blast, 1 two week cruise, 1 six week blast and then 1 week for peaking. First blast, no problems (Tier III turbo). The cruise was harder mentally that physically, I wanted to carry on pushing but know I needed the time to back off slightly. I used the period to target certain weaker areas (legs for me) and took my calories quite low on my non-training days as I didn't have the calorie expenditure from the usual frequency/volume of workouts. With the restricted calories the second blast was hard work especially running at tier III turbo (I was trying to avoid doing any cardio) and I had to accept I wasn't going to be beating any PBs in those last six weeks. It was more a case of maintaining.
I will echo only my own personal experience here. I did not prep, but had a fat loss period that I took very seriously, and I treated like it was a prep. It was very successful, and I stuck to the program 100% and I agree with scousedave, the intensive cruise mentally was extremely difficult. I just wanted to PUSH harder. It felt like I was being counter productive. The week I cruised was one of my slowest weeks as far as fat loss went, I was cursing myself and at the same time holding out faith that if I just stuck to my plan, it would work out. The first week back to full training, not only did I feel 100% better (I described it as if like a haze had been lifted off me.) but it was my most successful week of fat loss the entire period. and pretty much made up for the sub-par previous week.