FT Questions....

[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!