FT Questions....

[Scott Stevenson]

zigzagging problem

i Scott i have this problem mostly on chest and back

if i hammerpress 1 set
1:30min rest
i go lets say flyes 1 set
and then i go back to hammerpress it is often taken by someone
my zigzag is often taken out

so i get on the incline hammer
and then the bench/ or cablecross I just used is then taken by someone

this is even worse on back i have not gotten the same zigzag yet.
to many people sometimes.

so what to do here? just to straigt sets or should i just do the machine
that is available?

do you really need this zigzagen?

This sounds like a gym etiquette issue, assuming you're not dilly-dallying and are making it know (with gym towel or bag or what have you) that you're using the machines.

I've covered other solutions here on the board before.

Bring DB's the bench you're using for barbell smith pressing and use that bench for both compound and isolation (fly) exercises.

Do rack deads or BO rows in a rack where you also do pull-ups.

Literally, if you've got a bar loaded up fully, your stuff is on it and you can't get across the gym (go at the last minute - end of your rest interval) to do a set of machine flies, and return back to the gym (gone for 2:00 max), that's an issue with gym etiquette, I'd say. (I've run into this and typically folks who do such a thing are clueless in some way.)

But no, you don't HAVe to zig zag of course.

2. i saw jorden peter whtoe this on his board

Upper session today , some stuff was straight sets as just doesn’t lend itself well to muscle rounds. For me , I’m actually done with any pressing muscle round movement , it offers me nothing . Last year I got VERY weak doing some of the moves as muscle rounds ,

just wondering if you have any problems you self.?

thanks
your program makes me wanna lift heavy again and some commonsense behind it, you bring the best info

I've never had this issue, but I did see that Jordan wrote that.

You'd have to ask him.

The way that's phrased, it sounds like either:

1.) He was doing MR's with presses and getting progressively weaker / having poorer gym performance on them and not switching them out. (which I'd not expect).

2.) His straight set (Low rep?) strength on presses tends to go down after a period of doing MR's with those exercises, even if he's progressing upward as far as MR reps a/o weight when doing the MR's.

#2 sounds more plausible and isn't terribly out of the ordinary as it could be explained by specificity of training with respect to rep range (and %1RM). If he's using a 5RM as strength measure, then starts training a given exercise with MR's (more like a 15RM load), he could be losing neurological adaptations that were specific to the ~5RM load.

If someone were to be doing too many MR's (over stressing a muscle), then this could cause a strength loss, too. That's a generic statement, but someone with Jordan's strength level, who has peaked strength on presses and then moves to using MR's for those exercises could very well lose strength relative to his peaked strength.

In the same way that higher reps training isn't specific to or carry over as well to lower Rep max efforts ("Strength" in that it's closer to max muscle force output, typically measured with a 1RM), removing heavier loading (or not balancing that with other forms of loading) and moving to higher reps training for given movement could mean a loss of those rep-maximum (Load) range specific adaptations.

Assuming neurological, strength would come back quickly once restart gin the heavy loading again, but if the training were excessive, not so much.

(Jordan also presses in a very explosive fashion, and this simply isn't possible during the course of a MR as fatigue ensues, so this aspect of the training stimulus would be lost to some degree, in addition to the change of load.)

The true test here would be to see if there is a 2 steps forward / 1 step back scenario at play. Over time, alternating between heavy loading and using MRs, does strength increase even though there is some loss when returning to heavier training after the period of MR's. (And does new found strength carry over to MR's eventually when returning to that style of training.)

So, I'm speculating, but i'd guess that one can't simply boil this down to MR's being strength destroyers, especially if one is progressing on the MR's and gives it enough time after returning to to heavy training to re-establish neurological adaptations to that kind of training.

-S