Should I go Straight into an Intensive Cruise or drop down a Tier or two?

[Scott Stevenson]

Thanks for the input guys, appreciate it!

I've had 2 days of good sleep I felt 110% better this morning. I guess I've been under estimating the importance of getting a solid sleep pattern in and relying too much of Thermo pills and Pre-Workout drinks to get me up and going.

I've taken on board your advice and dropped back to Tier 2. Strange as it sounds the Leg Pump S/Sets I've found were also killing me. I guess I haven't auto-regulated them as much as I should have. I've always been starting my 'Leg Pump' supersets with heavy (for me) compound movements ie: Leg Presses - (Both Plate Loaded and Seated Cable Machine type) or Smith Squats or Hack Squats etc. They end up being a heavy balls to the wall 20-30 rep widow-maker sets then I drag myself across to the next two exercises breathing like a freight-train and dropping pools of sweat all over the floor. As my blast progresses I've found my knees and quads have still been sore by the time my 'Lower Loading' Day rolls around. Today I mixed things up a bit more and tried pre-exhausting my legs by doing Leg Extensions 1st in the SS to force me to reduce the total weight I can use on my now latter compound movement. Was still F%$k'n hard work but seemed to work well, + I also tried 5's in the hole on hamstrings which I ended up miscalculating and going too light on but was again a great changeup.

I'm really enjoying the FT program. IMO there not many BB training programs out there that actually explain (in both laymans terms and with references) why the program is structured in a certain way and provide various routine's options depending on experience and recovery ability. In addition FT outlines what signs to look out for when over-reaching and provides various options/guidance as to how to can change up your program to combat this!

Top Class!!

Thanks, man - so glad to read that review.

Sounds like you're really dialing it in as far as how you do things. (I would imagine you're good a pushing past sleep deprivation, which makes it tough to recognize that as something that really shouldn't be normal. I'm that way.)

And yes, there is a huge difference between doing WM style high rep sets and Pump set as I've set them out (with finer gradations depending on the Pump set strategy). Kudos on figuring out what's best for you. (You'd not be the first person to say that the Pump sets can be the hardest part of FT!)

-S