FT Questions....

[Scott Stevenson]

Hi Scott, there’s a post somewhere amongst the thousands (which stupidly I didn’t make a copy of) where it felt like you were suggesting that the isolation exercises on load days could be (and maybe even that you preferred them to be) the same for each of the three rotations.

With the gyms in the U.K. reopening soon not changing the isolation exercises would work really well for me as I’ve got a few things I can do wherever I am in the gym.

So the question is, should I be aiming for variation with isolation exercises or can I program the same ones and stay within the spirit of the program?

Thanks

Robbie,

I don't recall the post, but there's so much possibility for variation in FT, that I don't see any issue with using the same isolation exercises.

If you're using Tier I, you might consider doing the Isolation exercise after the compound. This will mean that the fatigue state brought on by the compound will affect the isolation exercise differentially, meaning a different activation strategy, which is really what's the "magic" underlying exercise variation (aside from obvious things like angle, e.g. on chest presses or in comparing side laterals vs. BO side laterals).

With the above, then you'll look a progress for the set of the compound for that week combined with the (same) isolation used each week and probably find that some compounds affect reps (and perhaps even weight) for the isolation exercise. (So don't consider the weight and reps for the isolation exercise on a week by week basis, but rather how those are changing (or not) on each of the different days when used in combination with the differing compound exercises. )

-S