Help Upper lower FT split

[Scott Stevenson]

Interesting topic, as this has been something that has been on my mind as a potential tweak to the program to make it suit my personal needs a little better.

Due to work commitments, the days that I am able to get a training session in can vary hugely.  As a result, workouts can end up having to be bunched up on consecutive days without me being able to plan in advance which days are going to be rest days that week.  I kind of just have to get to the gym when the day ends up allowing it.

Something that never feels quite right to me is having the load/pump days back to back, which got me thinking about moving the upper pump work onto the upper load day and the same with lower. 

In my mind the potential down sides to this are:
1) there is a slightly reduced frequency of hitting each muscle.
2) maybe the pump sets cannot be hit with quite the same intensity due to the muscle already being fatigued from the loading work (although I actually see this as preferable to hitting the pump sets when sore from loading the previous day). 

In my mind the above potential down sides are unlikely to hinder progress and just make the system a bit more suitable to my particular situation.

I would be very interested in your take on the above Scott as I suspect that this was a setup that you may have even considered when designing the program, but ended up ruling it out.

Cheers, Ad.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hey Bud!

Thanks for the post.

There's not optimal frequency combination that will fit everyone: Distributing a given volume of training over fewer or greater days could be better for one person, but not the other.  OTOH, a given frequency might allow more or less training volume from which one could recover for different folks.

So, yes, there are potential advantages and disadvantages in changing frequency.  And "junk volume" is a possibility if one's trying to do to much on a given day (when the muscle is fatigued).  

(Check this podcast for some relevant science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZGxhhVAygI)

What you're feeling just doesn't seem right could be due to several things, but if some part of that is that you sense you could / would be training harder and making better progress in terms of performance (weight and reps) then go with that, I would say, as a first principle.

The configuration that results in the best training progress is likely one that will give you some of the best muscle growth. This is not to say that volume overload (without noticeable performance enhancement) or other approaches that don't readily lend themselves to the log book can't be effective, but generally, for most / the average guy, I suspect most progress in trying to become really large will come from whatever approach results in progress in training loads (even if "progressive overload" is not the focus for that person), the one that makes him (or her) into the biggest bad ass in the gym.     Those are the big stones / meat n' potatoes and the can be served up in various ways.   (With Masterpiece BBQ sauce and fries, or with chips and with a pint of Ale.)

-S