FT Questions....

[Scott Stevenson]

I figured I would get a thread rolling for some questions as I am reading through FT and as I begin the program... I hope this thread turns into a great Q and A discussion with Scott and others...

As I read through FT, it appears that the in tiers 2 and 3 of the pump sets, the superset pairings in subsequent sets are different. So rather than doing the same two exercises supersetted back and forth, one would do different pairings for the same muscle groups.

For example:
A1) OH Machine shoulder press
B1) Weighted cable crunches
C1) Db side laterals
D1) Captains Chair leg raises

versus
A1) OH Machine shoulder press
B1) Weighted cable crunches
A2) OH Machine shoulder press
B2) Weighted cable crunches

Is this correct Scott?

You could do it either way, depending on where you need the work, but ESPECIALLY for shoulders, I'd suggest hitting different exercises, as you have in the first example. (The three sets for shoulders in Volume Tier III is set up with the intention that you might to an set each for anterior, middle and posterior delt heads. )

Some of the purpose of the Pump set (as the name implies) is to create a good pump in the muscle, all around, so if for instance, you were to do a particular ab machine / ab exercise and find it's only hitting upper abs, you could switch to another for the next set (e.g., a reverse crunch).

Switching the pump sets on the fly allows you to work around machines that someone else snags and hit the muscle from different angles.

B/c the weight is relatively light, you are basically working with ~ a warm-up weight in terms of the load (ALTHOUGH I WOULD SUGGEST SOME WARM-UP), so after a first set, you can switch to another exercise (that you know) for a given muscle group fairly safely without a bunch of warm-up sets.

If you pick up a weight during a pump set and the load is too light, just increase it as needed, slow the reps down, do 1 and ½ reps or make it a very high rep set.

I've got 15 - 30 reps as a range, but if you hit 35-40 reps, that's OK.

-S