FT Questions....

[Scott Stevenson]

Hey scott,

dont know if youve answered this before (tried searching 4/5 terms) but whats your reasoning of placing Back before chest on Loading and MR days (which is the opposite of the DC training, unless youd found back then chest better over your time coaching it)
Do you not find your wiped if you do a deadlift variant on loading sets for back? Would this mean deadlifts would be the wrong choice for loading or would you revise the order?

Well, with DC training back would be the absolute last thing in the workout, so it's before not just chest, but everything else, as well, that comes before back.

I played around with various ways of ordering things and a DC style of ordering things actually does work, too and I do sometimes put chest before Back personally. (I have no issue with someone changing the order of things, TBH.)

The main reason why I go with a more traditional, larger muscle group first kind of order is that I've set up FT to be easier on the CNS in that you're doing fewer failure points for given muscle group. Comparing, let's say, even Tier III Loading sets for Back vs. DC training for back you'd

FT: 2 failure sets (1 each for width and thickness, although if someone just took that very last set to failure, that would be OK. This is a point of variation / customization)

DC: 3 failure points in the RP set with a long ass one in the static (negative), plus 2 balls out failure points on the back thickness exercise. There may be even be a widow maker in there, too, which is a CNS destroyer.


So, you've got more a lot more in the CNS tank on a given day after training back when doing FT compared to DC workout. This means you ought to be able to train chest etc. as well afterwards.

I suspect that if someone feels so crazy taxed after training back that the rest of the workout is suffering that:

1.) He / she is not keeping a few reps in the tank on Loading sets and/or the MRs are not executed with only 1 true failure set and very controlled form, focusing not he targeted muscle group.

2.) He / she may need to drop down a Volume Tier.

Also with the diet, im going to be trying the approach you recommend in your book after a coming comp im doing: i have a 3-3.5hour window after training before sleeping, how much would you load this window before moving to placing carbs in the night/morning if a person could get down (for theoretical reasons) an unlimited amount of food in this 3 hour window
I suppose this would depend on fat gain possibly so may be an unanswerable question without a few weeks monitoring
cheers

Well if you could get down an unlimited amount of food (just get it in) then probably max out your rate of digestion and still basically be post-prandial (absorbing nutrients) during most of the night, so you could just squeeze all your food in there. The issue there might be gastric regurgitation while sleeping.

I would set up your diet per the intake parameters you want to work with and if you can't fit the amount of post-workout nutrients in the time you have at night, just put them in the meal in the AM.

-S