FT Questions....

[Altamir]

Thanks for the replies

Altamir:

1. I meant loading but yea that is what I thought. With MRs…man there is so much variability! Lol I’m having trouble even coming up with that many exercises I truly feel are worthwhile. If someone is doing Tier 3 then between 3 weeks of loading, pump and MR exercises you’re looking at 16-20+ exercises! I guess I still have the mentality of Dante from DC with just focusing on a few core exercises but I understand that’s what the loading days are for.

No problem!! Yeah it is a lot. The program can certainly one of those things that if you spend to long thinking about you'll never ever get started. If you would like to limit the lifts you are using, but still want to add some variety, try adding iso holds, or negatives. I've just started to doing this for my MR and have been very happy so far. You can also attack the same lift from both ends of the MR scale. Meaning. One week you could do cable rows and try and fail on the 4th cluster (x4/x4/x4/x2/drop weight/x4/x4) and then maybe 2 weeks after, do cable rows and fail on the last cluster (x4/x4/x4/x4/x4/x3) Same lift, different weight, different progression. Possibilities are nearly endless Best part about this program is that is has plenty of structure to keep you guided forward, but endless freedom to make it work for you!

2. Unfortunately since I injured my pec it seems any fly variation done over a significant period or with significant intensity hurts the area (where the right pec inserts into the shoulder area…I think it’s my pec minor). All dumbbell presses seem fine. DB Twist & Press used to cause a little irritation but has seemed fine recently. Flat barbell I do fine with as long as it’s more of a closer grip. Incline barbell I haven’t done in about 2 years as that’s what caused the issue. Incline smith is OK though so my first 3 loading exercises will probably be BB Bench, Incline Smith and Incline DB bench. I’d like to keep those going as long as possible.

I have an long lasting nagging shoulder issue, and it took me a little bit to tune in with FT to find exactly what I could make work and what I could not. Just get into the program, listen to your body, use your head, and work through it. You'll get it

3. OK, I definitely think increasing volume over time is important, though I’d be fine with keeping it the same for a given blast. But I will try to increase it throughout the blast. I was surprised to see that in some of Scott’s examples they back off in volume during the blast. I know Skip used to do generally increasing volume throughout 6 weeks then take off……I was wondering why Scott would decrease volume within a blast when that would take away from the progression. I suppose the reasoning is that you generally want it increasing but if you need to back off due to fatigue then it’s better to do so in order to help get the blast to 6 weeks as opposed to stopping early?

I did this during two blasts. and its basically exactly what you are talking about. Instead of the 6 weeks being one long wave of increasing volume. It sort of turns into two little 3 week mini waves. I did 1/2/2/1/2/3 both times. Basically by week three mentally I felt good, no joint problems, but I was really concerned about how sore I was overall. I think the first time I had chest DOMs almost 24/7 and then second time Back DOMs almost 24/7. Just didn't seem wise to keep pushing forward when I was so sore.

As for the 2nd part, I would expect the extra volume to hurt my subsequent lifts but I guess I just won’t worry about it and push as hard as I can

As Scott said above just get into the program and you'll sort of figure out where you land. You can generally look at the week as a whole and see if you are progressing or not. For example this first week blast for myself. Loading sets for chest I actually dropped a rep. But for upper muscle rounds I crushed the set, and my chest pump sets were EXTREMELY hard and left my chest very very sore (done the day before loading). I'm not going to sweat it. If across the board everything went down. Then I would be worried or know that adjustments needed to be made.

7. Hm, OK if you say so lol. With volume being equated for I would wonder how much of a difference results were but yea something to experiment with. I guess going to turbo would in theory be small jump as opposed to a big jump between tiers. So for example difficulty would increase with basic tier 1 < turbo tier 1 < basic tier 2 < turbo tier 2 < basic tier 3 < turbo tier 3…so if you wanted to increase things a bit without going up a full tier.

That's pretty much how I rank the difficulty personally myself. So you can mix them up as much as you want. The frequency is really really sneaky though. That's all I can say. I went from thinking turbo was the greatest thing ever and I was making the best gains ever, to a few weeks later having shoulder, hip, and forearm problems and my gains grinding to a halt.