Loading sets help

[Scott Stevenson]

Hey Scott thanks for fixing my account so I can get on.

So I've done about four blasts and am currently on a cruise and reopened the book last night to reread on a question that I had to myself on cruise times. Ended up reading all of chapter 3 and started questioning the way I have been doing my previous blasts.
For instance I was reading on zigzagging and how you would zigzag a compound chest movement with like a fly movement on loading days.
For example this is how I've been doing my loading days just looking at tier 2 for example. So I would do back two sets of back thickness and one set of back width. So say I was doing T bar rows for thickness I'd warm up and then do my two working sets gor t bars, then move to say lat pulldowns for a few warm ups then one working set. Back now done..
Then on to chest. Say I was doing incline presses I do a few warm ups and then my two working sets of incline presses then on to delts. And same thing few warm ups and then my two working sets for my given exercise for delts. Then on to pump sets.
So am i doing this correctly on loading days or am i messing something up here and regarding zigzagging I guess I don't exactly understand when and how you use i. I thought loading days were just strictly your compound movements and things like flies were left for pumpset days.

I hope this makes sense.
Thanks!

Hey Bud!

You're welcome!

You've not been zig-zagging, actually.

ON Back, you'd alternate between the Thickness and Width exercises, e.g., Row, Pulldown, Row. (If you lack more width then thickness, you'd do pulldown, row, pulldown. You could also vary this on your different loading set exercise groupings.)

On Chest and Delts, the Zig-zag would be between a compound and an isolation exercises, e.g, Incline press and decline fly; or OH press and DB side lateral.

ALL the loading sets are done in succession, as well, with the rest intervals as noted on the Overview Sheets. For back, you'd warm-up on your thickness and width exercises and then do them with a 1:30 rest interval (see p. 87 for Loading set description)

So for a T-bar row and Lat pulldown, it might look like:

T-bar Row WU sets
Pulldown WU sets
Last T-Bar Ro WU

Loading SETS:

T-Bar Row x 10 (non-failure)
(1:30 rest)
Pulldown x 8 (failure)
(1:30 rest)
T-Bar Row x 7 (failure at 8)

If you can't secure two machines, then simply do what is available for the isolation exercise (or whichever you feel is less important), which might mean just a couple warm-up reps upon arrival at the new machine. Simply start the REST interval when you're actually AT the machine, resting and ready. I've done Loading sets a dozens of gyms and this rarely is an issue b/c if someone is at your machine when you get over to it, you can ask to work in and you've still got your rest interval for them to do a set (or wait for them if they are already doing one). Simply explain that you're working on a rest interval and just have a couple sets to do.

You can also be smart about exercise selection, e.g.:
• Pull-ups or rack chins on the rack you used for BO rows or rack pulls
• DB's used at the same bench you do presses on (or use a neighboring bench.)



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You can add variety, change the activation patterns for a given exercise and thus continue blasting with the same exercises after you stall by switching the order of zig-zagging, e.g., do the isolation exercise first, followed by the compound.

Check page 89 for the examples here.

-S