Another pump set thread

[Delt123]

Hi everyone, I'm glad this board exists!


I stopped training for 6 weeks due to having examns, but the end is nearing and looking forward to training again. I'm doubting between the two way DC or fortitude tier 1. I have done both (on seperate occasions) for a relative short time (give or take 6 weeks) and liked both. I also listen to Scott' podcasts whenever I find the time. I remember him saying (or the interviewer) that fortitude was to improve after DC or the DC training on it's own. I think he was mainly pointing at the 'cruise' time where DC almost stops training and fortitude keeps doing some work (2-3 workouts, MR of pumpsets only).

My main question is the next: DC is mainly (allmost only) heavy slag iron whereas fortiude includes pumpsets and autoregulating/ picking exercises on the fly which is blasphemy in DC terms. I remember JP being guided by Scott, but I haven't seen him advocating nor doing pumpsets after his guidance. How come? Am I looking at this too rigidly for a HIT viewpoint?

The pumpsets were murdering me tho, and i didn't even do techniques. But I programmed them weekly I.E.: trying to overload them week by week but that seems to be a 'wrong' approach in fortitude or did I read the book not good enough?


Thanks in advance!

[Scott Stevenson]

Hi everyone, I'm glad this board exists!


I stopped training for 6 weeks due to having examns, but the end is nearing and looking forward to training again. I'm doubting between the two way DC or fortitude tier 1. I have done both (on seperate occasions) for a relative short time (give or take 6 weeks) and liked both. I also listen to Scott' podcasts whenever I find the time. I remember him saying (or the interviewer) that fortitude was to improve after DC or the DC training on it's own. I think he was mainly pointing at the 'cruise' time where DC almost stops training and fortitude keeps doing some work (2-3 workouts, MR of pumpsets only).

My main question is the next: DC is mainly (allmost only) heavy slag iron whereas fortiude includes pumpsets and autoregulating/ picking exercises on the fly which is blasphemy in DC terms. I remember JP being guided by Scott, but I haven't seen him advocating nor doing pumpsets after his guidance. How come? Am I looking at this too rigidly for a HIT viewpoint?

The pumpsets were murdering me tho, and i didn't even do techniques. But I programmed them weekly I.E.: trying to overload them week by week but that seems to be a 'wrong' approach in fortitude or did I read the book not good enough?


Thanks in advance!

Yes, some, but certainly not all folks doing DC would run into that issue with backsliding during the intensive cruise (and many were getting really beat up and spending too much of the cruise NOT training...)

Jordan was doing the Pump sets just as straight sets in the 15-20 rep range, and his sense was that staying with higher tension and pushing the loads were the way to go for him.

I can't recall all the details, but at one point, too, he was also taking all of the loading sets to failure (rather than leaving 1-2 reps in the tank) and when he started doing that, he started progressing more rapidly....

Really, though, I can't speak for Jordan, but I'd not read too much into that. I know Jordan really likes DC training, but I also don't have the sense that he advocated widow makers a great deal. My guess is context / volume / stimulus of the other aspects of his programming are such that doing WM's wouldn't make sense, but again - only Jordan can say...

-S

[Delt123]

Yes, some, but certainly not all folks doing DC would run into that issue with backsliding during the intensive cruise (and many were getting really beat up and spending too much of the cruise NOT training...)

Jordan was doing the Pump sets just as straight sets in the 15-20 rep range, and his sense was that staying with higher tension and pushing the loads were the way to go for him.

I can't recall all the details, but at one point, too, he was also taking all of the loading sets to failure (rather than leaving 1-2 reps in the tank) and when he started doing that, he started progressing more rapidly....

Really, though, I can't speak for Jordan, but I'd not read too much into that. I know Jordan really likes DC training, but I also don't have the sense that he advocated widow makers a great deal. My guess is context / volume / stimulus of the other aspects of his programming are such that doing WM's wouldn't make sense, but again - only Jordan can say...

-S

Thank you for your quick reply Scott! basically, he developped his own style.

As for the pumpsets: Should we really do it on the fly and as we feel that day? I can imagine it is harder to track progress that way? Or should we rotate through exercises? And by rotate I mean some kind of system in them?

Thanks in advance man!

[Scott Stevenson]

Thank you for your quick reply Scott! basically, he developped his own style.

As for the pumpsets: Should we really do it on the fly and as we feel that day? I can imagine it is harder to track progress that way? Or should we rotate through exercises? And by rotate I mean some kind of system in them?

Thanks in advance man!

Actually, as far as Jordan and pump sets, he was doing just what I set out - auto regulate them as you see fit and ONE option is to just do a straight set. That's what he preferred.

You *can* do whatever you want with the Pump sets, but your might want you take another gander at the FT e-book - Pump sets are in particular, very specifically and intentionally included as an autoregulatory part of the program that you are very much supposed to perform (within the rough rep range I've set out) as you feel fits your state of local muscular and general / systemic recovery.

If you read in the book - you don't ave to log those at all, but you can just to note what you did for your own edification (i.e., so you can look back on your records and get clues as to what is working, not working, creating a lot of soreness, etc.)

If part of how your personality manifests auto regulation is in a desire / need to have some kind of system / order to how you do the Pump sets then so be it. That's not really how I intended them to be applied, but if you simply have to do so, then that's how it is.

The point here is to use Pump sets (like the stretches) to fine tune the magnitude and location (via exercise selection) of the stress that you impose given your state of recovery. If you feel you just have to do 5's into the hole for every single Pump set because "more is always better" then that probably won't be the best choice on a day when can sense deep and even sharp muscle soreness just in doing a light warm-up stretch of the muscle.

To some degree this is just common sense - if the muscle isn't recovered and / or you are feeling that recovery is not optimal, then it doesn't make sense to dig that hole even deeper, given that there more more workouts for every muscle group coming up soon. Options here are to change volume Tier or move to an Intensive Cruise, of course, but if you're making progress and can just sense that on a given day, after pounding the living shit out of a muscle group during the previous muscle rounds (Day 3 / 4) and loading sets and the loading sets of that day were systemically taxing, to annihilate those muscle groups that day with Pump sets.

You might instead find that, lets say for back, that your upper back has taken a thrashing, but lower lats could use some more stimulation so you use some pullover variation or a cable "stretcher" with a hold in the contracted position to really nail the lower lat "tie in" area.

OTOH, there might be a day when you're feeling like gravity is your biyatch and there's still lots of ass-whoppin' to be done and want to go to down with the pump sets. This might also be a day when you're training muscle groups that you feel / have found need the extra work, so you want to really tag them during that workout.

If you're just doing some standard Pump Set technique, set in stone without any flexibility, you can end up either creating larger inroads into recovery than you want to that day, or shortchanging yourself if you've got more gas in the tank.

-Scott