http://hometown.aol.com/ nmk85roll/myhomepage/index.html
Hey guys, to save room I created a little website with my NEW mag 10 plan for success. This will be my second time on MAG 10. The website explains everything. Please use the above link to check it out and give me your feedback. I really want everyone’s opinion on this so take a few seconds and reply on the forum. Thanks for your help.
Perfect. With this combination you will see massive gains. However, given the amount of effort and money you are spending you should be able to shovel in more than 4000 cals a day in the ‘on’ portions. You should be ripped at like 180 when you are done. Put before and after pictures on the website if you’re allowed to (it is AOL AKA “AOHell” hometown so u might not be able to).
I’m concerned with the sprints: 20 reps is A LOT. In fact, unless these are around 75% then that’s an unbelievably high number. What percentage of top speed are you running? rest intervals? is there a warm-up? have you done this before? Why are they in there in the first place, I mean, the injury potenital is high, hypertrophy gains are minimal, yeah you might get faster(if you did 4-8 reps with 3-5m of rest and @ 95-100%) but that training would be better suited for a different phase. And even if you did keep them in there, let’s talk placement in your training week. How do you expect to go hi vol/hi int and 2/day on Monday after you performed high intensity sprints THE DAY BEFORE. Please explain your rationale behind this because I see this as a big flashing red light.
Thanks for your response! Nathan - I have been doing sprints for about 3 weeks now. Twenty 50 yard dashes seem to be no problem for me. And I’m talking full out sprints, I’m probably running at a 4.7 sec 40 yard dash time. And in all honesty, I feel damn good the next day. I didn’t notice any decrease in energy or performance when I started the sprints compared to when I wasn’t doin’ them. Do you have the link to the article on Spints for Fat Loss? I thought this was outlined there, but I would really like to read that article again. I couldn’t find it on the search engine. What would you suggest Nathan instead? Dawg - I only am doing 4000 calories because I want to maintain my current bf% Do you think I can step it up without stepping up the body fat? How many more calories? I don’t think I want to exceed 4500.
You can up the cals by upping the protein + Carbs. However, they MUST be complex carbs or you will get fat. Besides, with this workload (balls out) you will need the extra carbs no doubt.
Jason, could you take a look at the workout for me and give me your comments? Thanks.
Well, I’m just trying to figure out why you have the sprints there at all. For simplicity, let’s say they can be helpful in three situations: 1)Strength/Speed; 2)Hypertrophy; & 3)Fat Loss. Let’s start with hypertrophy, they have the POSSIBILITY of creating hypertrophy, but I wouldn’t take them over deadlifts. Also, I don’t remember seeing them in the “Plan For Success,” so maybe there’s a reason they didn’t put them in there. But to be fair, if I were to do sprints for hypertrophy, they’d be similar to what you’re doing. However, they would need to instead replace one of your weight workouts, if you look again you have 3 leg workouts in 2 days and 4 in the week. Don’t forget recovery. For Strength/Speed, sprints would be a valuable addition, but if I were doing them, I’d change the parameters(ie. 4-8 reps w/3-5m of rest and @ 95-100% max speed or something like that). To be fair, this is a very individualized thing and what you’re doing could very well work for you, however, this is still a hypertrophy phase, not a speed-strength phase. The more energy system work you do, the less growing your muscles will do. Lastly, for Fat Loss, I’d again have different parameters, more along the lines of tempo runs(ie. 100-200m runs @75% w/30s-90s rest for a total of 600-2000m depending on fitness levels and other various factors). But again, this is a hypertrophy phase, and a fairly expensive one, so we want to keep energy system work to a minimum. So, if it were me here’s what I would and will eventually do. Run 1-2 30-50m sprints @95% with 3-4m of rest after a good warm-up and then immediately head to the gym for the AM workout on Monday(your leg day). This is low volume and high intensity because I merely want to MAINTAIN my speed but I don’t want it to interfere with my hypertrophy training. And not AFTER my leg workout b/c my legs would be shot and there a greater injury potential. However, with all that said, it’s your world and I’m just passing through, so make your decision and learn from the outcome. Be objective and measure your leg size, leg strength and maybe even have a friend give his opinion on whether or not you look bigger. But don’t just say, “Oh, I feel great” and then not make progress. Remember what King said: “Don’t do what’s possible, do what’s optimal”. Or something like that, anyway, let us know what happens.
Well, I’ll let Nathan N. chat with you about the sprints. I also was suprised to see that many, but if you are having success with them, then keep it up, but that would be the first area I would cut out if recovery is becoming an issue. As for eating more than 4000 calories, you could bump up the carbs a bit more, but only if you find that you need them.
As for the workout in general, it looks pretty good. You might not need as much volume for your bis/tris and I might suggest keeping the exercise variety and dropping 1 set per exercise. Just a thought. Once again, only if you need it.
Personally, I really like your set and rep scheme for the most part. It is a lot of volume though, so keep an eye on recovery, desire and excitement for training, body composition and adjust calories up or volume down as needed.
You think you’re running a 4.7 40 yard dash? Did you not get it timed or anything?
Actually, I did get it timed about a week ago. I was helping out at my old highschool’s football camp and it was 40 timing day. For fun, some of the coaches and I busted balls and ran a few. I ran three, times being 4.7, 4.8, and 4.7. So yes, I did time it! 
Nathan - I understand your suggestions about the sprints (you are making me think twice now). What do you think would be better for Hypertrophy instead of sprints? I put sprints in for two reasons. One, to maintain my speed and endurance. And two, to help minimize fat loss. This being said, would you recomend multiple short sprints like more original idea, or a few long(100m-200m) sprints? Is the trade off of hypertrophy not worth the long sprints? I’m thinking about cutting the sprints down to 10-12 reps. How long of a rest period do you think I should use? Thanks for your input! I really appreciate it!
Jason - So you think I should drop the 1 back off set at the end of each workout? I was trying to throw something in like the triple set in Growth Surge. Thanks for your help. I have to admit, I followed all your recs for my first MAG 10 cycle and I put 20lbs on in 8 weeks! You rock!
NO! Keep the back off set. I really like that part and think it will produce a great stimulus. My suggestion was to maybe reduce the volume with your bis and tris. They are getting the same amount of volume as chest, back, and legs and that seems a bit much for me. My suggestion was to drop 1 regular set from each of your bi/tri exercises and keep everything else like planned.
Let’s start at the top: you’re in a hypertrophy phase that will last for two weeks. When you’re trying to gain muscle you want to keep other work(ie. speed, energy system, etc.) to a minimum. For one; doing other work will reduce the amount of energy you have for doing the hypertrophy work and two; your body will be recovering a greater overall training stimulus. So your goal for qualities other than hypertrophy should be to merely maintain them, rather than increase them. It takes a very small amount of work to maintain strength/speed qualities, generally speaking, something like 1/week, 1-4 sets total. If you’ve bought any of Ian King’s material you might have come across this. So since you have stated that you want to maintain your speed and endurance, this is the approach that I would take during this phase. To keep your speed up I’d do this right before the AM session on your leg day: warm-up, maybe some bodyweight exercises, stretch, sprint drills(if you know 'em) or 4-6 20-50m light runs, then the speed workout would be 2x20m and 2x40m sprints @90-95% with 4 minutes of rest between each one. On the 40’s, run hard the 1st 10m then just run fast the rest of the way, only go balls to the wall on the last sprint, the sprints should not so much to where they hinder your performance in gym. Actually if you keep the volume low and the intensity high(which that is) then they will increase your performance in the gym because the high intensity will stimulate your body. Remember King’s 6/1 and Poliquin’s 1/6? How you have increased strength on the second and fourth set, well it’s the same idea. Then for endurance, I’d replace the second sprint workout with some tempo runs, I don’t know if you had any specific type of endurance in mind so tempos will work fine. Try this 100m runs @75%(which should probably be 16-18s) with 30s of rest. In my opinion you really shouldn’t be doing a lot of these, so just start with 4 runs for a total of 400m, focus on your form and technique(ie. stand up tall, no anterior pelvic tilt, your heel cycle should recover under your butt and not behind it, and good knee drive in front of the body). Don’t get carried, too much of this and your energy system is recovering instead of your muscles. Tell me what you think. Oh, and I agree with Jason Norcross about cutting 1 set off of each of your arm exercises, although not the back-off set. Those bad boys are getting worked during chest, back and shoulder workouts too.