CT,
Just a quick question regarding your training for easy hard gainers. If I wanted to implement plyometrics into the program, what types of volume/days would you suggest?
mikeynorth wrote:
In short, what kind of strength training should I train when following a lowcarbdiet. Should I train each muscle group 1 or 2 times a week, 4-5 basic exercises with maybe 4 x 6 reps. Or should I have a little bit higher volume. To failure or not to failure?
Or do ypu prefer training holde body 3 times week?
It all depends on what type of low carbs diet you are using… is it cyclical (e.g. 5 days low carb, 2 days high carbs), rotational (e.g. 2 days low carbs, 1 day medium carbs, 1 day high carbs, repeat), targeted
low carbs all day except for a 75-100g carbs Surge post workout) or straight low carb?
This is my lowcarbdiet i follow:
2weeks: 100 g.carbs non-traininday
200 g.carbs on trainingday
2weeks: 50 g.carbs non-trainigday
150 g.carbs on trainingday
2weeks: 50 g.carbs non-trainigday
100 g.carbs on training day
2weeks: 0 g.carbs non-trainingday
50 g.carbs on training day
2weeks: 0 g.carbs non-trainingday
0 g.carbs on trainingdays
Every saturday I have a eating day. And the last four weeks of the diet I also have a “cheatmeal” every wednesday afternoon.
Protein and fat intake is constant:
220 g. protein on non-training days, and 280 g. protein on training days. 60-70 grams of healthy fat every day.
Mikey north What is your stats? Weight,BF%? I like how you cycle the carbs just wondering how much you weigh in at
CT,
Wonder what your thoughts are on plate mates (1 lbs) and small olympic plates (1.25 lbs) in general. We use them extensively on all exercises especially bench and standing military, etc. to move up slowly.
Do you employ these strategies?
Hey Coach CT,
What do you make your athletes do in terms of speed training and conditioning? Also how are those twins doing Big Gourgeous and the other guy?
Mikey north What is your stats? Weight,BF%? I like how you cycle the carbs just wondering how much you weigh in at
Hey Mike!
My stats before I started:
93 kg (204,6 pounds) 12,9% fat
LBM: 81 kg, Fat: 12 kg
Now 4 after four weeks:
90 kg (198) 9,57% fat
LBM: 81,39 Fat: 8,61
My goal for the summer:
Beeing as hard and muscular as possible. I have now trained for over 10 years so it is about time 
Carb timing:
Breakfast and immidiately after every strength training.
Powerwalking:
45 minutest 3-4 times a week.
Supplements:
-proteinpowder
-glutamin
-zinc, magnesium, c-vitamin, b-vitamin, multivitamin
- creatin
Hey CT,
One of my training goals is to achieve the one arm pullup, any tips on achieving this? I can currently chin bodyweight (170) plus 35kg. Thanks for any help you can give!
Jamie
CT anonther question,
What supplements would you recommend an athlete who been lifting for 2-3 years. Also what are your opinion on fat loss just a clean diet with matience calories than a fat burner or just 100 or 200 calories under matience and just lose that way.
Hey, Christian.
I’m curious about one thing, my leg development has been stagnat for a while now, so I hope this program will help me to reach new grounds.
I utilize drop-sets, supersets and etc in my leg-workouts and the volume is pretty high too ~15-30 sets.
I did a WINS-gate test (bicycle) and I had high lactate number ~18 and I was a little bid de-carbed during that week + did a lot of other activies before the test.
Anyway, my teacher said that that number is probably a sign of me having more fast-twitch in my legs + I always been good at running short distance.
Now, IF, IF, i’m “that jacked”, why my legs are growing at such slow rate? My strength usually climbs up very quickly, but if I miss one leg workout, then I lose ~20 pounds off the squat right away. Do I like frequincy?
I’m at 155 pounds with 8% BF, very long legs. Too skinny for a sprinter, but I’m working on getting bigger. Is your hard-gainer article a perfect fit for me? Any other general guidlines for a potential sprinter to pack on mass? (especially legs, including calves)
Thanks!
CT
I won’t be around tonight so I’m hoping I can post this now and still get a reply …
You have written two specialization programs in Pillars of Strength and Shoulder Overhaul, but you take different approaches to the workouts in the new leg program. Someone asked why you use conjugate periodization in the leg program instead of accumulation and intensification blocks:
downintucson wrote:
You seem to be going away from separate accumulation and intensification blocks. Looks as though you are combining methods in the same week. Is this an extension of pendulum training? Was wondering because your routines work really well on me. I currently use separate acc. and int. blocks. If you’ve found a better way to arrange training, I’ll likely follow your lead.
I still use intensification and accumulation blocks. They are the basis of my whole periodization scheme. However, this is a specialisation program to be used outside the scope of a regular block structure to bring up a lagging body part, in this case the legs.
However in the shoulder program, which is also a specialization program, you stick with traditional accumulation and intensification. If you were to write that program again now would you reccomend a conjugate periodization as in your legs program or stick with what was originally prescribed? I am going to do a shoulder specialization and was wondering if I should use conjugate periodization or accumulation / intensification. If you wouldn’t mind I would like to know the reasoning behind your selection too.
One more thing, a while back someone asked about proper posing and suggested writing an article about it. Are you planning on writing such an article? I think lots of readers would benefit from it.
Thanks so much Coach Thib
CT,
I posted a question as well as sent a PM to you regarding rugby union training but haven’t received an answer yet. Totally understandable considering the huge amount of questions you get! Would you be able to have a look at it during tonight’s Prime Time?
Cheers,
Ben
[quote]Alex Brown wrote:
CT,
Just a quick question regarding your training for easy hard gainers. If I wanted to implement plyometrics into the program, what types of volume/days would you suggest?[/quote]
It depends. If you are talking about true plyometric training (depth jumps and depth push ups) only 3 sets of 10 reps should be used twice per week for no more than 4 straight weeks.
As for low intensity jump training (wrongfully called plyometric training) it can be used as a specific warm up too.
[quote]greekdawg wrote:
CT,
Wonder what your thoughts are on plate mates (1 lbs) and small olympic plates (1.25 lbs) in general. We use them extensively on all exercises especially bench and standing military, etc. to move up slowly.
Do you employ these strategies?[/quote]
Not really… I think it’s a good idea (the good ole kaizen principle by Coach P.) but I personally don’t use it, neither are any of my athletes.
I’ll be working out at home over the summer with a barbell and 300 lbs of weights, Olympic dumbbells, and some rings for pull-ups. I’ll have a lot of free time so I was thinking of doing a twice-a-day program. I’m not entirely sure how to set this up though. It’s my understanding that I would pick 2 exercises for the morning and do 10x3, and then do 3-4 exercises in the evening with say 4x10.
I was considering something like:
Day 1 AM: Squat 10x3, deadlift 10x3
Day 1 PM: Squat 4x10, deadlift 4x10, clean 4x10
Day 2 AM: Bench 10x3, Dips 10x3
Day 2 PM: Bench 4x10, Dips 4x10, overhead press 4x10
Day 3 AM: bent over row 10x3, pull-up 10x3
Day 3 PM: bent over row 4x10, pull-up 4x10, upright row 4x10
And that would complete the week, most likely do it M-W-F. It seems a little low on leg work since I?m doing an upper body/lower body split twice a week currently, but that could be a good thing since my deadlift is over twice my bench (they are both low mind you since I?ve only been lifting 2 ? months).
Does this look like a good routine?
Am I correct in my thinking that the morning workout since the emphasis is on strength gains and the idea is to not wear yourself out to much before the pm workout, will not emphasize the eccentric part of the motion much? While the pm workout will since we want to get the muscle to grow from that part?
[quote]DONJUANPIMPIN wrote:
Hey Coach CT,
What do you make your athletes do in terms of speed training and conditioning? Also how are those twins doing Big Gourgeous and the other guy?[/quote]
The speed portion of my athlete’s training is handled by Nick Roy who was an intern for me last summer. He’s a track athlete and a very bright coach.
[quote]jcbainno7 wrote:
Hey CT,
One of my training goals is to achieve the one arm pullup, any tips on achieving this? I can currently chin bodyweight (170) plus 35kg. Thanks for any help you can give!
Jamie[/quote]
Only 3-5% of all the peoples in the world can actually hope to be able to perform a true one arm chin-up (not talking about those cheated 1-arm chins where you hold your wrist with your “free” hand).
At 170lbs it would be quite a feat. I trained several guys who where able to handle bodyweight + 90-135lbs for reps but who were not even remotely close to performing a one arm chin-up.
My best recommendation is to work hard on 1-arm negative chins, forearm strength and abdominal strength. You might also need to loose some weight if you 1-arm chins are that important to you.
[quote]DONJUANPIMPIN wrote:
CT anonther question,
What supplements would you recommend an athlete who been lifting for 2-3 years. Also what are your opinion on fat loss just a clean diet with matience calories than a fat burner or just 100 or 200 calories under matience and just lose that way.[/quote]
The most important supplement (if diet is in order) is a good post-workout shake. Surge is the best formula around.
Fish oil is also very important.
Then you have protein shakes, mostly for convenience.
For fat loss, HOT-ROX is the best legal supplement out there.
To loose fat you must burn more calories than you consume, there is no way around it. Even with the best fat burner out there, without a caloric deficit, adequate food choices and proper nutrients timing you wont loose a significnt amount of fat.
I like to use a carbs/calories rotation… 1 day of relatively severe restriction, 1 day of moderate restriction, 1 day of slight restriction, 1 day at maintenance, repeat.
[quote]Quadforce wrote:
Hey, Christian.
I’m curious about one thing, my leg development has been stagnat for a while now, so I hope this program will help me to reach new grounds.
I utilize drop-sets, supersets and etc in my leg-workouts and the volume is pretty high too ~15-30 sets.
I did a WINS-gate test (bicycle) and I had high lactate number ~18 and I was a little bid de-carbed during that week + did a lot of other activies before the test.
Anyway, my teacher said that that number is probably a sign of me having more fast-twitch in my legs + I always been good at running short distance.
Now, IF, IF, i’m “that jacked”, why my legs are growing at such slow rate? My strength usually climbs up very quickly, but if I miss one leg workout, then I lose ~20 pounds off the squat right away. Do I like frequincy?
I’m at 155 pounds with 8% BF, very long legs. Too skinny for a sprinter, but I’m working on getting bigger. Is your hard-gainer article a perfect fit for me? Any other general guidlines for a potential sprinter to pack on mass? (especially legs, including calves)
Thanks![/quote]
Read my article on Easy-Hard Gainers … it’s exactly you!
CT, you’ve made a great program for us. Because i’ve weak knees, so should i jump right into the program or should i cut down the volume and slowly build it up??
and based on your program, i’ve come up with the similar one for Arms, one for Chest/Back/Delts. can you take a look on my exercises choices and give comments?
Arms
Workout A :
A)Barbell Curl;B)CG Decline Press;C)Reverse Curl
Workout B :
A)1-Arm Preacher Curl;B)1-arm Pressdown;C)1-Arm reverse Preacher Curl
Workout C:
A1,2)Preacher Curl; 2-arm Cable Curl
B1,2)CG Bench Press; pressdown
C1,2)barbell Wrist Curl; reverse Wrist curl
Chest/Back/Delts
Workout A :
A)Bench Press;B)Bent Row;C)Behind neck press
Workout B :
A)1-Arm Pec Deck;B)1-arm dumbbell row;C)1-Arm lateral
Workout C:
A1,2)Incline Press; crossover
B1,2)Chins/Pulldown; stiff-arm pulldown
C1,2)Seated Dumbbell press, cable lateral
and i’ve also come up with this crazy idea:
a 4- day cycle:
cycle 1
Day 1 Chest/Back/Delts (A)
Day 2 Arms (B)
Day 3 Legs (C)
Day 4 rest
cycle 2
Day 1 Chest/Back/Delts (B)
Day 2 Arms (C)
Day 3 Legs (A)
Day 4 rest
cycle 3
Day 1 Chest/Back/Delts (C)
Day 2 Arms (A)
Day 3 Legs (B)
Day 4 rest
what do you think? is that crazy enough? or you think some people may be able to do this kind of cycle?
Christian,
I have been taking fish oil for sometime now, but I am still unclear on a few things. First off, what is the difference between fish oil and flaxseed oil as far as effectiveness?
Next, what is an appropriate dose for both? Going along with the dose thing, I have a bottle of fish oil gels and flaxseed oil gels, but what is an appropriate dose in terms of gels? I didn’t think I was an idiot until I looked at the labels and was a little confused about how much was actually in each gel. If it is any help, I have whatever the standard strength is for both products. Thanks a bunch