Final day of the Intensive Cruise. This one was tough. Extremely hot and humid in the garage and I was sweaty and dead after Bulgarians (just went back and forth with no rest between sides). I originally planned on incline Barbell Press and chest Supported Cable rows but I knew I didn’t have the energy to hit those with the max Tonnage I’m used to, so I made some suitable replacements. Stretchers were done on a bench this time. Honestly felt really great. Scoop flys and overhead flys really killed me. Got back home, had a Liquid IV, ton of carbs and a ton of protein and I’m feeling great right now! Very thankful to get to rest a few more days before getting back to the grind Saturday because I really really kicked my ass today!
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My back and chest are so sore today I could cry and die. Delts, triceps, hamstrings and quads are quite sore as well. But I’m also happy because I absolutely blitzed them with one cluster set a piece. That was truly a great session yesterday
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Outstanding session to begin my 3rd Fortitude Training Blast of the year! I surprised myself a little bit because I truly slept like crap last night. I really just felt pretty sleep deprived heading into the session so I scaled everything back to Volume Tier I, although I did keep the isolation move in for delts. Definitely the right call. I was able to progress everything and still feel alive at the end of the session. I know in my sleep deprived State that recovery is compromised so I’m not going to push the volume. Also I’m training all of these muscle groups again tomorrow, so I just made the logical choice. Also the right call to start with Upper Load/Lower Pump because I was not physically or mentally prepared for the Front squat/Barbell Hack/Barbell SDL combo of the Lower Load day haha! That’ll be tomorrow’s beast after some better sleep. Now I’m going to get a nap in before I cook dinner.
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Session number 2 of my blast today before a couple of rest days. I definitely slept better last night and felt very locked in for today. This is the hardest session in my entire rotation. I’m getting much better at front squats as my performance continues to rise. I’m really rocking and rolling with the lower volume right now. I may go Tier II for the Muscle Rounds later in the week. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it and program accordingly.
Getting deeper into the 5s in the hole set on dumbbell bench press than ever before with the 100s got partway through “1” before failing. Progress isn’t really the goal on the pump sets, but it’s cool to see that I’m failing deeper into it.
Really feeling awesome Post-workout. No lower back stiffness, soreness or tightness to speak of, which is rare for me when I train legs. I think it’s a combination of the posture correction(including respecting the stack during lifts) and the lower volume.
Pork roast, cauliflower and rice for dinner tonight!
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Broke my typical split convention this week. My shoulders and arms still didn’t quite feel recovered(my biceps worked hard as hell to hold the rack position on front squat) and for some reason, those Banded laterals just fried my delts. So this week my split is chest and back, legs, shoulders and arms.
The bands with the dumbbells just add a beautiful layer of Brutality to the chest Training and really overloads the top/squeeze portion of the rep which is cool, as it gives the Dumbbell Press a more even strength curve.
Despite what I wrote down, I opened up with the dumbbell rows, which was such a killer way to begin the back portion of the training. Really one of my all time favorite Back movements (thank you Phil Hernon). Then the chest supported stuff has just been feeling amazing at targeting the lats and leaving me sore for days so it was nice to work it in, although I don’t think I’ll do both in the same session again as they were just a bit too similar.
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From top to bottom, one of the best workouts I’ve had in a while! May also have had something to do with the fact that I just had my best night’s sleep in a week! Originally I was just planning on hitting legs but my chest and back actually felt recovered from yesterday’s session so I put a movements for them in today’s workout.
My squat range of motion has been decreased to eliminate any butt wink/Lower back flexion and keep the tension on my quads and glutes. What a difference this made! I’m honestly just going to be at peace with not squatting A2G or even to parallel until I have the hip mobility to get there. It felt great finishing a set of squats and not having any extreme lower back fatigue that hampers everything I do afterwards. I’m really improving at this in every session!
The one arm isometric bench is one of the best feeling chest exercises I’ve ever performed. Jonathan Warren recommended these in his latest video, so I really wanted to give these a try since they let you open up and expand your rib cage one side at a time. I loved these, they’re definitely staying in the rotation!
Added some spider crawls at the end for a freaky delt pump.
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Legs, chest and back all quite sore today. Definitely happy to give them a break and proceed with Shoulders and arms (and abs) as planned. Worked in some things I haven’t done in quite a while like one arm landmine press, Meadows raises, one arm cable curl, one arm overhead cable tricep extension and seated face pulls which I’ve literally never done before.
Really enjoyed the novelty that I introduced here and was able to push the session hard and be done in 50 minutes. Good clean session to go into the weekend break on.
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Great Upper Pump session. Really connected with every movement like a champ and had an insane pump by the end. Played around a lot with mechanical dropsets focusing more on the lengthened and then shortened range of motion.
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Awesome! Always a pleasure coming back reading your log, Dave! It seems you have personalized FT based on personal response/preference? Can you please give a short outline on your current schedule? You continue to inspire the reader, and there are things to learn here.
I continue my bastardized travels in training territory - combining powerlifting, FT, HIT, Flywheels and resistance bands. It’s much based on what I manage under lack of time, but never less than twice weekly with the intention of doing at least one powerlifting day. It’s like I respect the program on a particular training day, but really like the variation from different approaches. It’s fun, and remarkably rewarding, as one different stumuli amplify the other and vice versa.
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That’s great to hear man! Thank you for checking in! I know you’ve been following this Hybrid program for a while now, so props to you for the consistency!
My schedule with how I set up my training week varies weekly with what days I’m training, which determines how I set my split. I generally train 3 on, 2off, 2 on, 2 off, 3 on, 2 off, repeat, since that’s my wife’s work schedule and I organize my training around that so we can have more time together.
I follow the conventional Fortitude setup generally for the load/pump days, but I usually will split the Lower Load/Upper Pump into two sessions if those sessions fall on the part of the schedule where I train 3 days straight.
Then for the muscle round days, I will either do the Turbo full body version 2 days in a row if I’m feeling great or just the usual upper/lower if I feel like I need more recovery or am very sore. If the muscle round sessions fall on the 3 day straight part of the schedule, I will split them up based on recovery. Generally I do push/pull/legs, but last week my delts, biceps, legs and triceps were still sore but my chest and back felt good to go. So I went chest and back on day 1, legs on day 2 with a set for chest and back as they felt good to go again, and on day 3 I hit Shoulders and arms.
Nothing is really set in stone with the split or exercise selection for muscle rounds or pump sets. Those are all picked intuitively. For Loading sets, I still follow the traditional ABC rotation and just progress the numbers every time they come up. It’s all still Progressive overload oriented, I’m always trying to lift for more weight or reps every time I perform an exercise. Referencing back to my notebook makes that pretty easy!
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Classic low volume, high intensity leg day. With 20 extra pounds, I managed double the reps of the last time Belt squat was in the training cycle. Just insane. Everything felt awesome today. Rest day tomorrow as concrete gets poured outside the garage.
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So I’ve decided to make a bit of a pivot with my training. Been itching to get back to Mountain Dog Training and I bought “Programs That Work 4.1” from EliteFTS to get John’s program “The Incinerator”. Day 1 was originally supposed to be legs but I just trained them Tuesday and they are still very sore so I started with Day 2, Chest and Shoulders. Running this alongside @Stormblessed and @TrainForPain and I’m so hyped to see the gains that are to come for all 3 of us!
Love getting back to some higher volume work still with very high intensity, and more recovery time between sessions. Just traditional Bodybuilding training. Hard to beat.
Everything moved well and felt great today. I’m increasing the size of my intra workout shake with the increase in volume from what I’ve been doing
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Nice. I’m super excited for this.
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Crazy impressive pressing numbers man. This is going to be a lot of fun!
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@Stormblessed thanks man! And I agree! I’m having a blast doing this alongside you guys! @TrainForPain
Amazing back day. Just smashed it today. Lots of heavy rowing and pulls, very back thickness oriented. 485x3 is definitely a rack dead PR for me. Only up from here!
Love getting back to some good old Mountain Dog training!
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Crushed arms today. Nice to have a lighter day after a few heavy days in a row. I seriously had the most ridiculous arm pump after this session. I think the gains from this program are going to be top notch! Got this whole thing busted out in about 36 minutes.
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Very quick Leg session today. Very brutal, Quad dominant leg day. Happy to get a pump day in before I go back into the heavy days tomorrow. I will primarily be doing the base days and just fitting in the pump sessions when I get additional training days. This session was so different than any leg day I’ve done before. It was a fun challenge!
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Kicking Week 2 off with Back day! Everything about this session flowed seamlessly. This session was a little more lat focused and a little less Upper back, which was nice because my traps and rhomboids were still pretty sore. That’s also why I went with the women’s option of wide grip Pulldowns instead of shrugs, which was definitely the right call. Tomorrow will be my first rest day of the program and then I’ll be back hitting chest & shoulders on Wednesday. This program has been top notch so far! Really been enjoying it and the massive pumps I get every session!
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Really hard chest and shoulder session today. Those high rep dumbbell flat presses gave me an insane Pump and definitely pushed me hard. The incline press moved well, but the 255 set was really hard so I probably should’ve been less aggressive with my jump. Instead I failed going for rep 6 and had to scrape the barbell across my stomach lol
Substituted Smith decline with scrape the rack decline, which is basically the same thing. Had really nice progression from last week on Cage Press. I was super happy with this session, how I connected with each movement. Ready for a strong leg day tomorrow!
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Really challenging Leg day today. John always has a few crazy programming ideas that he throws at you to push things to the next level. Take for instance, the 35 rep set on leg curl! Those smoked my hamstrings. Subbed leg extension for reverse Nordics for the sake of convenience of setup and I’ve really been loving the feel on these as my form continues to improve. Also substituted Leg Press(since I don’t have one) for hip belt squat, which I rig up to our low Cable pulley and stand on 35 pound bumper plates. I tend to connect with my quads Way better on these than I do on leg press anyway.
Following that up with squat was brutal! My quads were already fried so I had to drop the weight a bit from what I normally would do to get an explosive 4 sets of 6! Very happy with this session and super excited for arms tomorrow!
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