Leg Focused Muscle Rounds were the name of the game today. Just two muscle rounds and three pump sets since I’m currently at Volume Tier 1. This feels very good at my current rate of recovery while I’m still in a calorie deficit. I’m down 8 pounds from 212 to 204 since the beginning of September. Muscle separation and veins definitely coming through a lot more, which in turn, I think it’s actually making me appear larger, which is really cool.
The Reverse Lunge muscle round featured me going from 4 reps on one leg to 4 reps on the other leg for a total of 46 reps with no breaks, which was absolutely diabolical. Same story for all single sided stuff, like the lateral raises and dumbbell press yesterday, but with legs is where this really becomes a tremendous challenge. The 5s into the hole with band Assistance on reverse Nordics might’ve been the most insane Quad Pump of my life, and man was it miserable lol
Playing it by ear tomorrow with what that session will look like. Which muscles get trained will be 100% dictated by their recovery.
Upper Load/Lower Pump today! Really excited about the progression here. Up a rep on my homemade machine chest press and really connected with every retro and I was up several reps on Dumbbell Overhead Press even though I hadn’t done it since August! Didn’t even struggle getting the dumbbells up! Moving up to 93 pounders next time! Excited for the challenge! Rest of the workout went great, just very hyped with how well training and recovery is going!
Upper pump, and boy, was it! The one arm stuff has really added its own challenge and definitely helping me isolate better from side to side, should also help prevent compression! I know I never wore them down, but I want it to be clear that I always hit my stretches after the lifts. They are completely auto regulated. Today was single arm Dumbbell fly stretches/dead hangs and standing low cable row stretch, single arm crossbody delt stretch, behind the back bicep stretch/overhead leaning Tricep stretch. They are part of the training stimulus and I definitely find them to be valuable.
Tried to go to bed early, get up early the last two days and my sleep quality definitely suffered. It’s hard to totally alter your sleep schedule and expect to just sleep as well as normal. I was kind of paying for that today. Just didn’t have much energy. Just wanted to get in try to PR on all my lower body lifts (I did) and get out of there. That’s a big win. Barbell Hack Squat actually moved crazy well! I was not expecting to just smash that one.
Back at it today! Hit Push muscle rounds really hard! Muscle Rounds are super fun, it’s just hard to beat Cluster sets from a novelty and challenge perspective. My chest was just blown up after chest Press and especially so after the flys. Really a hood movement combo for delts as well, as they just felt engorged afterwards and like I’d just blowtorched them. I don’t think I’d ever done Landmine laterals before, but they rule! Thinking about trying the machine bench one arm at a time next time, might be a cool way to mix things up and prevent rib cage compression! Pull day tomorrow and ready to go hard!
Ended up switching the schedule up because lats were really pretty sore. They definitely got hit on the machine Chest Press yesterday. I think people don’t realize how much lats get used on max effort benching. Anyway, The Leg day was really awesome. My strength on Hack squats was so far past what it was the last time I hit these so I was able to just blow past my previous performance. I definitely have the green light to go heavier on these next time. Tomorrow I’ll hit pull for real!
Pull muscle rounds today. Everything felt really good. Lats were still pretty sore so I leaned heavier on back Thickness than back Width for that reason. It was definitely the right decision even though the rack chins were way above and beyond what I’ve done before on that movement with muscle rounds. Felt great finishing with biceps and forearms as well. Next week will a bit more traditional, full body/full body/Lower/Upper so I may pull back on the volume a little bit, but we’ll play it by ear. If recovery is up to snuff, I’ll stick with Volume Tier 2.
Off to a great start this week! Upper Load/Lower Pump at Volume Tier II! Everything felt recovered even though I didn’t sleep very much last night. Tomorrow is a rest day and a chance to mitigate that damage. The lifts went extremely well. I was down a rep on incline Vs what I was getting a couple of months ago, but I expected that as I no longer arch my back and flare my ribs to allow for a much better chest contraction. So absolute strength in terms of the number is down but tension on the target muscle is up! Also still keeping the fat Gripz on the pressing feels great! Everything is progressing Super splendidly! I’m hyped! And the Yankees are going to the World Series AND the Steelers have a quarterback!!
A perfect workout today. Honestly, exactly what I needed. Went a little conservative on volume for upper body with muscle rounds being tomorrow. I forgot to hit adductors, so I’ll throw those in on lower muscle rounds day on Friday. This was a really good confidence boosting session after feeling out of it mentally today due to sleep schedule readjustment. Feeling alert and awesome now! Progressed the lifts on lower body and caught an amazing upper body pump, so you really can’t beat that!
Upper muscle rounds today. Holy hell I’m smoked after this one. This was basically Volume Tier 1 but with a second set for delts. My legs are still feeling roasted from yesterday. Hopefully they’re good to go for tomorrow or else it may be more of a posterior chain focused day. We’ll play that by ear. The progress has been awesome lately. Still not quite lean enough to get back to a full bulk, so the fat loss Phase continues. But the overall body composition is looking better than ever I believe. The chest and delt focus I’ve had for the last few months is paying off.
Early morning workout today! Legs, biceps and forearms were on the agenda today. Legs were feeling recovered enough and so were my biceps, so I was able to continue in this Hybrid of volume tiers 1 and 2. I may push food up a little this week and try to bump the volume up just a bit. Delts are actually extremely sore today so the two muscle rounds definitely did a number on them yesterday!
hey sir, couple questions about FT if I may . . . I read the entire ebook but still feel like I may be missing some things . . .
so for the progressive blast, on load/pump days, you rotate exercises every week for 3 weeks then on the 4th week come back to the exercises you used on week 1? am I understanding that correctly?
correct me if I’m wrong on this too but on load days, Volume Tier I, you warm up to a top set and take that to failure? then move onto the next exercise?
Yes you’ve got it exactly right! Let’s say you progressively Blast for 4 weeks, then you cruise for a week and a half (cruise lasts about 1/3 the length of a blast), when you begin your next blast, you pick up with your “B” rotation, which is basically where you left off.
You can use your loading exercises as muscle round exercises as well, if they lend themselves well to it, although I don’t usually use an exercise twice in the same week.
And you nailed it with Volume Tier 1. I’m currently kind of between tiers 1 and 2 right now and just using an additional exercise on delts and sometimes chest. I’m at a state where I’m auto regulating my volume based on recovery and muscles I’m focusing on emphasizing.
5s into the hole are 5 full reps, 5 partials, 4 full reps, 5 partials, 3 full reps, 5 partials, 2 full reps, 5 partials, 1 full reps and 5 more partials. It’s all done continuously. Here’s a video example from Scott’s YouTube channel:
The 2 sets for thighs on Tier 2 is 1 work set taken just shy of failure, rest, then a set of quads to failure, rest, then 1 more set on the same exercise(presumably with less weight to stay in the target rep range) to failure this time, then stretch your quads, rest, then hit hamstrings to failure, stretch your hamstrings. Alternatively, you can hit hamstrings first, stretch them, then hit thighs and quads.
Awesome workout session today! Progressed every lift and felt really good doing it! I had a really busy day leading into it and I was a little tired but things ended up really going smoothly. I look forward to another great lift tomorrow. Slight decline barbell Press is really becoming a bread and butter chest exercise for me. I’m just really happy where everything is at/headed with my training right now.
so I’ve read through your whole log and the FT ebook and I have another question if you don’t mind:
I’m not solid on zig-zagging; does that only come into play on Tier III volume or does he mean you should alternate compounds with isolation movements every training session?
It really only comes to play on Volume Tier III on Lower Load days. You basically would do your heavy compound thigh set, then hit hams to failure, then back to a lighter compound thigh set, then quad isolation, then another lighter compound thigh set, this time to failure. Honestly, I’m not even sure if I can make it to Volume Tier III. I push my work sets so hard that I get extremely sore in between sessions. You’ll notice right now, I’m bouncing between tiers 1 and 2. I just auto regulate my volume depending on recovery.
