Ricky,
I noticed something slightly off on your Nautilus Multi-Triceps Machine. Your hand pads are on incorrectly. The vertical piece should be on the inside, not the outside. See the photo on page 237 of my The Nautilus Bodybuilding Book (1982). Putting them on the right way should provide your hands with a little more security.
doh! I didn’t realize that… and I assume the idea would be to push my palms into the pads? thanks and to Scott for posting pic, as I no longer own that book…(tragically, over the years, lent them out and never got them back)
The photo above shows the correct way the pads are assembled. Thanks, Scott.
A small point on the tricep extension. I always used to position clients so that their shoulders were slightly lower than their elbows.
I don’t know whether that recommendation has changed in recent years, but that is how we were advised to use that machine.
Regards
Mark
That is what I’m aiming for. Does it look as though I have the seat set too high? Please and Thanks! 
oh and I’ve reversed the pads. Guess at some point it was reassembled incorrectly
Ricky,
On your next three workouts, #9, #10, and #11, I want you to stress the metabolic effects. I want the time between exercises to be 20 seconds or less.
You may have to rearrange the order on some of them, or subtract/add one or two, until you’ve achieved such an ordering.
Understand what I’m talking about?
Ellington
It looks that way to me , but it could possibly be the camera angle.
Just something to check on .
Mark
Here is my plan/adjustments for challenge number 9
Leg Press Nautilus (drink during 30 sec negatives)
Lateral Raise on Hammer
DB OHP
Decline Press Nautilus
5.Leg curl nautilus (drink during 30 sec negatives)
6. Leg x hammer (drink during 30 sec negatives)
7. DB Biceps curl (instead of machine to save travel time)
8. Hammer rows (instead of pullover to avoid belt and travel time)
Suggestions more than welcome
I’ll double check. Your time and help are greatly appreciated!
That new order should work better on your heart and lungs.
Ricky - I want to thank you for your level of detail here with the videos and the meticulous body data. I remember your forum posts over at Lawrence’s HIT Business forums quite fondly. I’m no longer on that site because COVID put my curiosity of opening up a personal training studio on hold.
I’m going to attempt to join you in putting up something here soon to track progress. Two weeks in and this is still the best training program I’ve ever been on. I know there were some folks who were questioning the results of Tyler… perhaps bodies are just more different than we think? I’m getting some awesome results with this program. I didn’t know I had triceps. Pretty cool to see a tricep muscle lol. I hope to get myself in gear and start posting pictures and maybe even video of the workout. I’m an accountant in tax season so I’ve been a little behind with these forums.
Alex
challenge #9… 14 min and 45 seconds for 8 exercises… probably a little closer to failure than protocol advises on some of the exercices…also, did not use DB curls, as I realized my DB’s were already used with OHP… but I believe I was less than 15 between exercises… more than 3 seconds between OHP and chest press, but went as fast as I could
Yes, Ricky. This is your best 30-10-30 workout yet.
Hi Dr Darden
I notice you’ve been pushing Ricky to minumum rest between sets. Why is there such an emphasis on limited time between sets other than the obvious reduction in workout time.
Purely from a muscle building perspective is there any advatage to limited rests as opposed to more reasonable recovery between sets (exercises).
Also, I’m trying out different exercises using the 30-10-30 protocol but would struggle to reduce the time between exercises to anywhere near the targets set by you simply because I do not feel comfortable going straight into a 12rep max weight without any specific warmup(s) for that exercise.
Finally question for you and Ricky. What is the criteria for increasing the load bearing in mind that you’re avoiding failure. I guess to a certain extent this comes back to the argument that you know when youve hit failure, but whats the definition of NTF (how far off failure is NTF).
Thanks to you Ricky for taking the no doubt considerable time to detail so precisely what you are doing and the results obtained.
All the best
Gazz
Gazz,
If you choose to move between 30-10-30 exercises with minimum rest, which is what I’m recommending, each exercise requires less resistance. Less resistance means a warm-up is probably not necessary, and each exercise is safer. Plus, you are building a high-performance body that contains muscular size, strength, and cardio-respiratory endurance.
Rick
Roch
Progress seems to be coming in spikes and dips… for me, currently a bit of a dip after a spike. Perhaps to be expected less than 24 hours after challenge #9. My son is speculating a bit of a slowdown since we discovered we were double dosing mag 10 and cut back… other speculating is that as we approach the final week, may be flirting with overtraining, which the body is to recover from during “gains week”… workouts are feeling really good… do feel stronger (I know, entirely subjective) and despite basically running from one set to the other, feeling challenged but not gassed by any stretch… some thoughts… conventional wisdom would state that after 40 years of training (someone in another thread stated 2 years, but far longer than that) and, at age 62, with mediocre (at best) genetics, this SHOULDN’T work for me, so I’m actually pleased with whatever I get, and look forward to Dr. Darden’s follow up program… my main target is to age gracefully, but as I’m obsessive about “hobbies” I’m having fun with this experiment… particularly as a father/son project…
“…Even though you reduce the weight, it will feel the same to your involved muscles, and it will have the same effect as resting and using a heavier resistance…”
From “100 high intensity ways to improve your body building”, chapter 2, tip 10, “Move quickly between exercises.”
I’ve found that really works since years ago, but so far I’ve been unable to reduce the time between exercises enough for 30-10-30. Even though I have the time well under the 60 seconds recommended for the quoted tip, I think I need the currently recommended 20 second or less for 30-10-30. I can’t accomplish that for all sets until I get more equipment, but I can do what I did years ago, and group in supersets, so that for instance if I do 30-10-30 pushups 5 seconds after chins, it will feel heavier than bench presses. I guess this won’t have the full metabolic and cardio benefits of getting all the times down, but it does make something like push ups go a long way.
Day 21 of 35… have included comparison of 5 day average at beginning and latest to try account for daily variability
