@CT: How do you personally classify the feel of an 8 out of 10 RPE? 2 reps left?
How does a 6 RPE feel to you? Speed work like weight?
Wow appreciate the response CT. Honestly that seems a huge contrast to your workouts (at least ones published on tnation). After your health stabilizes do you expect to go back to blitz workouts (layers, built for bad, high freq strength)?
Youāve got way more training years under belt than me so Iām hesitant to do anything thatās not all ātransform physique immediatley, radical strength/power, explosive gains etc.ā. But itās hard to tell if my body is ābreaking downā or I just need a few more off days, recover, and then go back to heavy lifts frequently. I mean, I should be able to train this way until at last late 30s right?
Re: your style now, the workouts seem quite easy? On your CNS heavy days, you ramp up to a 2-3RM at 6-8 RPE and no volume work 5x5 or clusters, etc?
Ramp up 2-3RM bench, feel activated, done. Ramp up 2-3RM trap bar dead, beast mode activated, done. Go home
Muscle days do you warm up or go straight to working weight? So cable flyes and hammer strength press machine, keep going until failure, static holds, rest pause. One set only.
These sessions would literally take 30 min like you said. How I train now (rings, handstand pushups, chins for 10-15 minutes, then layers) this would hardly seem like training session!
[quote]-Sigil- wrote:
Wow appreciate the response CT. Honestly that seems a huge contrast to your workouts (at least ones published on tnation). After your health stabilizes do you expect to go back to blitz workouts (layers, built for bad, high freq strength)? [/quote]
It is a big change mostly from a quantitative point of view. I often included all of these methods but to a higher volume/frequency.
My health is better than itās been in 5 years or more (it was bad but not diagnosed for a long time) and my health markers are better than I remember them being in my life.
I think that my old ways caused trouble but I was not sensitive enough to the symptoms (and didnāt take health readings) to notice it.
Right now Iām back to 220lbs, which I havenāt been in years. My strength is coming back up to. And Iām progressing rapidly with this new approach. If I am smart I will not depart from my current approach. But I still have a lot of room for experiment within certain boundaries. Now, Iām excessive by nature so I might fall off the wagon (and go back to my old ways) at one point but knowing what I know now I will just run into trouble.
I find that a lot of experienced guys come up with similar conclusions (but different approaches). For example Wendler went from an inhumane volume of work when playing coaching football to crazy intensity with Westside to the VERY conservative volume and intensity of 5/3/1. Paul Carter went from powerlifting/always go heavy training to focusing a lot more on isolation and hypertrophy technique, never pushing the big lifts.
[quote]-Sigil- wrote:
Youāve got way more training years under belt than me so Iām hesitant to do anything thatās not all ātransform physique immediatley, radical strength/power, explosive gains etc.ā. But itās hard to tell if my body is ābreaking downā or I just need a few more off days, recover, and then go back to heavy lifts frequently. I mean, I should be able to train this way until at last late 30s right? [/quote]
No. Age doesnāt have anything to do with it. I believe that some people have the genetic predisposition to be able to handle frequent heavy lifting and training volume. These guys have big joints, thick bones and tendons, they often have a big wide head too. Just built for heavy physical labor. Their nervous system doesnāt break from the stress of constant heavy lifting.
We look at elite strength and power athletes and think āwell if they can lift heavy twice a day everyday surely I can lift heavy 5 days a weekā. But it doesnāt work like that. Elite athletes went through a Darwinian selection process. Every year training became harder and every year those who were not well suited to handle that level of stress were dropped because their body didnāt progress and could handle the increase in training stress. Those you see at the top are the result of a 10+ year selection process.
Those who are at the top are not there because of the training they doā¦ they are there because their body is able to handle the training they do.
Youāve been telling me for almost two years now that you arenāt progressing. That you canāt get back to your best level. At that point I would say NO just taking a few days off will not get you back on track. It is possible that for a few months because of certain circumstances or novelty, etc. you were able to handle a very high training stress and thrive on it. But clearly you canāt do that now. I would put more thrust on what is happening over a 2 years period as over a 4 months one.
[quote]-Sigil- wrote:
Re: your style now, the workouts seem quite easy? On your CNS heavy days, you ramp up to a 2-3RM at 6-8 RPE and no volume work 5x5 or clusters, etc?
Ramp up 2-3RM bench, feel activated, done. Ramp up 2-3RM trap bar dead, beast mode activated, done. Go home [/quote]
Heavy days is 8RPE, not 6. And a 8RPE for strength work is not āeasyāā¦ to me itās the heaviest weight I can lift without grinding for 2 or 3 reps. Which might be only about 10-20lbs off of my 2-3RM. On some days where I feel strong I might go a bit harder, but not that often.
And really what is the goal of training? To look hardcore by training more and suffering more than others or getting results?
[quote]-Sigil- wrote:
Muscle days do you warm up or go straight to working weight? So cable flyes and hammer strength press machine, keep going until failure, static holds, rest pause. One set only. [/quote]
I do one or two feel sets basically just to allow me to select a weight that feels good. I will do a second set if I wasnāt satisfied by my first set.
[quote]-Sigil- wrote:
These sessions would literally take 30 min like you said. How I train now (rings, handstand pushups, chins for 10-15 minutes, then layers) this would hardly seem like training session!
[/quote]
Are you progressing like you want with your current approach? Do you have the body and strength you want? Have your rate of progress been satisfactory?
You donāt have to follow what I just wrote. Iām telling you what Iām doing and getting better results than at any point over the past 2-3 years and feeling great and energetic during the day.
If you like to pride yourself on how much work you do, how long you spend in the gym and how much harder you work than everybody else in the gym you will not like what I wrote. I canāt do anything about that. That is your psychological mindset and I canāt change it.
Letās take the test of extremes:
Would you ratherā¦
a) Train 10 minutes a day and gain 20lbs of muscle, get leaner and be 30% stronger in a year
b) Train harder than everybody else 3 hours a day and gain 10lbs of muscle, stay the same body fat in a year and be 10% stronger.
I know that this is not a real situation but your true āgutā answer will tell you if you put more importance on getting results or looking hardcore or like the hardest worker in the gym.
If you value effort over results I canāt do anything for you.
And yes I do train hard. Iām not saying to go easy. Iām saying that you must plan your work smartly to avoid running into trouble.
My āmuscle workā sets are excruciating. Most people would stop the set at about 30% of where I take the set. I decided to put the premium on going as hard as humanly possible instead of doing more work. I tried 3 sets per exercise and I just felt unable to perform on that 3rd set after 2 sets like I do. Like I had no fight in me, so that 3rd set would contribute nothing to growth and would cause unnecessary fatigue. Oddly after 2 hard sets like that I can do 1-2 more on another exerciseā¦ I canāt explain why but it just does.
My ramps are heavy work. Since you donāt have the same strength level as I do you might want to do a few more sets (without being excessive) simply because you canāt ramp up as high. But it shouldnāt be crazy workā¦ maybe doing 2-3 more sets with your 3RM at 8RPE.
[quote]D.E.N.N.I.S wrote:
[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Not really to be honest. I find that 3 heavy days might be too much for long term progression and it would be hard to recover optimally with the muscle days thrown in there.
I feel that everybody should begin with 2 heavy days. Before assuming that you can do more, try it out with 2 heavy days per week to see how your body responds. Donāt assume that you can do more. Itās not always better. I had worse results when using the system with 3 heavy days (felt run down at the end of the week, higher blood pressure, felt a bit lethargic).
The way I like to start the split is as such:
DAY 1 - CNS day 1 (one upper body push and one lower body)
DAY 2 - Pressing muscles hypertrophy (3 shoulders and 2 triceps exercises)
DAY 3 - Pulling muscles hypertrophy (2 lats, 1 mid-back, , 2 biceps exercises)
DAY 4 - CNS day 2 (one upper body push and one lower body)
DAY 5 - Legs/Traps hypertrophy (2 leg exercises, 2 traps exercises)
DAY 6 - Pressing muscle hypertrophy (3 chest exercises, 2 triceps exercises)
DAY 7 - OFF
It is possible to do 3 CNS days but with only 2 heavy daysā¦ the 3rd one would focus either on technique or acceleration/explosiveness. [/quote]
Thanks for the detailed reply CT but my question wasnāt clearly written, sorry. I lift 4 days a week and was asking basically if there was a good way to split up say one heavy upper day, one heavy lower day, a muscle upper day and s muscle full body day. After a few days went by, I rethought it and am thinking about doing this basic setup:
Day 1 - full body (military press, row, squat)
Day 2 - double stimulation for target muscles from day 1
Day 3- off
Day 4 - full body (bench, chins, deadlift)
Day 5 - double stimulation for day 4 target muscles
Day 6/7 - off
In this setup I would ramp the heavy upper body lifts to a solid 2-3RM in 5ish sets and the rows/chins would be paired with the bench/military for 3-5 reps but not ramped. The double stim days would be 3-5 circuits in about 15 mins each per target muscle group. Less emphasis on the legs these days because I lift in my basement and donāt have a lot of isolation options for legs.
If you have any thoughts on this Iād of course appreciate them. I donāt start it until the end of the week. Thank you. [/quote]
CT - in addition to my question above, another auestion I wanted to ask about double stimulation ā are submax pump circuits (like in your original DS article) better when in a caloric deficit as opposed to the one to two sets to failure approach you are currently using?
Incredible and honest insights thanks CT. Itās a wake up call yes, but I enjoy ring/bodyweight training too much to give up. And honestly my 10-15 minutes work is not THAT disruptive (one ring pullup into inverted hold for 5-10 seconds, lower into stradle back lever, then straddle front lever, handstand pushups, some tucked ring rows, repeat 3-5 times). Sometimes I scale down to legs tucked positionsā¦it might be the weightlifting afterwards that causes more ādamageā
I think the barbell portion will be like a workout you approved some time ago (pick one main movement, ramp to 2-3 RM @ 8 RPE, -10-20% do 3-5x5, then do some assistance exercise for a few sets, possibly to fatigue). This might be a helpful change from the layer (hitting max reps in clusters pretty intense) and focusing on explosion, solid form with conservative weights will make it different enough rather than just semantics (and removal of rest pause on big barbell lifts)
haha excuse the stubbornness, if my results continue to frustrate/feel negative impact on body I will move over to your current style proper. the muscle days are great (will use on the assistance/isolation after main lift), extreme focus and hitting failure (iāve done 3 sets only per body part before) definitely create gainsā¦
Hey CT!
I was very fascinated about your idea of seperating CNS and muscle days. I would have some questions about it if you donāT mind. The first is, do you (or where would you) use mTOR style reps? In the warmup of CNS days? In the warmup of muscle days? Or both ? (I would guess the muscle days but would like your opinion)
In the heavy days do you use big barbell lifts only?
Also, in the non-traumatic mostly isolation work, do you use db complund movements (db bench or row for instance), machine work (like pulldown or chest press machines) or stricly isolation like flyes, lat raises, etc?
(And if so what isolation do you use for lats, since besides pullover or straight arm pulldowns I couldnt think of moreā¦)
Thanks in advance, this seperated training looks very fascinating.
mTOR reps (going slow on the eccentric portion of the reps) fall in the āmuscleā category and can be performed during the hypertrophy/failure sets. In that case you start the hypertrophy sets by doing mTOR reps and as fatigue builds up you switch to regular reps to be able to continue doing reps before hitting failure. OR you could do the sets that way:
- Do mTOR-style reps to failure.
- Rest 10 seconds
- Using the same weight to regular reps to failure
Yes or you could use the DB variations.
I donāt do compound DB lifts.
Any isolation exercises
Compound movements on machines or cable stations only.
What you want is to minimize the neural component on these days
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@Christian_Thibaudeau
I sorta asked this two days ago but then the forum was revamped and the formatting got screwy so it is pretty hard to read above.
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For the muscle days, when is it more appropriate to use one or two sets to contractile failure versus 10 to 15 minutes of constant tension pump work as laid out in the original double stimulation article?
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Is this style of training doable while doing the 5:2 diet?
Thank you.
Thanks for the detailed answer CT. Appreciate it. I was thinking about this method today, and - If you dont mind- I would like to ask three more questions:
On the CNS days, if you pick a dumbbell lift, would you still use the previously mentioned parameters (2-3 RM 8 RPE) or would you go a bit higher (2-3x heavy 4-5 reps, i would say because of the stabilizing muscles involved, but mostly cause most gyms donāt have big enough dumbbellsā¦)
What rep ranges do you use to failure on the muscle days?
If you had a lagging muscle group, how would you adress it in this system? I would guess double stimulation and an extra muscle day for that muscle would be logical but if that cant be, what would you say would be the option? Adding some work for that muscle on one of the heavy days (ie. Adding some growth factor work or one set to failure flyes for a lagging chest) or just doing double stim. The day after the heavy work/both heavy day and attack it a third time on a muscle day?
Thanks in advance for your insight, I am very fascinated by this new method of yours.
Iām burning out on the new layer system - I went with it too long too. Completely my fault.
I was going to go back to the power look program after doing the new layer system. I think the new layer system definitely takes its toll, but thinking of it the other program I had in mind is still too much!
I want to only use the layer system very sparingly only once or twice a year.
Now Iām interested in this new approach you are having - primarily because I always feel like Iām running on fumes. The heavy training is a large contributing factor to this - no doubt - but itās hard to give up. Thus I will change it!!
Let me see if I understood your approach:
I know exercise selection is individual - but I need guidance in where we are at exercise wise for muscle days. Triceps kickback vs tricep extension vs cable pushdown vs CG Bench vs Dips > all of them different level - And I understand we are around the extension/pushdown level - NOT CG Bench/Dips level.
DAY 1 - (CNS) Front Squat & Military Press
DAY 2 - (MUSCLE Press) 1x Arnold Press, 1x Scott Press, 1x Rear Delt Raises - 1x Cable Pushdown, 1x Overhead triceps extension
DAY 3 - (MUSCLE Back) 1x Pull downs, 1x DB-rows with elbows out and tilted body - 1x Kelso Shrug - 1x Biceps Curls, 1x Hammer Curls
DAY 4 - (CNS) Bench Press & Romanian Deadlift (Ramp to easy 2-3RM)
DAY 5 - (MUSCLE Leg/trap) 1x DB/BW Bulgarian split squat, 1x DB-Romanian Deadlift (too much compound? If I just look at leg-curls I get an irritated hamstring - if I just look at leg extensions I get sore knees) - 1x Kaworski shrug, 1x one armed shrug
DAY 6 - (MUSCLE Press) 1x Dumbbell flye, 1x push-ups on stands for larger ROM, 1x one arm sideways chest press - 1x Triceps pushdowns, 1x tricep extensions
DAY 7 - OFF
CNS days: Ramping up to 2-3 easy RM - using 5-7 sets in ramp
MUSCLE: 1-2 feeler sets and then 1 set to contraction failure (maybe 2 sets if first set felt off, but an exception not a rule) - reps donāt matter much, can be 6, can be 30? Intensity-techniques can be used - such as slow eccentric, drop-set, rest-pause, holds. Total sets of ALL exercises in one workout is not to exceed 6-8. The sets are taken to contractile failure and beyond.
Are some of the muscle exercises chosen too much of a compound-movement? E.g. romanian deadlift with lighter weight I generally feel it very good in hams / glutes.
CT,
Iām coming off 7 weeks on the New Layer System, which has been outstanding for me. Iām one of those people who wants to work my butt off in the gym, even though my recovery capabilities have proven that to be less effective, personally. Iāve been much more regulated on this system, so thank you for putting it out there.
This alternating MUSCLE/CNS approach is intriguing and something Iād love to test out for myself, but as I lift in a home gym, I have no cables or machines to get that variety of isolation exercises.
Would you estimate it can be pulled off with only DBs and bands, or would you advise steering clear unless I could get the proper equipment?
The last few posts (including mine) mentioning how ādrainingā layers style isā¦question - what is your nutrition/stimulant/intraworkout?
Iāve tried fasted (with bcaas), fasted (with HBCD + aminos), fed, stim + no stim, basically every combo. And definitely realized that intraworkout is basically essential in this type of training.
Intraworkout as in carbs + aminos at least. Otherwise, your muscles donāt even swell and the pump can be lost after the ramp or mid cluster. Which indicates shitty performance not to mention I āfryā my body doing this kind of training when my muscles donāt egorge after every set (next day look small/flat/depleted instead of full)
Iāve also tried chocolate milk (and plain milk) as intraworkout (after several lactose pills) and itās been hit/miss. Some days I get super sleepy drinking it during workout and others it keeps me engaged, but never the pump swellage that I got from something like Plazma for instance.
So, high dose intra + layers = fastest non-roided progress. Btw CT, you have youtube videos of your cluster training (I see many concepts applied to layersā¦though you look much maturer/impressive nowadays haha)
Honestly I never really cared about the pump when I was doing layers stuff. Just genuinely didnāt pay attention to it. And stuff like 20 minute muscle builder, with the AMRAP set, actually produced a better pump consistently than any layer variant I used.
But that said, beta-alanine + HBCD + Peptopro was what I used with layer stuff, and Plazmaās a better option that I didnāt use.
I basically got burnt out with layers, even cycling between the āstrengthā and āsizeā layer setups in the past. I just hit a point where I wasnāt growing, wasnāt getting stronger, and where I felt drained almost all the time. Now, my technique was really precise, and neurally, I was making really good lifts.
It just took awhile for me to grasp the idea that you can use stuff like layers to become really efficient at using the muscle you have, but itās not the best tool to increase muscle cross-sectional area. For me, I need a higher rep range to make any changes there. Theyāre both important in different ways.
If/when Iām actually looking at increasing my 1/2/3RM performance in a lift again, layers are a great tool. Just seemed to be better for āpeakingā strength rather than ābuildingā strength.
Hey L0ReZ, I would disagree with you here. My experience with layers tell me something otherwise. Iām also currently using the new layer system and I can say that though the first few workouts with layers take your neural efficiency through roof but after that you really peak on the strength you have corresponding to your muscle mass. And the next performance increases doesnāt come just in increased poundage but also increased reps per set (this is all autoregulated). I noticed considerable changes in muscle density and cross-section, though some of it could be improved myogenic tone but not all. Layers change the look of your physique in just 2 weeks that other programs take 6 to 8 weeks.
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I agree with you here jasper41. You get neurally efficient very fast, and the only way for the body to push more weight under that amount of stress is to build more muscle - and fastā¦
Resurrecting an old thread because I found this workout interesting for max hypertrophy.
What exercises do you reccomend for the muscle days. I know machines and isolation but do you mind giving me some insight into examples that you favor for different muscle groups? And do u still recommend one or two sets to failure or would you now favor some other approach?
Really enjoy CT taking the time to explain his experiences, lessons learned, and evolution of his personal training principles.
Thank you for the openness and honesty.
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