New Training Questions

Training
182

[quote]Thunderstruck88 wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
partymonster975 wrote:
What exercises do you suggest for someone with a weak core to start with?

This is one situation where I would not hate planks and side supports.

Thib,

I understand that plank and side plank progressions may not be something you’d be particularly fond of, but can progressions also be worthwhile so long as the increase in degree of difficulty keeps the duration of the iso holds to about 30 seconds or under?

While there are likely many ways to potentially progress these, a few examples off the top of my head would be

prone plank: elevated with three points of support and a DB or KB in the “free-hanging” arm forcing you to resist rotation; feet on a Swiss ball with hands on the floor + stepping off the ball with one leg at a time and reaching out to the side to touch the floor with the foot; etc.

side plank: top leg abducted; bottom leg flexed at the hip; feet elevated; dynamic leg swings while maintaining rigid posture, etc.[/quote]

Sure sure… the concept of planks and side supports is sound. It’s just a matter of insufficient loading. So if you can find a way to load the movement so that you can’t hold for longer than 45-60 seconds, it becomes a good exercise.

183

[quote]threewhitelights wrote:
Question on blast isometrics…

So I’m planning my next shoulder/tri/chest specialization phase, with the goal being to bring my push press max up for competition (strongman). I start slowing down around nose level and fail right above my forehead, so I was thinking about doing some iso holds (pushing against pins) after my DE Military Press for assistance.

After seeing the video, I’m considering doing blast iso’s instead, as it seems like that would better stimulate the CNS without destroying it for my max effort day. You used them mostly as an activation exercise, but would it make sense to do 3-4 sets of 3 at different heights (nose to forehead) right after some speed reps?

Also, I’ve based a lot of my training around what you write here and in your books, but I was wondering with the way all your views on training have changed and advanced, will you be writing another book at some point?[/quote]

I might, right now I have a lot on my plate, but never say never.

As for your vertical pressing work you could do:

DAY 1 HEAVY ACTIVATION

A. Top half shoulder press from pins (from just above the top of your head)

  • Ramp up to one maximal set of 3 reps (ramping means that you always use the same number of reps but gradually increase the weight ntil you reach your max for that number of reps)

B. Standing military press
Sets of 3 reps starting at 70%, ramp up to the max you can lift for 3 reps

C. Push press
Sets of 3 reps… start with 20lbs less than you ended up on the military and ramp up to the max you can do for 3 reps

DAY 2 DYNAMIC ACTIVATON

A. Military press blast iso (from shin to eye level)
Sets of 3 reps starting with 60% of your max, work up to the max weight that you can SLAM and HOLD for 1-2 seconds on the pins

B. Military press 75-80% of your max for sets of 2 explosive reps. Rest for around 30 seconds and stop the sets when you lose speed

C. High incline bench press
Sets of 3 reps starting at 70%, ramp up to the max you can lift for 3 reps

DAY 3 CONTRAST ACTIVATION

A1. Miitary press twitch reps (high speed partial reps from mouth level to eyes level)
Sets of 5-9 seconds, ramp up the weight until you stop to lose speed

A2. Push press
Sets of 3 reps, start at 70% of your max and ramp up until you reach your max for 3 reps

B1. Blast iso military press
same as Day 2

B2. Military press
Sets of 3 reps, start at 70% of your max and ramp up until you reach your max for 3 reps

184

[quote]threewhitelights wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
gojira wrote:
Chris,

How tall are you, and how much do you weigh? How long were you a competitive Olympic lifter. How long ago was that?

Thanks

My favorite color is silver and I like long walks on the beach… what the heck, this is a TRAINING questions and answer forum!!!

Silver? Seriously? I’ve been taking training advice from a guy whose favorite color is silver?!?[/quote]

Yes, it’s shiny

185

Coach,

I hope this is not an injury question, I belong to the group of people who have some pain in the forearms when we release the bar after a set of straight barbell biceps curls. I could use the ez-bar to get some relief, but it will only fix the synthom, not the cause.

I’ve done some self-assesment and found that my forearm pronators are tight, could it be the cuase of this problem? Have you ever dealt with individuals with this issues? Any recommendations?

Thanks a bunch coach!

186

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
Hi Coach,

I have a question about pull-ups/chin-ups. Some of the authors here have recently been promoting bringing the chest to the bar during a chin/pull-up as appose to just bringing the head above the bar. For the life of me I can’t seem to get my chest to the bar! I can do 15+ reps no problem, but can’t get my chest to the bar even on the first rep. My question is what do I need to do to get my chest to the bar?

Thanks in advance and the video’s with you in them recently have been awesome. I especially liked your guest appearance in the Dave Tate squat video.

If any T-Nationers have any suggestions I’d greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,

Chris[/quote]

Sometimes we take this ‘full range of motion’ thing too far. The truth is that each exercise has its own ‘effective range of motion’, furthermore each individual has variations in that effective range.

If the ‘chest to the bar’ position in out of your own ‘effective range of motion’ you will not get anything more from reaching that position… in fact you might actually lose some of the training effect by negatively affecting the rest of the set.

This is NOT a permit to always cut down the range of motion, but in this specific case you are probably better off keeping doing chins the way you’ve been doing them.

187

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
usmccds423 wrote:
Hi Coach,

I have a question about pull-ups/chin-ups. Some of the authors here have recently been promoting bringing the chest to the bar during a chin/pull-up as appose to just bringing the head above the bar. For the life of me I can’t seem to get my chest to the bar! I can do 15+ reps no problem, but can’t get my chest to the bar even on the first rep. My question is what do I need to do to get my chest to the bar?

Thanks in advance and the video’s with you in them recently have been awesome. I especially liked your guest appearance in the Dave Tate squat video.

If any T-Nationers have any suggestions I’d greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,

Chris

Sometimes we take this ‘full range of motion’ thing too far. The truth is that each exercise has its own ‘effective range of motion’, furthermore each individual has variations in that effective range.

If the ‘chest to the bar’ position in out of your own ‘effective range of motion’ you will not get anything more from reaching that position… in fact you might actually lose some of the training effect by negatively affecting the rest of the set.

This is NOT a permit to always cut down the range of motion, but in this specific case you are probably better off keeping doing chins the way you’ve been doing them.

[/quote]

What if I can touch the bar with low-load sets or usually at the first few reps of a high load-set, but after that I lose some explosiveness and unable to do it anymore ?
I’m wondering what muscles are responsible for the last few centimeters of reaching the bar, they seem to get fatigued quicker than the others…? OR probably it is just the case of losing the explosive momentum ? (by explosive I mean not swinging, just explosive contraction)

188

joe1981 wrote:
When training twice a day for fat loss do you recommend two lifting sessions or one lifting, one ESW? While eating carbs only pre-workout. Thanks!

I always prefer two strength workouts , IF the individual knows what he is doing.

If he doesn’t have a clue and risk screwing himself up I recommend cardio as the second session. Come to think of it, I recommend cardio quite often!

Would changing the rep ranges from my AM to PM workouts work? 30 minute workouts two times a day and add more time as I progress? 3-4 times a week? Thanks CT!

189

I don’t know if what I amgoing to say has sense:
I feel that it’s imposible to focus on every body part at the same workout plan. So one thing I’ve made it the past (this was with HST the best gain program I made) was this:
Workout 1: 3 exercices of chest + 1 isolated of triceps.
Workout 2: 3 exercises of legs + 1 of calves + 3 of deltoid. (or deltoid + legs + calves)
Workout 3: 3 for back + 1 for biceps

So if I wanted to focus on chest, I made the following:
Monday: Workout1
Tuesday: Workout2
Wed: W3
Thu: W1
Fri: W1

But I made it from 8 to 12 reps for 3 or 4 series. So the idea it’s to progress adding weight on the same day, but not more series or reps because I got very tired. And instead of adding series I added more workout days on the part I feel I needed.
That way I could make a maintenance on the other muscles and also improved the desired part.
I’ve never made a day only for biceps and triceps.

It’s this optimal? And could it work with 5 reps?
I know it works, but I want to improve it.

So for example Workout 1 could be like:
Workout 1:
5 min cardio warm up
Chest press: 1x5 of 60% 1RM explosive concentric + 5x5+x+x of 5RM (controlling lift speed to avoid failure) so “x” means adding two series of dropsets every set.
Chest incline press: same without warm set.
Pec-deck: 1 set for pump.
Triceps with rope: 4x8+x+x of 10RM.

The good thing it has it’s that if I want to work more one body part, I simple add a day or take out a day.

I feel that dropsets (controlling failure) are very important to generate enought volume if you work with low reps. Or I am wrong?

190

Regarding the question of fatigue as sets goes on, I found a note on my workouts of 1,5 years ago.
I wrote that as the weights go up, even that i’m still able to do the same Nr. of reps. with more weight, the capacity to recover goes down, probably due to a greater anaerobic needs.
Maybe this helps?

191

Hey CT

I was wondering what your thought on ME Bulgarian Split Squat would be (i.e. ramping upto 5 sets of 5)?

Do you ever do ME single leg work or should one always do ME bilateral leg work?

Do you think doing a periodization program around single leg work (i.e. Single RDL, Lunges, etc) is optimal?

Lastly and most importantly would ME Bulgarian Split Squat have more growth potential than a box squat?

Thank you for your time.

192

Hey Coach

I wanted to know your thoughts on the following set routine I incorporated in to my chest routine this week, I was just focussing on chest for the whole workout, doing 4 exercises.
The one chest exercise that I wanted to know your thoughts on was this:

Do 5 sets of 5 reps, as soon as the 5th rep was done I would do a drop set of 5 reps and then another, so in total it was really 15 reps all together for one set.

eg. Smith Machine Bench: 297 X 5, 220 X 5, 176 X 5
Each set I would try aim for the same amount of weight used in the original, but as one knows, fatigue would set in so by the 5th set I was going for 264 x 5

I would just like to see what your thoughts would be on this type of training in my chest routine?

*My goal was just to shock my body for a few weeks as I have been doing OVT for the past month and high volume, low reps the month before.

193

Coach, if someone can only train 3 days a week due to work responsibilities and would like to gain both size and strength, what would be the best way to go about accomplishing this with only 3 days to work with?

I know that is kind of a broad question and there is more than one way to skin a cat but i was maybe looking for an outline of sorts or any suggestions on how to reach the goal given those constraints. Thank you in advance for any insight or thoughts.

194

[quote]Eazy wrote:
Coach, if someone can only train 3 days a week due to work responsibilities and would like to gain both size and strength, what would be the best way to go about accomplishing this with only 3 days to work with?

I know that is kind of a broad question and there is more than one way to skin a cat but i was maybe looking for an outline of sorts or any suggestions on how to reach the goal given those constraints. Thank you in advance for any insight or thoughts.[/quote]

DAY 1 - Whole body strength
Pick 5 basic lifts:

  • one deadlift OR squat variation
  • one bench variation
  • one chin-up or pull-up variation
  • one overhead pressing variation
  • one rowing variation

Use antagonist pairings (except for the squat or deadlift which are stand-alone)
eg.

A. Sumo deadlift
B1. Floor press
B2. Bent over barbell row
C1. Push press
C2. Parallel grip pull-ups

Keep your sets in the 3-5 reps range… well pick 3, 4 or 5 and stick with it for the whole workout. Start at 60% of your maximum and add weight at every set until your reach your max for the selected number of reps, when you accomplish that, stop the exercise.

Always lift with as much acceleration as you can.

DAY 2. UPPER BODY
You can use more of a bodybuilding-type approach, although I still think that low reps are the best for size, not only strength. Pick 1 or 2 exercises per muscle group (one main, one assistance or isolation if you feel like you need it)…Still use antagonist pairings

eg.

A1. Flat DB bench press
A2. Pulley seated rowing
B1. Standing DB shoulder press
B2. Lat pulldown
C1. Floor DB flies
C2. Read delts raise
D1. Re-start lateral raise (laterals seated in the middle of a bench, the dumbbells on each of your sides, starting on the bench for every rep)
D2. Shoulder-width upright row 6’’ away from your body
E1. Preacher curl
E2. Lying DB triceps extension

I would still recommend relatively low reps (4 to 6… again pick 4, 5 or 6), start at 60% and gradually work up to the max weight you can handle for the selected number of reps.

DAY 3 LOWER BODY

Unless using isolation exercises it is not advised to do antagonist pairings for the lower body because the main compound lower body exercises involve all the main muscle groups in the lower section.

So a workout would look like this:

A. Back squat (if you picked the deadlift on Day) or Deadlift (if you picked squat on Day 1)
B. Goodmorning
C1. Leg press
C2. Lying leg curl (since we have one iso exercise, we can probably use antagonist pairings)
D1. Glute-ham raise, reverse hyper or weighted back extension
D2. Leg extension
E. Barbell hip trust (thanks Brad, it’s part of my arsenal now)

Same reps and sets recommendation as for the lower body.

195

[quote]Diluted56 wrote:
Hey Coach

I wanted to know your thoughts on the following set routine I incorporated in to my chest routine this week, I was just focussing on chest for the whole workout, doing 4 exercises.
The one chest exercise that I wanted to know your thoughts on was this:

Do 5 sets of 5 reps, as soon as the 5th rep was done I would do a drop set of 5 reps and then another, so in total it was really 15 reps all together for one set.

eg. Smith Machine Bench: 297 X 5, 220 X 5, 176 X 5
Each set I would try aim for the same amount of weight used in the original, but as one knows, fatigue would set in so by the 5th set I was going for 264 x 5

I would just like to see what your thoughts would be on this type of training in my chest routine?

*My goal was just to shock my body for a few weeks as I have been doing OVT for the past month and high volume, low reps the month before. [/quote]

I’m not a big fan of drop sets. The create more fatigue than anything (which is why a lot of people wrongfully believe that they are super effective) but don’t contribute that much more to building muscle…

I prefer to do rest-pause sets. Taking your own example, a set might look like this:

297lbs x 5, rest 10 seconds, 297lbs x max reps (probably 3), rest 10 seconds, 297 x max reps (probably 1)

196

[quote]nickj_777 wrote:
Hey CT

I was wondering what your thought on ME Bulgarian Split Squat would be (i.e. ramping upto 5 sets of 5)?[/quote]

While our program will include basic guidelines, when ramping up I don’t like prescribing a number of sets. You start at 60% of your max and gradually work your way up until you reach the max weight you can do for the prescribed number of reps. If you are in good form, you might be able to ramp fo 6-7 sets (sometimes more) and one some days you might only get 3. That is the beauty of ramping: the volume and the weight are automatically adjusted to what you can do on that day.

[quote]nickj_777 wrote:
Do you ever do ME single leg work or should one always do ME bilateral leg work? [/quote]

If you mean go heavy on unilateral movements, yes, I do that (when I really hate some I put it in his program), but it is not a necessarily a max effort (going up to a 1 rep max). But I’ve done and prescribed a lot of times bulgarian split squat, single leg press, step-ups and lunges for low reps-heavy weights.

[quote]nickj_777 wrote:
Do you think doing a periodization program around single leg work (i.e. Single RDL, Lunges, etc) is optimal? [/quote]

By themselves, no. As the main tools in a lower body program, no. But at equal ratios to bilateral work, yes.

Although there is one case where a phase focusing on lowe body unilateral work is effective: as a deload. Not having a bar on your spine helps the CNS regenerate and single limb movements generally put much less straight on the lowe back and spine.

[quote]nickj_777 wrote:
Lastly and most importantly would ME Bulgarian Split Squat have more growth potential than a box squat?
[/quote]

For long-limbed individuals, probably. For guys with shorter legs, no.

BTW, THANKS FOR SPLITTING UP YOUR QUESTIONS SO CLEARLY. IT MAKES IT MUCH EASIER FOR ME TO ORGANIZE MY ANSWERS. AND YES I AM WRITTING IN CAPS SO THAT OTHERS WILL PICK UP ON IT!!!

197

CT

How do you approach finding appropriate volume loads for new athletes coming to you who also have to deal with long and hard conditioning/field practices (say, football)? How do you work from the starting point?

What are the indicators or benchmarks you favor to determine whether an athlete should increase volume or load? Particularly if you do not have full control over all aspects of outside-of-the-weight-room training (as in say a collegiate/pro football player)?

Yes, I know that usually collegiate athletes have a S/C coach that oversees them and talks with the coaching staff. I’m wondering for a general approach.

198

[quote]joe1981 wrote:
Would changing the rep ranges from my AM to PM workouts work? 30 minute workouts two times a day and add more time as I progress? 3-4 times a week? Thanks CT!
[/quote]

It’s more about autoregulation and activation.

Train the same muscle group(s) on the two sessions.

The first session should be mostly activation work:

  • twitch reps
  • blast isometrics
  • explosive lifting
  • jumps and throws
  • heavy partial lifts from the stretch-relax position (e.g. bench press from pins 6’’ from the chest)
  • Sets of 2-3 explosive reps with 80-85% of your max
  • variations of the olympic lifts

The second session should make use of autoregulation by using ‘force spectrum loading’ (ramping while focusing on accelerating each rep as much as you can).

  • Do sets of 5 reps
  • Start with 60% of your max on the lift
  • Add weight progressively on each set, when you can’t add more weight, stop the exercise.
  • Basically at the conclusion of every set you have two choices: add weight or stop if you can’t.
199

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
CT

How do you approach finding appropriate volume loads for new athletes coming to you who also have to deal with long and hard conditioning/field practices (say, football)? How do you work from the starting point?

What are the indicators or benchmarks you favor to determine whether an athlete should increase volume or load? Particularly if you do not have full control over all aspects of outside-of-the-weight-room training (as in say a collegiate/pro football player)?

Yes, I know that usually collegiate athletes have a S/C coach that oversees them and talks with the coaching staff. I’m wondering for a general approach.
[/quote]

With autoregulation it is SO EASY!!!

  1. Pick your intensity zone for that day (e.g 5 reps)

  2. Start an exercise with 60% (true starting point regardless of the intensity zone, unless it is super high reps, which you shouldn’t use anyway) of your max and do the selected number of reps (5), always focusing on lifting with as much acceleration as you can with the selected weight

  3. At the conclusion of each set you can either add more weight (if the set was complete and all reps were solid) or stop the exercise (if you can’t complete the number of reps, can’t add more weight on the next set or are starting to see technique problems)

With this method the volume and load will always be adjusted to the athlete’s capacity on that day. If he is in great condition after a few days of rest, he might ramp up for 6-7 sets.

If he is coming to the gym after a track session he might only be able to get 3.

But regardless of how many sets he does and what top weight he reaches, the effort will be maximal (optimal) for the capacities he has on that day.

200

Hey CT-

I normally eat a complete meal(F+P+C) a couple hours before a workout. Alpha-GPC in the window before my workout. After my stomach feels empty, I take about 1/2 cup(18g protein) Surge Recovery pre-workout. I’m about to start using Surge Workout Fuel this week. Should I stop taking the Surge Recovery pre-workout? Should I still take Surge Recovery post-workout, but with some Surge Workout Fuel mixed in?

Thanks in advance

201

[quote]toots27mkc wrote:
Hey CT-

I normally eat a complete meal(F+P+C) a couple hours before a workout. Alpha-GPC in the window before my workout. After my stomach feels empty, I take about 1/2 cup(18g protein) Surge Recovery pre-workout. I’m about to start using Surge Workout Fuel this week. Should I stop taking the Surge Recovery pre-workout? Should I still take Surge Recovery post-workout, but with some Surge Workout Fuel mixed in?

Thanks in advance
[/quote]

Surge Workout fuel 40 minutes before training
Surge Recovery 10-15 minutes before training and during the workout (until Anaconda is available)
Whey protein only post-workout (you can have carbs 60 minutes after the workout once catecholamine levels have dropped down and you can produce insulin optimally again).