I’m as big a fan as the next guy of train smart, train hard, train short, but these workouts are seriously taking me like 30 minutes.
Is this normal? I’m feeling like I need the whole 1 hour gym time to accomplish anything, although it’s possible that’s just been bred into me.
The QD workouts are all about quality. I could’ve easily written the workouts to last an hour or longer, but that’s not the most productive way to train the total body 4x/week. I don’t know where you are in the program, but don’t jump to any conclusions. After a few weeks of this type of training, you won’t be upset by the 30 minute time-frame of the workouts. Remember, I always recommend trainees to stay as fresh as possible in order to frequently train muscle groups. As Staley says, “Don’t seek fatigue!”
Let us know how your progress goes with the program.
I’m just starting week 3 of QD and it averages me 30-50 minutes per day that I go to the gym. The only day that really gets me hurting/groaning is the Endurance day so I can see where my weakness is. However I do my damndest to not give in on those days and at least knock out 23 reps. I know it’s cheating a bit, but by the time I do those (usually squats since I love going heavy on Mondays) I can barely walk, start cramping up, and my legs go numb when I walk up the stairs on the way home.
Chad, I love this program. I’ve upped my strength by about 10-20lbs per week on the Max Effort day/monday and am shooting for some personal records today.
Not to flame you but it seems that ALL CW’s programs get this response by someone.
I cant help but think that people are just not getting a high enough amount of intensity in the short amount of time. When someone is used to going an hour or more to hit say back and bi’s then they will naturally not attack the weights the same as if they only had a few minutes. They down ramp the intensity inorder to go the whole hour.
It may take a bit of getting used to and some retraint, but if you do CW’s programs as laid out. Being sure you are giving all you got in the short amount of time alloted you will learn to love them and get great gains in size and strength.
Hope that helps, and let us know how QD works out for you.
Phill
Gotta agree with Phil here. If the workout seems too easy up the weight. The first week I did QD I felt it was too easy, so I set what normally would be pretty crazy increases for the second week and it felt just about right, though it still seemed a bit easy (aside from legs going numb after strength endurance day).
Week 3 I’m going as heavy as think is possible and still finding I might be undercutting it a bit, but the increases are phenomenal and I do feel worked afterwords, though not thoroughly exhausted like a full hour plus at the gym. It’s refreshing.
Not to thread jack, but does anyone (Chad?) have recommendations for cycling through the various programs (QD/WestSide/EDT/oneliftperday/etc)? I had great success doing EDT for a couple of months and then one lift a day for about three months. Now I am going to go FB 3x / week for at least 2 months. Still, I feel that I am randomly wandering through these programs and am thus not tying them together or arranging them optimally.
Bastard F*ck Guy
Why so few reps per set on the speed day (6 reps of 3)? Given the low weight (18rm), why not do at least 6 or 8 reps per set?
I had the same impression of his TTT cycle. The workouts only took about 30-45min, but were very efficient. It was nice to get out so fast, due to the conjestion in my gym.
La’
Redsol1
[quote]dermo wrote:
Why so few reps per set on the speed day (6 reps of 3)? Given the low weight (18rm), why not do at least 6 or 8 reps per set?[/quote]
The idea is to generate a high amount of speed. You don’t want to tire yourself by doing too many reps. It’s just like the Westside method and the reaons they do sets of 2 or 3 reps on speed squats and speed benches.