No need to apologize mate, I have periods of time where I am active and other times where I do exactly what you do, quick scan read and move on. Oh yes and I roll my eyes at a lot of things too. LOL
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@Andrewgen_Receptors @davemccright you were both correct that Fortitude Training is well-cited and seems very similar to Meadows’ stuff. On the other hand, it has got to be the most confusing plan I’ve ever read! I think I need to digest the sample layouts he has in there a little more. It’s just a mess of sprinting around to everything in the gym in my head.
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He gives pdfs for free of how to lay out your training program on his site. Print those out and site his examples from his book to help guide you on laying it out. It really confused me at first too. I needed to read through it a few times to really wrap my head around it. Scott has some great videos on YouTube that help explain his philosophy. It’s really a breeze once you understand it.
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Sounds like a plan. I haven’t really dug around the site yet, so I’ll check it out. Thanks again.
You still enjoy doing it?
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I felt this way too lol, but i made a template following the original program mostly; i can share it if you’re interested, it says what set type it is, what rep range you’re aiming for, and what muscles should fall in which section.
Yeah, it is kind of like this tbh. But most exercises are just pump work so they can be fit in with any order. You really only have 2-3 exercises that are equipment dependent each day
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Oh yes! It’s basically my go-to Bodybuilding routine. It really never gets boring either because there’s so much variety in the training and there’s a lot of auto regulation that helps prevent burnout.
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I’d love to see it if you don’t mind. I’m a simple kind of fool.
That’s the key!
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I’d like to ask, what is the benefit to gain ratio of doing fortitude training as written (long workouts lots of warming up body parts) with the added frequency vs putting his workouts into a split
So putting all chest exercises on one day, back another etc.
I do like the look of it but it does seem like I’d spend longer moving around/ warming up than actually working out.
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Well the frequency is really a big piece of why I think it’s effective. It’s a lot of frequency for every body part, but everything is done to a very recoverable degree by only being 4 days and mixing the loading methods of the sets. Honestly, my warmups are fairly minimalist and most exercises are performed either supersetted or “zig zagged” so you can just warm up those body parts together. I think you serve to sell the program, and thus, your gains short by trying to split things up when that was never the intention for the program.
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@TrainForPain @rugby_lifting ill answer questions when i get back from grocery shopping
The forum wouldn’t allow me to upload the raw file so I went the google docs route. The first link is to the excel sheet - I didn’t clear my selected exercises but you can download and change them as needed. Admittedly, I did not put any options for “thigh” exercises because I do not see or understand the difference between “Thighs” and “Quads/Hams” - so this is a change from the original program. I also added in direct glute work because the program left it out as written.
If either of these does not load properly, please let me know - I haven’t shared documents via google drive before
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Thanks man!
I’m headed home and will check these out tomorrow or Monday. I really appreciate the help!
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I’ll throw another question out to this esteemed group: my heart rate comes down significantly when I don’t lift for a few days. My resting heart rate and my “active” heart rate both. Is this a sign I’m not recovering with my normal workload? I’ve tracked it these last few trips. Theoretically it should even be coming up because of the flights and the lack of sleep and the extra drinking.
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Apologies in advance, I’m going to spam a few links here - trying to list them in order of importance.
In short, your resting heart rate will likely be higher to help facilitate CNS recovery. Your breathing rate will be up as well while your body is still recovering (coincides with heart rate for obvious reasons). This doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t recovering, it actually means that you are still recovering; this also doesn’t mean that you aren’t recovered enough… To clarify: Your Heart Rate Variability (variance between individual heart beats is the best way to gauge recovery. This tends to coincide with a slightly elevated heart rate.
I have a fitness tracker watch (Polar Fitness Ignite, costs like $130 and doesn’t track your location) that tracks all my sleep metrics. From duration to stages, quality to heart rate, breathing rate and heart rate variability… it’s kind of a badass at gauging your CNS recovery as it averages these metrics over the past 28 days so you have a good assessment of your current state of recovery (everyone’s HRV is different).
Just because you are recovering, doesn’t mean you aren’t recovered enough.
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That’s how I interpret it myself.
A workout makes it go “up.” Then a night of sleep makes it go “down.” A tougher workout drives it up more than an easier workout. A night of sleep and a day off (or I guess the 2nd sleep?) drops it down lower.
Over the course of a training cycle my resting heart rate creeps up and up, so both resting and active are elevated. Then I do a little deloaded, easier week and after a couple days things calm down and after that HR returns to normal.
Too much frequency, or I guess workouts too close together, mess me up quicker.
But for You, and your recovery/workload, do you feel any negative effects as your HR climbs? 10% swings are normal. Once my shit gets up like 15% it starts messing with my sleep, appetite and then my mood.
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Good stuff!
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This is awesome, gents! Thank you both.
@Andrewgen_Receptors @FlatsFarmer you raise good points.
I really like the concept that still recovering doesn’t mean not recovered enough. That’s a great consideration; we don’t wait for all conditions to be perfect all the time.
I wear an Apple Watch, but I don’t wear it to sleep. I probably should a couple times at least to establish some baseline.
In terms of what I notice personally relative to heart rate, that’s a good question; I only just now started paying any attention in general.
I am finding lately (last year and a half or so) that I simply cannot do the higher volume training at the frequency I was getting away with before. Now this could be for a lot of “non-gym” reasons:
- I just simply don’t care as much; big factor.
- Travel is back in force.
- I’m not willing to eat big.
- I have less time overall, so I’m just squeezing stuff in.
- Blah, blah. Point being: I don’t think it’s because “everything I don’t want to do is impossible.”
Now, to what do I actually notice? My joints get achy and sore, and I start moving like I’m 100.
My motivation drops (but see reasons above) when I lift more than a couple days and I don’t want to go to the gym; when I don’t go for a few days, or just do hotel workouts, then I really want to go. That’s also just simple human nature: I want whichever is novel.
I don’t really lift in a way I can use strength as a gauge, but I do start staying “sleepy” through more of my workout when I’m on, say, my third in a row; like I’ll never get in the groove and push anything that day.
I swear I get fatter when I do 3-4 days in a row, then lean out when all I do is go sit in a movie theater with my son.
Anyway, sometimes just writing it out helps you see your own nonsense I guess. I really appreciate both your insights and recommendations here.
Just looking at it, it seems the next three logical steps are:
- Track my HR metrics against my gym performance/ my feelz.
- Baseline my sleep metrics/ HRV.
- Accept that I’m not a special snowflake that needs to be doing more volume/ frequency than everyone recommends.
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Cheers for these, I’ll look Monday but I’ve got my laptop on.
I’m tempted to run fortitude for a bit but want to be in a calorie surplus when I do.
At the moment I’m 5kg lighter than pre surgery but I look fatter. So in that month I’ve lost 5kg of what looks like muscle and have added some belly fat. I feel like I look like I did
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I can’t access these randomly.
I’m not sure what you mean by “randomly”. Are you able to access them at all? It might have to wait until I get home depending the issue
Sorry, randomly as on my work computer it won’t let me, then on my phone it lets me log on to Google but then says the docs are unavailable.
That’s random as I use Google docs a lot.
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