Hey CT,
Ive been doing the Farmers Carries/Ab combo to target fat around my midsection for a couple weeks and its been working great. A few guys at my gym have started working in with me after I explained what the combo was doing.
As I was explaining what happens, I thought of something: Does this mobilize fat around the area just during the exercise, or does the increased vascularity after regular use encourage fat mobilzation from the area even when the core isn’t being specifically targeted in this manner?
Also, you mentioned in your “Best Exercises” article you like to do a 6x3 deadlift routine. What weight would you recommend we start with if we wanted to follow this routine?
[quote]Invictus41 wrote:
Hey CT,
Ive been doing the Farmers Carries/Ab combo to target fat around my midsection for a couple weeks and its been working great. A few guys at my gym have started working in with me after I explained what the combo was doing.
As I was explaining what happens, I thought of something: Does this mobilize fat around the area just during the exercise, or does the increased vascularity after regular use encourage fat mobilzation from the area even when the core isn’t being specifically targeted in this manner?
Also, you mentioned in your “Best Exercises” article you like to do a 6x3 deadlift routine. What weight would you recommend we start with if we wanted to follow this routine?[/quote]
Well, increased vascularization in an area can indeed improve the fat loss potential in an area by making it easier to mobilize stored fat in the area. So I could see it as possible that anything that increases vascularization would also make it easier over time to lose fat. BUT that is a very long term adaptation… you can’t do it for a few weeks, or even months and expect a difference.
6x3 is not a routine and I never wrote that it’s something I like to do… it’s a detail but it always irks me when somebody “quote” one of my article and don’t even get it right. A “routine” or “program” is not only one exercises and its sets and reps but rather everything you do in the session. Deadlift 6 x 3 is a loading scheme for an exercise, not a routine or program.
The “routine” you mention, and I say this in the article, is one loading scheme for the deadlift that Canada’s strongest man (J-F Caron) and WSM competitor (not me) likes to do and it included: first maxing out on rack deadlifts (bar starting just below the knees) then doing 6 sets of 3 reps from the floor.
The weight used for the sets of 3 was roughly 75-80% of the top rack deadlift (from below knees) that they reached earlier but it was sometimes adjusted depending on how easy or hard the first set of 3 looked.
Thank you, that explanation makes sense.
The direct quote from the article is “I like doing a deadlift workout that I saw Canadian strongest man Jean-Francois Caron do. He would max out on rack deadlifts (bar starting just below the knees) and then do 6 sets of 3 reps of floor deadlifts. Caron has deadlifted over 900 pounds for reps, so it’s hard to find fault with this plan!”
I apologize for mislabeling it a “routine” when I posed the question to you. Thanks for giving the % to work with for off the floor deadlifts. I tried it two days ago just using 80% of my regular off the floor max and the neural carry-over from the rack pull max out worked great. My gyms power racks have holes that are too high (or my 5’8 is too short) for below the knee pulls, so I had to settle for right above. I was able to use more weight than I would from below the knee as a result. I’ll be keeping this workout for sure.
[quote]Invictus41 wrote:
Thank you, that explanation makes sense.
The direct quote from the article is “I like doing a deadlift workout that I saw Canadian strongest man Jean-Francois Caron do. He would max out on rack deadlifts (bar starting just below the knees) and then do 6 sets of 3 reps of floor deadlifts. Caron has deadlifted over 900 pounds for reps, so it’s hard to find fault with this plan!”
I apologize for mislabeling it a “routine” when I posed the question to you. Thanks for giving the % to work with for off the floor deadlifts. I tried it two days ago just using 80% of my regular off the floor max and the neural carry-over from the rack pull max out worked great. My gyms power racks have holes that are too high (or my 5’8 is too short) for below the knee pulls, so I had to settle for right above. I was able to use more weight than I would from below the knee as a result. I’ll be keeping this workout for sure.[/quote]
If the rack doesn’t allow you to place the bar low enough, stand on plates to get the bar below the knees. There is almost zero carryover from rack pulls above the knees to full deadlifts
Ok I’ll be sure to do that next time around. Thanks CT