[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
[quote]Thy. wrote:
Thib,
Is it fine if my lower back goes from arched to flat (not rounded, just flat), if I squat very deep ?[/quote]
No[/quote]
How do you fix this problem? Is it a flexibility issue or a weakness of the lower back?
I think I have the same problem. Do you suggest anything to help?
Thanks,
Adam
Hello CT i was wondering what your prepatory/warm up phase consists of before you workout and if you have any tips to keep somone healthy when they workout?
Thank you
Thib, what training split would you suggest in 6 days per week,.Ideally i’d be training every bodypart 2 a week (excluding legs maybe),maybe IBB style but with higher reps…any ideas? also my chest is a weak bodypart,i have a terrible time adding muscle to my chest while i gain really easily in my legs,any suggestions for what to do?
At what point would you decide it’s time to switch out an exercise? I’m cutting now and have low incline DB presses one day and flat DB presses another day. When I added these in I made some good progress for the first 2 months or so but now I feel like I’m not really going anywhere, and lost a rep on a set today.
I know I can’t expect the same strength gains while cutting but still, at what point would you think it would be more beneficial to switch…to say a higher incline BB bench press (not doing any direct shoulder pressing at the moment so I was thinking about using that)
Coach,
how do you recommend a guy, who got healed from 2x tendinitis in quads and triceps-tendinitis, after being 6 weeks out of the game, to come back in?
a side note: before injury 225lbs, now 6 weeks later 210lbs … lost weight due to low appetite, macro nutrient ratio wasn’t the best too, but never mind, its a pure training question how to use the “memory”-effect the best
i first thought about getting into it by training every other day a wholebody routine for about 2-3 weeks the least, but i’m very interested in your approach in such a case because i didn’t read any opinion of yours on that matter
thank you,
bon week-end!
[quote]pumped340 wrote:
At what point would you decide it’s time to switch out an exercise? I’m cutting now and have low incline DB presses one day and flat DB presses another day. When I added these in I made some good progress for the first 2 months or so but now I feel like I’m not really going anywhere, and lost a rep on a set today.
I know I can’t expect the same strength gains while cutting but still, at what point would you think it would be more beneficial to switch…to say a higher incline BB bench press (not doing any direct shoulder pressing at the moment so I was thinking about using that)
[/quote]
From an article I’m working on…
''Many coaches recommend changing your exercises around every four weeks or so. I don’t agree with that. Yes you can change program and loading methods, but I would keep the same basic exercises for longer than four weeks in most cases. Remember, it is only once the neural gains have stopped that you begin to build a significant amount of muscle tissue. So you have to stick with your exercises for a certain time to reap the full benefits.
Changing exercises often is a cool trick to give the illusion of progress. If you change all your exercises every 4 weeks you rarely hit a plateau because you stop doing a movement before the quick neural gains stop. When they are about to stop you change movements and bam: quick ‘‘progress’’ again (initial adaptations to the new movement).
But in reality you are not doing yourself a favour by changing exercises too often because you rotate them out before they can stimulate actual muscle growth.
I’ll play the Devil’s advocate by saying that more advanced individuals with a super efficient nervous system might need more frequent changes because they start to build muscle right from the start because they are so well adapted neurally already. But most would do well to do more work on fewer exercises if optimal progress is desired.
Yes, many top coaches suggest otherwise. But I’m still trying to understand why the same coaches will often use Olympic lifters and old-school legends as examples to follow; yet those guys relied only on a few basic exercises, never using a lot of variation.
Muscle growth will begin to rise significantly when neural adaptations begin to stagnate. And from an evolutionary perspective it makes perfect sense; the body wants to adapt to its environment while spending as little resources as possible and by requiring the least amount of expense. Building new muscle tissue as an adaptation to increased muscular demands is a costly process. Not only does building muscle tissue requires a lot of energy and nutrients, simply maintaining the added tissue increases the daily energy and nutrients requirement too.
On the other hand, neural changes require very little ‘‘investment’’ and don’t cost much to maintain. So as long as neural changes are available as an adaptation option, the body will choose that option over the more costly muscle building one.
Now, depending on your level of development and current neural efficiency, it can take anywhere from 4 to 20 weeks for neural adaptations to a stimulus to taper off. For most strength athletes and bodybuilders we’re talking 4-8 weeks depending on training experience.‘’
[quote]nickj_777 wrote:
Hello CT i was wondering what your prepatory/warm up phase consists of before you workout and if you have any tips to keep somone healthy when they workout?
Thank you[/quote]
Honestly I’m not the one you should ask this question as I never did much prior to workouts. I like to perform activation exercises like jumps, throws and the likes. But I don’t have a specific routine.
Hello CT! I’m going to post the same question here aswell (just to make sure you see it…) as I did in your “Vacation pics” thread.
What does your shoulder work consist off? What excersises do you do when on a shoulder-spec phase? What is the ultimate excersise to make the shoulders round? What kind of rep-scheme do you use for shoulder excersises? High reps for many sets?
Thanks for the answer in advance!
[quote]NuYi wrote:
Hello CT! I’m going to post the same question here aswell (just to make sure you see it…) as I did in your “Vacation pics” thread.
What does your shoulder work consist off? What excersises do you do when on a shoulder-spec phase? What is the ultimate excersise to make the shoulders round? What kind of rep-scheme do you use for shoulder excersises? High reps for many sets?
Thanks for the answer in advance! [/quote]
My shoulder development come from YEARS of olympic lifting. For the better part of 5-6 years I lifted weights overhead every single day, sometimes during two daily sessions.
This made the shoulders extremely responsive to any type of lifting. In other words the years of constantly holding heavy weights overhead turned my deltoids into an ‘‘easy responding body part’’.
I don’t have any ‘‘secret routine or exercise’’ to suddenly make your delts look round.
But I’ll tell you that I rarely do more than 6 reps on an exercise.
Another clue… if you can bench press more than 405lbs in good form and overhead press over 265lbs in good form, you are bound to have huge delts. No amount of pumping reps on isolation stuff can give you the same results.
[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
[quote]pumped340 wrote:
At what point would you decide it’s time to switch out an exercise? I’m cutting now and have low incline DB presses one day and flat DB presses another day. When I added these in I made some good progress for the first 2 months or so but now I feel like I’m not really going anywhere, and lost a rep on a set today.
I know I can’t expect the same strength gains while cutting but still, at what point would you think it would be more beneficial to switch…to say a higher incline BB bench press (not doing any direct shoulder pressing at the moment so I was thinking about using that)
[/quote]
From an article I’m working on…
‘‘Good stuff’’
[/quote]
I completely agree with all of that, and I believe part of the reason that I have seen better results this last year is because I’ve stayed with the same general exercises because I know the strength gains have come from muscle gains after a certain point. However, what would you do when the exercise seems to be stalling? Again I’m not expecting to make the same strength gains during a cut as I would during a “bulk” but I don’t think it would be good to keep pushing the same weight for the same reps for the next 10-12 weeks that I’m cutting. As of now I work up to 1 heavy set (2-6) and 1 lighter set (8-12) for both DB benching sessions (the flat and incline). As you mentioned I don’t want to be switching too often, but I just wonder what would be best since I even lost a rep yesterday (not that that itself is a huge deal, but in general it’s been stagnating).
Hi Christian,
Thank you again for all of your shared knowledge and experience.
When following a Push-Pull-Legs weekly split, would you suggest alternating planes of movement for the push and pull days. Day 1 push could emphasize mostly horizontal pushes, while the second push workout of the week would emphasize mostly vertical push exercises.
Any input would be much appreciated. Thank you for your time.
On a side note: I just finished up an 11 week fat loss phase. I had my final body comp done on Saturday (12 site Biosig) and came in at just above 4% body fat at a body weight of 235. I used the ANACONDA Protocol and implemented most of the I,BODYBUILDER program (or at least the HTH principles for almost the entire cut).
I am extremely happy with this, because I’m a drug free bodybuilder, and I finished up with about 25 lbs. more muscle than when I leaned out last year down to approximately the same BF %,not using the protocol or the HTH principles.
To anyone who is still skeptical about the ANACONDA Protocol or following CT’s HTH priinciples, don’t be!! This combination is light years ahead of anything else floating around out there.
Thanks again.
Hi, CT,
I was wondering whether concentric-only reps can have a place in an HTH-type program – assuming one works out the same muscle group in a normal way, and heavier, on another day of that week.
I guess by “concentric-only” I really mean severely de-emphasizing the concentric, like doing a leg curl and lowering with two legs, raising with one.
Would concentric reps work like a deadstop rep, in eliminating the stretch reflex?
Thanks
Hey Coach Thib,
I’ve noticed that there has been a lot of questions about Push-Pull-Leg routines. Without getting to specific I was wondering if you could post a general outline of Push-Pull-Legs split using loading parameters from IBB.
i.e.
Push
Pull…Legs…
Just something that provides a basic guideline to follow and still allows people to choose the exercises they feel are best for them.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks
[quote]Brian Smith wrote:
Hi, CT,
I was wondering whether concentric-only reps can have a place in an HTH-type program – assuming one works out the same muscle group in a normal way, and heavier, on another day of that week.
I guess by “concentric-only” I really mean severely de-emphasizing the concentric, like doing a leg curl and lowering with two legs, raising with one.
Would concentric reps work like a deadstop rep, in eliminating the stretch reflex?
Thanks
[/quote]
Funny you ask because I actually wrote two articles explaining the value of concentric-only training WITHIN A COMPLETE PROGRAM.
I do a lot of concentric-only work to increase overall volume without drastically increasing recovery needs. I mostly use a sled to do my concentric-only work, doing various upper body movements as well a different walks or sprints with it.
Thibs
1/When training Monday, Wednesday and friday, Would you recommend the ‘abbreviated training’ schedule you mentioned in a previous post, or a Push, pull, legs split?
If I’m doing Muay thai a couple of times a week I would be wary of overtraining - one the flip side, If I’m having 3-4 ‘off days’ recovery would not be as much of an issue I suppose.(when busy or enjoying the beach/sights of Thailand, where I’ll be moving to shortly)
I’m just thinking about an approach you mentioned:
‘One approach that we currently use is perform the main exercise for a muscle group with micro-ramping, and then pick 3-5 assistance exercises which are performed for 1 or 2 max rep sets’
2.Could this approach be used when training multiple body parts in one session? Would the volume be significantly reduced, if for example Chest, shoulders and triceps were trained in one session? (I’m thinking that the muscles would need a fair amount of stimulus if only trained once a week)
As always, your advice is much appreciated
[quote]moogweasel wrote:
Thibs
1/When training Monday, Wednesday and friday, Would you recommend the ‘abbreviated training’ schedule you mentioned in a previous post, or a Push, pull, legs split?
If I’m doing Muay thai a couple of times a week I would be wary of overtraining - one the flip side, If I’m having 3-4 ‘off days’ recovery would not be as much of an issue I suppose.(when busy or enjoying the beach/sights of Thailand, where I’ll be moving to shortly)
I’m just thinking about an approach you mentioned:
‘One approach that we currently use is perform the main exercise for a muscle group with micro-ramping, and then pick 3-5 assistance exercises which are performed for 1 or 2 max rep sets’
2.Could this approach be used when training multiple body parts in one session? Would the volume be significantly reduced, if for example Chest, shoulders and triceps were trained in one session? (I’m thinking that the muscles would need a fair amount of stimulus if only trained once a week)
As always, your advice is much appreciated
[/quote]
Both approaches would work. Experiment with what you feel the best with.
Yes and no… You are not training “muscles” with this approach but rather “movement patterns”. But on any given day you are training all the muscles involved in a movement pattern. For example when doing any compound pushing movement the pecs, triceps and shoulders are involved.
So to answer your question: you only pick ONE main movement per workout. For example the bench press. With this exercise you perform 8-12 sets, micro-ramping style. Then you pick 3-5 assistance exercises that go with the main movement. Either pick other pressing exercises (e.g. shoulder press, dips, DB incline press) or exercises targeting the pressing muscles (e.g. lying triceps extension, DB front raise, cable cross-over, etc.) or a mix of both.
These assistance exercises are performed for 1-2 sets of max reps.
Hey Thib, this is kind of related to the above post.
If I did Chest/Back on the same day, could I do my two main movements in the a.m. in super set fashion. Than come back in the p.m. for all the assitance excercises, and do these in super set fashion as well?
very basic example…
A.M. SESSION:
A1. Bench Press
A2. Bent over row
(Doing 8-12 super sets in micro ramping fashion. No more than 5 reps per set.)
P.M. SESSION:
A1.DB incline press
A2.Pull downs
(1-2 sets max reps)
B1. Dips
B2. Chins
(1-2 sets max reps)
etc.
Just curious as to what you thought of this…Thanks Coach
Thibs,
How do you feel about Rack-Chins as a main back movement?
Thanks Coach
Hi Christian,
I follow a pull-push-legs ( in that order) split right now.
Most of the time i will take a day rest after a workout (41 years and a busy life), and sometimes 2 on/ 1 off.
I wonder where you would put a deadliftvariation, on pullday or leg day?
CT, I asked this question in your carbs thread but you haven’t posted in that thread in a while. Hope you don’t mind me asking again here.
How long does it take for someone to adapt to a high protein intake? I’m wondering if I should re-implement a low protein day. I was in a fat loss phase for 6 weeks without one and then moved on to a mass gaining phase which I’ve been doing for about 4 weeks without one.