Thib's Q&A

Training
4261

Coach:
I’m interested in doing “field” throwing in college. I don’t have any experience in any throwing events though. I emailed the coach if experience would be a problem and he said not in discus or hammer throw. I’m just curious, if u have any tips for either of the two events? I heard discus involves a great amount of upper body power which suprised me. I’m completely stumped when it comes to hammer throw.

Is there anythin you recommend I try to do besides getting stronger this summer? Anything specific I should do for each event? Thanks.

4262

CT,

Do you have any recommendations for dealing with TERRIBLE carb cravings while dieting down? I seem to have a Pavlovian response to even thinking of carbs at times. I have read that L-Glutamine helps with this, but I would love to hear any input you might have on this. Much appreciated for any help coach.

Maximus

4263

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
CT,

Do you have any recommendations for dealing with TERRIBLE carb cravings while dieting down? I seem to have a Pavlovian response to even thinking of carbs at times. I have read that L-Glutamine helps with this, but I would love to hear any input you might have on this. Much appreciated for any help coach.

Maximus[/quote]

Inositol in water, especially at night as it can make you sleepy/relaxed… Also any type of greens drink in water… like Poliquin’s Primal Greens or Garden of Life’s Perfect Food. Glutamine in water works too, you can even mix in a bit of heavy cream and unsweetened cocoa.

I’ll let CT chime in… tell me how wrong I am probably, LOL, but those work wonders for me.

4264

[quote]Affliction wrote:
MaximusB wrote:
CT,

Do you have any recommendations for dealing with TERRIBLE carb cravings while dieting down? I seem to have a Pavlovian response to even thinking of carbs at times. I have read that L-Glutamine helps with this, but I would love to hear any input you might have on this. Much appreciated for any help coach.

Maximus

Inositol in water, especially at night as it can make you sleepy/relaxed… Also any type of greens drink in water… like Poliquin’s Primal Greens or Garden of Life’s Perfect Food. Glutamine in water works too, you can even mix in a bit of heavy cream and unsweetened cocoa.

I’ll let CT chime in… tell me how wrong I am probably, LOL, but those work wonders for me.[/quote]

Thanx for the advice I will check it out, sad tidbit of info… I am deathly allergic to chocolate and/or anything with cocoa in it. Sad I know but probably a blessing in disguise. LOL

4265

Coach,

Months ago, you lean toward a mixed approach for mass gaining phases versus P+F P+C. A good start point would be 1.5p-0.5f-0.5c? How do you spread carbs in each meal and how many are estimated to PWO?

Thanks

4266

[quote]Affliction wrote:
MaximusB wrote:
CT,

Do you have any recommendations for dealing with TERRIBLE carb cravings while dieting down? I seem to have a Pavlovian response to even thinking of carbs at times. I have read that L-Glutamine helps with this, but I would love to hear any input you might have on this. Much appreciated for any help coach.

Maximus

Inositol in water, especially at night as it can make you sleepy/relaxed… Also any type of greens drink in water… like Poliquin’s Primal Greens or Garden of Life’s Perfect Food. Glutamine in water works too, you can even mix in a bit of heavy cream and unsweetened cocoa.

I’ll let CT chime in… tell me how wrong I am probably, LOL, but those work wonders for me.[/quote]

Actually I agree with those IF the craving is physiological. A lot of people crave sugar for psychological reasons and in this case, there isn’t much you can do except self-discipline.

There is also some evidence that sugar is addictive due to its impact on serotonin and at some point it can become as hard to stop eating sugar as it is to stop smoking.

In that later case relatively high doses of glutamine, 5-HTP and glycine can help with the physiological aspect of the addiction BUT the ‘‘intake - reward’’ phenomenon will remain, (kinda like the patch that helps control nicotine cravings can’t help with the psychological addiction side of things) so it once again become a self-discipline issue.

4267

Thibs, for some one who has a lgging chest due to shoulder dominance, how would you alter the HSS-100 chest spec program? I would hve thought dropping the upper chest specific day would probably be a start due to the involvment of the shoulders.

Thanks

4268

Thib,

My question here pertains to the most recent installment of “Exercises You’ve Never Tried.”

For an exercise like the “Gunthar” row or the 1-arm DB version with the anti-rotation component, there are obviously many areas being trained to some degree, but one would likely be the overall limiting factor in terms of the weight used. So if using the barbell or 2 DB version, I’m assuming the limitation would likely be how much you could row, and with the 1 DB version, it would be the amount of rotation that you could resist.

What I want to ask is where exercises like this, which train a number of muscle groups and functions at once but have a particular limiting factor, best fit in when designing a program, both in terms of the day they are placed on and where in a given training session.

4269

And yet another Get Jacked question :slight_smile:

I’m at the end of my first week. Diet is going well, infact I hardly feel like I’m dieting. It’s the same foods I usually eat, just with less fruit and slightly smaller portions.

Anyway, I was wondering if there is any benefit to having a high-carb meal like oatmeal for a cheat on Sunday. If not, then what would be consider a ‘good’ cheat?

4270

For get jacked, what’s the difference between a long step lunge and a short step lunge? Is my back knee supposed to be straight for a long lunge? I tried looking on google for the difference, but all I found was that they worked different muscles.

4271

[quote]mistat0m wrote:
For get jacked, what’s the difference between a long step lunge and a short step lunge? Is my back knee supposed to be straight for a long lunge? I tried looking on google for the difference, but all I found was that they worked different muscles.[/quote]

Short step lunge

4272

[quote]mistat0m wrote:
For get jacked, what’s the difference between a long step lunge and a short step lunge? Is my back knee supposed to be straight for a long lunge? I tried looking on google for the difference, but all I found was that they worked different muscles.[/quote]

Long step

4273

[quote]Mr.Purple wrote:

Anyway, I was wondering if there is any benefit to having a high-carb meal like oatmeal for a cheat on Sunday. If not, then what would be consider a ‘good’ cheat?[/quote]

From the first line of the diet guidelines:

‘‘The diet provided with each phase is to be followed exactly as given 6 days out of 7. The seventh day (Sunday) you have ONE cheat meal (the rest of the day you follow the regular diet) and it should be the last meal of the day.’’

And from my recent article on body transformation:

''In an ideal world, our cravings would be for yams, potatoes, pasta, and fruits. Eating those on your dietary digression day will be superior to pizza, burgers, and donuts. But some people need their crap. As I mentioned earlier, if cheating opens the door to falling off the dietary Radio Flyer, avoid it.

It should be fairly obvious now that you don’t need to cheat. Loading and refeeding with quality foods will do the job just as well. The only time cheating with bad food is superior is when you absolutely need a fix to stay on your diet.

Remember, your body has absolutely no physical need to eat junk. It’s only our psychological side that’s a slave to this.‘’

4274

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Mr.Purple wrote:

Anyway, I was wondering if there is any benefit to having a high-carb meal like oatmeal for a cheat on Sunday. If not, then what would be consider a ‘good’ cheat?

From the first line of the diet guidelines:

‘‘The diet provided with each phase is to be followed exactly as given 6 days out of 7. The seventh day (Sunday) you have ONE cheat meal (the rest of the day you follow the regular diet) and it should be the last meal of the day.’’

And from my recent article on body transformation:

''In an ideal world, our cravings would be for yams, potatoes, pasta, and fruits. Eating those on your dietary digression day will be superior to pizza, burgers, and donuts. But some people need their crap. As I mentioned earlier, if cheating opens the door to falling off the dietary Radio Flyer, avoid it.

It should be fairly obvious now that you don’t need to cheat. Loading and refeeding with quality foods will do the job just as well. The only time cheating with bad food is superior is when you absolutely need a fix to stay on your diet.

Remember, your body has absolutely no physical need to eat junk. It’s only our psychological side that’s a slave to this.‘’
[/quote]

Thanks for replying. Lean red meat and potatoes sound like a fine cheat to me. I don’t eat sugary crap. I was just wondering if carbing up this soon is stupid. I hardly ever eat carbs except fruit and post-workout shakes, and I think my body is used to burning fat for fuel now.

I was thinking that a high carb meal might be beneficial, seeing as I’m not getting carbs PWO anymore, and no fruit either. I want to get the most out of this, so if you put the cheat meal in there for no other reason then to keep people sane, I’ll just skip it. I see that there will be more carbs included in the following weeks anyway.

Ah, never mind. No cheat is best, I’m sure. Have a nice day :slight_smile:

4275

just did the first workout in the get jacked program and i can barely walk now. by the time i got halfway through the lunges i couldnt feel my legs anymore…love it!

4276

Coach: You mentioned serotonin earlier and I was wondering while on a low carb diet, would the low levels of serotonin cause depression? Is that why you recommended 5-htp? Thank you sir.

4277

Hi CT
one question about Beast Building

where to perform 6-9seconds isometric hold?

conventional DL-just below the knee?
back squat-between the parallel and standing?
bench press-before the lockout?

4278

Hi Coach Thibaudeau,

Thank you for your last response. On your Get Jacked Programme, on weeks 3 and 4 I notice you have a full body day on the last training day of the week, out of curiosity what is the purpose of this, and also the rep scheme states six sets at 5/4/3/2/1, is this rest pause technique or straight sets as that only equals five sets and not six?

Many thanks

Scott

4279

[quote]scotthenry525 wrote:
Hi Coach Thibaudeau,

Thank you for your last response. On your Get Jacked Programme, on weeks 3 and 4 I notice you have a full body day on the last training day of the week, out of curiosity what is the purpose of this, and also the rep scheme states six sets at 5/4/3/2/1, is this rest pause technique or straight sets as that only equals five sets and not six?

Many thanks

Scott[/quote]

It’s a ‘‘test day’’ plus it allows to hit everything twice.

5/4/3/2/1 = 1 x 5, 1 x 4, 1 x 3, 1 x 2, 1 x 1 (separate sets)

4280

[quote]totti13 wrote:
Hi CT
one question about Beast Building

where to perform 6-9seconds isometric hold?

conventional DL-just below the knee?
back squat-between the parallel and standing?
bench press-before the lockout?[/quote]

You have two choices:

  1. At your weakest point (to strenghten your weak link)
  2. At the strongest point (to potentiate the nervous system)