[quote]Disc Hoss wrote:
Hey Marc,
Always good to find one of your posts, buddy.
Answer:
Thanks my friend, always learn from reading yours. I have joked before that you are my second favorite coach in this site 
“Getting Ultra-Massive the Disc Hoss way” is an article I would like to see
Great stuff on the Anabolic Diet thread too. I am seriously considering moving forward with it but have trouble moving away from carbs (healthy ones) since I have had to train my body to eat enormous amounts of food (I started out at 6 feet and 116lbs with virtually no hunger at all)just to add a wee bit of muscle. However with the increases availability of AD foods and easy to prepare dishes I might be able to pull it off.
Disc Hoss wrote:
Now that you have some experience with HFT, I’d like to “survey” you if I may.
- Where do you feel you peak out with respect to recovery when going about your normal life vs optimal periods like long vacations? 5 sessions, 6 sessions…?? (I’m assuming full body and not a bodypart specialization here)
Answer:
Now, this was most difficult to answer because to my surprise it is not the amount of sessions, long vacation or not, that make me peak out. With the ever changing parameters and exercises Chad suggests I really can train 8-10 times per week and NOT get overtrained (of course keeping food intake, volume and failure training in mind!). I peak out more after a period of time and depending in life (sleep pattern, kids, wife, money troubles, etc.) that can be anywhere from 3-9 weeks before I feel I need a few days of or to de-load for a week or two.
So it is not the amount of sessions that peak me out.
By the way, vacation time is usually more stressful then regular structured life
The first time I did the HF plan I did indeed have sort of a long vacation due to my wife needed to study and my son needing less care due to certain circumstances but I actually do better when my day is structured (you know, kids to school and pick up at set times, wife in class on certain days, work, lunch time…the basics) because I can then (and yes sometimes at the expense of sleep) more easily stick to set times of training as well.
Chad’s way of doing HF simply gets my body to perform better and better and it increases how much I can handle almost on a weekly basis.
At 39 I am currently amazed, as are my younder training partners, as to how much I can do. I bury guys 15 years younger and with a lot less stress in their lives.
The heavy sessions seem to facilitate the medium ones and the light sessions seem to facilitate the heavy ones! But you will have to stick to that format as well as changing the exercises all the time.
The only time I cannot do more then 4-5 sessions per week is when I do movements more then once per week! I peak out much faster and hurt myself easier when I do the same movements more then once per week. Perhaps that’s the best way to answer your question: the more I stick to the same movements the less sessions I can do and the more I change things up the more sessions I can do.
Disc Hoss wrote:
2. What have you personally found to be your best “base” program to return to once you’ve ran a course of HFT?
Answer:
As effective as it is, I do not really enjoy full body sessions (anyone claiming splits are as hard is an idiot in my opinion, I do not care how many drop sets you do or whatever ‘intensity’ technique you use) so I go back to upper/lower body splits or some olympic lifting program (I love doing those exercises) with perhaps 1-2 days of arm/shoulder training. Love EDT as well. Bought the arm book after I red how it made you gain an inch a while back!
So I usually go back to an enjoyable way of training since I need the mental break more then anything.
Now one thing I want to make sure off and that is that of course I do not have the time due to family responsibilities to train all the time in the gym. My light sessions are very often done at night, at home, when the kids are asleep and the wife is doing some studying. It might consist of 100 push ups, 100 squats, 100 calf raises, crunches, 100 dumbell (you know the pink ones belonging to the wife) rows and some side raises, curls and lying tate presses. This might take 15 minutes and leaves me fully pumped and facilitates my heavy training for the next day.
I might be in the gym only 4-6 times per week.
Disc Hoss wrote:
3. What is your favorite progression method while doing HFT? sets, reps, time reduction or maybe the actual adding of sessions in and of itself is enough…?
Answer:
Progess from split to upper/lower to full body 3 times per week.
TO many trainers simply cannot do a full body session with enough intensity right away. They are too used to blasting a muscle group not the whole body. So that progression needs to happen first.
Then do Quatro Dynamo (4x full body)
Then do 2 times per day, twice per week with one additional high rep session (5x full body)
As you can gather my progression is firt to full body and then frequency (which I think is KING).
The progres to 6 sessions (3 times twice per day is best but going once per day and doing heavy, medium, light, heavy, medium, light is great as well.
After you are working out as many times a week as you can handle my preferred progression is first adding sets, then reps, then intensity (weight) and then rest reduction.
Some might frown upon the fact that I have adding additional weight so late in the game but I really believe that frequency and volume trump adding weight if Hypertrophy is your main goal. Now, I NEVER train with less the 80% in my heavy days and never with less then 70% on medium days. So intensity is I guess, high most of the time but I do not keep adding weight just for the sake of it. I’d rather improve my performance by adding sets and reps first.
Disc Hoss wrote:
Thanks buddy. I’ve done some HFT back when I was 21 or so. I worked at a gym as an assistnat and was a student so my lifestyle afforded a high frequency to the tune of 6 days per week.
I gotta say, my strength went crazy and I picked up 25 pounds or so in the course of a year. The guy who was “training” me at first was a Jones disciple and had me doing a single set of 12-20 on a full body circuit. While I was lean (I think I may have actually had a 7 or 8 pack depending on the lighting angle @)but couldn’t pick up mass if you paid me. When I hit the HFT ala Leo Costa’s BBB, my “boss” soon began to change his Nautilus minded ways.
Answer:
Ah Leo Costa. I bought all his stuff and to my shame never did anything with it! I was intimidated by the men around me who claimed it was overtraing. The also made fun of the AD diet. Man, the gains I would have made had I had the spine I had today…sigh. Good thing Waterbury came along
All the best to you as well and good luck.
Marc
