Posted some on the old forum mainly about forearms and big hammers. I retired at 65 started a gymnastics program for mobility and lots of cardio along with it.After 2 years started back on my 1971 Nautilus full body routine. All pre exhaustion and to failure. Like Freddy Ortiz I see no since in changing what works for me. Feels great and results are coming faster than I expected.
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I hear ya!
I 
pre/ post/ double exhaust, and all to-failure.
I use full body, but with fewer total sets and incorporate metabolic conditioning. I am as big as I want.
What was Freddy Ortiz’s routine?
That’s it. Not looking to get heavy. We had a saying when I fought as a welterweight, be as strong as you can be as light as you can be. My goal, 16" arm at 154. Keep the mobility and conditioning. Muscle memory is a great thing.
Freddy’s routine? He learned from the muscle mags in the 60’s. Last I heard still doing the same without heavy squats to save the knees. Looked great at 78.
Did Freddy do the full body nautilus routines?
Free weights and Nautilus bicep and tricep later on. Had a relative that knew him but relative passed away 3 years ago. Don’t know if he used a split routine or not. Somebody else might know.
The point is he found something that worked for him. He’s satisfied with it, why change? I feel the same way.
Oh ok…i misread your post, i made the assumption Ortiz followed the nautilus principals
i agree with you, why change if it work’s
I started in 1967 using Strength & Health and Muscular Development mags as the bible. Three sets of 6-10 reps three times a week . I think it worked considering my father weighed 140 and mother 110 if she drank 2 protein shakes a day. Met Jones July 71. It worked as good as anything for me.
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Lucky man!
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And today if you don’t have a 42" waist and a fat a$$ people call you skinny. Doesn’t matter if you have a 44" chest, still skinny by modern standards in the good ole USA. Crazy times
Hey MsgtCSAR, I surmise from your screen name that you might be vet. I was a Marine. Regarding Ortiz, not sure if you were aware, but his son was a Marine, in fact did a tour as a DI on Parris Island. I forget his son’s name, but he had a pretty good physique himself, saw some beach pics of him with his Dad that were posted on another internet forum once.
the wholetruth : Semper Fi! I heard his dad started training him one year before he joined the Marines. Didn’t know he was a DI.
Just attempting to upload photo. https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/i/Rickbruno/IMG_20220527_102428242_5.jpg
One thing I’ve learned quickly is it’s very easy to overtrain especially if your still doing manual labor like market gardening with hand tools only. Gone are the days of working construction 10 hours a day and three workouts a week. Once ever 6 days seems to be right for me now. Plus some cardio and hammers once a week. Each day past two days recovery I wake up feeling better and stronger.
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Stopped the last workout one rep short of failure. Much better recovery. Luckily I still get a great pump. Noticed people start staring about half way through my workout. Haven’t got to arms yet. Or maybe they think I’m crazy. Can’t imagine with surge.
- How many times a week you train a muscle group
- How many exercises for a muscle group do you have per workout
- When you say that you fail, do you do it in one working set or in several sets.
- In how many repetitions do you generally get to failure
Congratulations on your success.
I started back with what worked for me in 1971 and 1985. Just one set but two exercises per body part. Pre- exhaustion on everything except arms. This time twice a week instead of 3. Also do hammer levers once a week with two 10 pound hammers. Been doing that for years. Front, rear and overhead. Multiple sets each. Sledge hammer for HITT cardio also. At the gym reps are around 10-12 for isolation and 5-6 for compound. Fast gains but beat to death.
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As I got much older, recovery and progress stopped completely if I went to total failure. So I questioned myself on this: Was I overtraining within the set? It turns out I was. I never go to total failure but stop a set short of it and note how much I “failed” by recording that I got exactly 15 reps, or just 7.25 reps, or just 10.5 reps in a set. I’m past 70 years in age and but can still make progress by stopping short of failure or doing a very slow negative if I’m 1000% sure that I completed the last positive rep in a set. Working out like this allows me to do other things like multi-mile bicycle rides, karate workouts, massive lawn care chores, etc. without problems that I used to endure years ago by going to 100% set failure.
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