Dodgin’ Dadbods: Fortitude Training

Today was a 15 mile bike ride at a good pace. Dripping sweat but not absolutely drenched.

Tonight was salmon and salad. You really can’t go wrong with a large hunk of salmon, salt, pepper, onion, Italian seasoning, in a convection oven at 400 for ~15 minutes. The inside’s gotta be bordering on rare, and it should never flake, but fall apart in long, juicy slabs when you touch it.

The salad was apples, walnuts and some cheese with a cherry vinaigrette. I ate about 3/4 lb of salmon and a small bowl of the salad. Don’t feel stuffed at all, just comfortably full.

Tomorrow starts the muscle rounds in Fortitude Training - super excited for them. Seems like cluster sets and rest-pause sets had a jacked baby.

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Wow!!! This is so awesome to see a Fortitude Log! It seems like you have a really good grasp on the program, you’ve done your research! I like Your A,B,C exercises for legs as that’s pretty much exactly what I use! The stretches, I’ve always played by ear, depending on what felt good in that moment. Same for Pump Sets.

I hope you like Muscle Rounds! It’s maybe my favorite part of the whole program and it has a very easy straightforward method for progressive overload.

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Fortitude Training: Week 1, Day 3

Leg Press Muscle Rounds 400 5x4, 310 1x4

Hack squat, heels touching 100x25

Single leg ham curl 50 1x20 each leg

Stretches: dead man quad stretch, ham stretch on captains chair

Seated calf raise 115 1x25 superset with tibialis raises 50 1x25

Ez bar bicep curls 70 1x25

Forearms - double handle with a rope hanging from it, suspending a 5# plate - just went up and down alternating directions until my forearms gave out

Stretches: deep stretch at the end of seated calf raises in the machine, unilateral bicep stretch using a machine to push arm behind, hand stretches for forearms.

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Legs are a bit DOMSy today. Many months of leg training consisting of only biking and running means it doesn’t take much lifting to get you sore. Today is the many-muscle rounds upper body workout and I’m psyched for it.

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Fortitude Training: Week 1, Day 4

Muscle rounds, baby!

Cable rows “12” on the stack 5x4, drop to “10” 1x4. All rows done leaning slightly forward, neutral back, driving elbows down to hips - all lats.

Lat pulldowns “14” 4x4, drop to “10 for slow 2x4, slight arch, pinching shoulder blades - virtually all rhomboids.

Incline Bench 185 5x4, 155 1x4

Cable shoulder press “12” 6x4

Ez bar pushdowns “8” 6x4

HLR 6x4

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I was actually telling my brother about this Log today. I’m so excited for you and I hope you make crazy gains and I’ll gladly answer any questions you may have. Looks like you’re killing it so far and glad to see you’re liking it!

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Great to hear you are also on the Fortitude Training journey @flappinit!

I wish you the best of gains (after all, it is a hypertrophy based program) - and the same fun as I have had with the program. Prepare to see some strength increases through the muscle rounds, which in turn will elevate your loading sets. The great variety is what I like with it - as it never gets boring to train!

The loaded stretches are challenging, both in terms on how to do them properly, and also to withstand the pain that some stretches deliver. This is a subject worthy of its own topic. I try to vary the stretches as much as possible - but there seems to be a limit in how many ways you can do them. I look upon these stretches as an added excercise in itself.

Feel free to ask any questions you like about FT, even though @davemccright is the true inspirator. But I am really coming into it by now.

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I really appreciate you dropping in -

Already dropping great input! I can’t wait to see what a few weeks of them will do.

Yup, but it’s always cool to try to figure a new one out and, in the same vein as you talking about them as a “separate exercise”, they have their very own mind-muscle connection. Brutal.

Dude, I don’t know if you’re just not interested but I’d love to see you start a training log and I know you’d get a lot of cool input there. Think about it!

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I second this. The few times I pop into the rest of the forum, your comments are level-headed and insightful. I’d love to see your training, @pettersson.

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Sister is visiting.

Last night was fresh mussels that I steamed in a white wine and garlic sauce. We ate a salad alongside it, ate a ton of mussels, and dipped fresh Italian bread in the sauce til it was nearly gone.

Today we got up early, took the dog to a huge tennis court that no one goes to to let him run off leash for a while, then dropped him off at home to nap while we took the kids back out to a playground. I did 100 burpees in the blazing sun while my kids had a blast and made new friends, spent 3 hours at the playground.

Came back, I took my eldest to the grocery store while my sister hung with my youngest (wife was at work). My eldest is now the ultimate grocery helper. He gets bags for produce and is just generally psyched to help. Plus, our Publix has mini shopping carts for little helpers:

Then I called an audible and took him to a crafts store and we got materials to make spooky Halloween houses. Came home and made houses from construction paper, with pipe cleaner spiders and cotton ball cobwebs. My sister is a beast at the craft stuff.

Cooked a ton of steak and veggies and ate til I was stuffed, and finished the night by continuing my read-through of my first edition British Harry Potter novel with my eldest while he fell asleep on me, while my sister read to my youngest downstairs while he fell asleep on her, haha.

Tomorrow morning is a BMX pump track with the kids, followed by leftover steak and local eggs we got, followed by a climbing gym, then another playground, and then my sister and I are riding 25 miles on a local trail while my wife watches the kids. Finishing with a beer and ordering Indian food to arrive when we get home.

Life is good.

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That’s gonna be one hell of a memory.

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Good to see some training, some family time and some great food in here. Killin it mate.

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Pump track at sunrise :heavy_check_mark:

Climbing gym afterwards in morning :heavy_check_mark:

Playground with kids early afternoon :heavy_check_mark:

Gonna try to just lie down and relax for a bit before this 25 mile ride with my sister. Long day so far.

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Talk about your cup running over man.

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Haven’t missed a day of training, just busy with more family visiting. Will log week 2 days 1&2 later. The volume bump in tier 2 is pretty significant.

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Alright, so my second week of Fortitude training went as such:

Day 1:
Loading Sets
Leg Press 450x12
Hack squats 180x12
Leg Press 450x12
Seated Ham Curls 110x12
Triple drop set with 110 on Adductor machine
Standing Calf Raise 120 4x12

Pump Sets
Cable crossovers “10” 2x25 superset with Cybex lat pulldown 170 2x25
Lateral Raises 15 2x25 superset with med ball crunches 2x25
Rope curls "6"x25 superset with overhead tri extensions "6"x25

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Day 2:

Loading Sets
MAG grip underhand Pulldowns “15” x12
Dips (very slow) BWx12
MAG grip underhand Pulldowns "15"x12
Dips (very slow) BWx12
Chest supported row 3 plates x12
Smith Machine BB Press 185x7, 155x12

Pump Sets
Hack squats (ass to grass) 140 2x25
Leg Extensions 110x25
Donkey calf raise machine 125x25

Yeah. As I said before, the volume bump is significant this week. He mentions once in his book about people who feel they need to up the volume. I can already tell that if anyone needs to bump the volume after either tier 3 or turbo, both of which you can do a 6 week blast of, they’re not working nearly as hard as they need to be. You don’t need any extra volume with this beyond what’s written down.

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I agree completely on volume. I have never gone beyond tier 2. You are on track here it seems!

I see you ziz-zagged leg presses on loading day. I am sure this was described in the program outline, but fail to remember. What are the pros and cons with such a strategy? Why zig-zag? A way of getting controlled rest? I’m still learning.

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Is it the Be your own coach book you are using or a different one?

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Fortitude Training is represented in an unique e-book. Be your own coach is a whole different story which covers it all (for the competitive bodybuilder).

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