Poman, my current program, which I will modify May 1, is as follows:
Monday
Bench Press and Pullups 20 minutes
Seated Barbell Shoulder Press 10 minutes
Behind back BB Shrugs 5 minutes
Dips and EZ Bar Curls 10 minutes
Side Crunches on Roman Chair 5 minutes
Tuesday
Dead Lifts and Leg Curls 20 minutes
Box Squats and Leg Ext. 20 minutes
Leg Press Calf Raises 10 minutes
Thursday
Incl. Bench Press and DB Rows 20 minutes
Seated Lateral Raises 10 minutes
DB Shoulder Shrugs 5 minutes
Lying Triceps Ext and EZ Curls 10 minutes
Saturday
Leg Press and Calf Raises 20 minutes
Hack Squat and Leg Curls 20 minutes
Rope Crunches 5 minutes
As you can see, for the smaller muscles, such as calves and traps, I don’t superset but go for the maximum burn I can get by very intensely working the muscle. I hope this helps.
Moderator, hopefully you can keep the format I used here or it may be a bit unintelligible if it gets squashed together.
Note from Mod: We do not change the format. As noted before, the forum program simply does not recognize columns. Find the threads about HTML and this will help you. Mods simply don't have time to insert tags given the volume of this forum and our other duties.
Much like Patricia, I am closing out on the 5x5 program before I am going to hit EDT. Hearing everyone talk about how painful it is has be excited! How long are you resting between sets? I see that some people are using around 6-8 totals sets and others around 10-15. How do I keep the volume from being too high and prevent overtraining?
To Michelle: I did a search on russian twists on the regular t-mag site. I think you are supposed to keep arms at a 90 degree angle to the body. You lean back half way(like a half way sit-up) and rotate with the waist and not the shoulders. If you do a search, you will see pictures explaining.
To Justin Rich: If you want to keep volume down just rest a little longer. I do one exercise, rest 45 seconds, do the other exercise and rest 45 seconds, then repeat. The volume is high though. For the whole workout I am getting anywhere from 25-30 sets, but I think I am going too light.
Justin - um… the whole point is to get as much done in 20 minutes as you can. Some people will look at that as over training. I did 7 total sets of one exersize for a total of 78 reps… most of the sets were 10 reps, with fewer as I got more and more tired.
Rest between sets? *laugh* for as long as it takes me to get to the other weight I'm gonna lift. No rest for the wicked... or for the EDT'ers
“Seated DB snatches”? Care to elaborate? Is this pretty much what I’m thinking (sit on a bench, hands hanging down with DBs, lean forward a bit and throw them up to shoulder level), or are there any particular special points to doing the exercise?
Michelle, I was just wondering why you are doing so many reps per set. Not that I’m disagreeing with you, just wondering if you have some new information. In the program Staley suggests to start with a weight that you can do ten times (10 RM) and then only do five on the first set.
I think my problem through just two days is that I started too light. I get to the 15 minute mark and I can still bang out 9 or 10, after I was only doing sets of 6 or 7. On Friday, I plan on starting with a true 10 RM and doing 5 and seeing where I end up in the waining moments. Like the program says, I’d like to only be able to bang out a couple singles at the end.
JV, I’ve found the same problem as you. I’ve been going to light and been able to bang out way to many reps per set the entire time. I’m going to try today with more weight and see if that make a difference. I’ve been banging out about 16-20 sets per period all in the 6-10 rep range. I’d like to get down to only being able to do 1 or 2 reps by the end of the period.
I also am going too light. I think the reason why is that I am coming out of low rep strength program and am unsure of my real 10 rm. This is my first week, so next week I will know what weight to use. I also didn’t go all out this week. I’m just getting used to the program and then I will go all out in my following weeks. Also, Michelle said something about “no rest”. If I didn’t rest I would probably be doing 50 sets a workout. I think that is a little too much. Right now I am doing anywhere from 25-35 sets a workout. That is still a hell of alot of sets. I like it so far though.
JV - I just guessed a weight, based on my normal ‘working weight’ and went from there. It’s too light on every exercise, but it’ll take a few weeks to fine tune. When I have the weight right, I’ll start counting my weeks from there. Today, I did 46 total reps of the preacher curls… 2 sets of 8 and 5 of 6. The incline presses were about the same. As I read the program, the idea is to do as many reps as possible in the time period. Sure that doesn’t mean use 5 pounds and do 100 reps, but those were taking a lot of effort.
Why no rest? Because I have found that when I plan a '30 second' rest once I am tired it all of a sudden is a minute or more. If I aim to go straight from lift to lift, I start out going immediate, and it gradually takes longer to catch my breath and start the next lift. If you plan to take a 30 second rest between every set, and you do ten sets, you've already wasted 5 minutes... even without counting in the time you add to that 30 when you're tired. I'm sure you could easily waste 1/3 of the 20 minutes between sets.
Tomorrow ends my second week of EDT. It seems I too went a little light. Most of my sets approached 8-10 reps. I think that the 5% weight increase will even things out next week. I do have some soreness, but I feel like my muscles are fuller at rest than usual. I am resting only long enough to move to the next exercise in the beginning - then rest just enough to catch my breath. Question: Does anyone know how many pahases there are? I’ve seen just the two posted.
Hi all. I have been reading on this forum for a while but this is my first post. I have been doing EDT for a while now (pretty much since the articl came out). I am doing phase 2 now but I split my routine up a little different than most. I still work each bodypart once every 5 days with a split of Chest/Back, Biceps/Triceps, Legs/Calves. I tested by 10-12 rep max on all exercises before I added them to the routine. I find that if I use my 10rm weight and start with 5 reps for the first set, I am still doing about 4 reps when I end. This is with about 9 sets for each exercise in the 15min time frame. So 18 total sets in each of the three 15 minute periods. I then started doing 7 reps on the first set but still end up doing multiple reps at the end rather than the 1 or 2 that it seems I should be doing at the end. And I generally do not rest at all between sets other than what it takes to get from exercise to exercise and sometimes 5 - 10 seconds to catch my breath if needed. The later sets are also all out without holding anything back. So I have a few questions:
Does anyone else find that starting with 5 reps of a 10rm weight is to few?
Does it make more sense to do more reps at the start of the 15 minute interval or raise the weight to start with maybe an 8rm weight?
I think you’re on to something Steve. Either we’ve got some major stamina or the 10RM just isnt heavy enough. I’m going to try to go heavier and see what happens. I’ll probably try to start at 6 with a 8RM weight.
AK, I think I will do something similar and see how it goes. It does seem that my stamina (if that is what we can call it) is better than others that I have lifted with in the past. But my strength seems low for me judging from what others my size lift. It seems I can do more reps with a certain % of my 1rm than others can, but my 1rm is not as high as it could or should be. Does this make sense to anyone?
I’m kind of in the same boat as you all. Either I have great stamina or the weight isn’t heavy enough. I think I am off on my real 10RM though. I’m getting 6’s the whole way through and sometimes 5’s on the last few sets. I’m going to increase weight next week and see what happens.
Good to see your hitting each body part more than once a week. I personally have 2 different days on my EDT program. And I work out 3 times per week…so it alternates. I’m curious about how much DOMS you noticing? I myself don’t feel much pain at all. However I assume thats due to two reasons. One I’m using hardly any machines. Two I work my muscles out more than once a week. Once a week training is the prime reason for muscle soreness in my eyes. And before anyone scofs I am getting stronger so.
Michelle:
Your really feeling that much pain? It must be because of the machines. I mean I did modify the program quiet a bit but if anything I should have almost more pain. Ie: Shorter time periods but say only one exercise for 10 min time frame. I don’t know I like it. Heheh.
Hmm… seems we’ve been having the same ‘rep’ problems. I also started too light on my first week and am now in the second. (In my previous post, I was doing sets of 16-18) And yes, I did up the weight a bit, and found myself being in the 5,5,5,4,5,4,4,3,2,2,1,1,1 rep range. With my first rep range, I found myself very sore the next day, but with this one, the soreness is there but it’s not that unbearable as with the previous workout session. Plus, I HAD TO (forced, is more like it) rest much longer, especially during the latter sets with the new rep-range.
Day 3 of week one. Chest/Biceps. I think I solved my “going to light problem.” I bumped the weight up on everyting and started with 7 reps. I substituted Machine bench for DB bench press and my last set was a set of 3. Not the one rep I was hoping for, but I was working much closer to failure all through the workout.
From now on, I’m going to keep the weight high and stick to free weight stuff. Machines do nothing for me. I actually can’t wait to get back to day one so I can do real chinups and barbell rows instead of that cheesy pulldown and seated cable row crap I was doing before. I think Staley underestimated us when he recommended machines.
