Enter Planet Cybertron

I can do that when I’m fully awake throughout the day, I just have to probably suck it up and eat at whatever time of night, and then superman dive back into the bed lol.

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I think you should do some amount of cardio (but not too much of course, just as with lifting).

If it feels good that means it’s good. Your body knows.

High intensity stuff just takes energy away from the actual lifting. Steady-state cardio is the best. You don’t need cardio PR.

I think it depends how you do it. I do agree that steady state inasmuch as walking is hard to beat, but it can be time consuming. Right now I do my cardio/conditioning on upper body days: Mondays I do 10 rounds of 20 second stationary bike sprints; and on Thursdays I do 10 minutes on the stairmill. Neither affect my training negatively in the slightest.

Do it post workout.

My opposition isn’t to cardio it is to steady state cardio (jogging and exercise bikes etc). Every body should be able to do a meaningful amount of physical activity without passing out but steady state cardio is the least efficient way to do this.

If you enjoy it then do it.

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LOG # 32
today was maxing out to see if I could get any new PRs

Squat: 310lbs (got stuck for all of 3 seconds, but I pushed with everything I had, and probably should’ve taken my usual intraworkout nutrition more seriously like I usually do, but I wasn’t really thinking about it.
Deads: 315lbs (1 rep), got it up, couldn’t break the floor the first attempt, but on the second attempt I made it.
Did not have enough energy to max out on bench because my CNS had had enough for todays training.

I worked up to my maxes, like I did a few workouts ago that I logged here. I’m beyond tired so I don’t feel like writing much, and ive exhausted whatever energy I had left to watch tv, or read like I was planning to.
I have no idea how I’m going to feel in the morning for when I do my lighter pump day training but we will see. I don’t feel bad, I’m just tired beyond belief, and my lower back near my SI joint is agitated (isn’t hurting like when I first tweaked it per say, but its very warm in the area)

Gonna switch to Westside training slowly, and incorporate elements of the conjugate method just to keep the gains train moving along. Going to have to drag my husband along because some of this stuff I need a second person to help me out.

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@planetcybertron I am so happy for you! That’s awesome progress.

It’s normal to be that drained after maxing out like that.

Now, in relation to programming I would very strongly recommend not using a conjugate approach yet. Two alternatives come to mind that I think would be much more suitable for you. The first is Brandon Lilly’s Cube - it is actually quite influenced by the conjugate system so you would probably like it. The second, and the one I would probably recommend between the two is Juggernaut.

However, if you do decide to run a conjugate system I would suggest getting input from @max13 and @Destrength

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Cube is a lot more user friendly, and much easier to get right. It’s also still conjugate training, and will get you a feel for doing that type of training without throwing you into the deep side of the pool and wondering why you are hurt and weaker from bad programming.

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Yea get his butt in the gym too!!!

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I looked into it, and the jist of what I get is there will be a heavy day for the main lifts, once every week for three weeks right? And there’s a bodybuilding day for assistance, And its simply rotated, and the % are usually ranging from 65-90% right? And I’m still confused on what the rep scheme should be, or should I just be creative and make up a rep scheme of my own?

Would it be bad if I kind of combined Juggernaut and Cub together like every three weeks rotate between the two? Or should I just exhaust one and then move to the other? Because I want to do both lol

Yes. If you do a program, do it. Don’t alter it to make it suit you better. If it doesn’t suit you as it is, don’t do it.

You’re never really going to exhaust a good program. That’s why they’re good programs, and in actual fact are systems more than discrete programs.

Personally I think Juggernaut is a better system based on what I’ve seen of it compared to Cube. However, if you are of the belief that a conjugate style of training will suit you better, Cube is much closer to that style of training. That is why I am not a huge fan of it as there are more variables in play than necessary and more variables means a much smaller margin of error. If you think about it, Cube has you using board presses and floor presses for bench, and accommodating resistance. It also mandates various DL variations. Now, do you know exactly which ones apply to your weak points? Do you know exactly what your weak points are? What happens if they aren’t where Cube expects them to be? Is your technique good enough on bench and DL to focus on variations and still progress? I’ve read Cube through a couple of times and NOWHERE does it explain exactly how to put all the elements together. Sure, it sets out the loads for the waves and gives a broad explanation of why it is set out that way; but I could not find anywhere an explanation of how to correctly select what variations of each lift to use. Brandon Lilly messed up there as far as I’m concerned, because he certainly knows very well that each individual is going to need a specific setup and selection when training in a conjugate system. If the person doesn’t have the knowledge and experience to manage this themselves (which the vast majority don’t, myself included), they will find it quite hard to get optimal results.

That isn’t to say Cube is bad; I just think Juggernaut is better. There is much less potential for error.

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@MarkKO

I actually went ahead and gravitated towards the Juggernaut training just because my gut told me so.
I was able to download three manuals for the S,DL, and B. Todays training was odd because ive never trained like that before. However I am still confused on a few things, but I followed the template and adjusted percentages according to my maxes. I understand the DL manuel as its just maxes week 1, for reps week 2, speed week 3, and then begin the cycle over on week 4. For squats I get the jist of it because the founder literally maps everything out, and I just have to adjust accordingly. I’m still a bit confused on the assistance work. Some articles say I should do things like prowler pushes, and pulls, box jumps, battle ropes, KB swings, and other speed systems. Which I will do, but I’m not sure if they should be on separate days are be incorporated after lifting days. Today I did the bench outline and some Ab work and ill post it up here in a bit so you can see if I’m following things correctly.

LOG # 33

Bench day:

regular bench: (70%) 140 x 5 x 3

close grip bench: it says to do it off of 2 boards, but I didn’t have any so I just used 2, 25lb plates and used a small band to keep them from sliding off of me. (60%) 120-125lbs x 15 x 3 sets.

Lat pulldowns: 4x15 ( I did the first three sets @ 80lbs, and then tried to get all 15 with 100lbs, but I reached failure at rep 9, so ill have to stay at 80 until I can go up.)

tricep pushdowns with about 30lbs worth of resistance for 100 reps

Roman chairs holding a 35lb plate for 4 sets of 25


Is this a good bench day template to be following? It says that this is the template to follow for week 1, and then week two is speed, then week three is max, etc.

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If that’s what was written, that’s what you do. Always. I’ve only read an analysis of Juggernaut, with a brief outline of its stages. What you describe didn’t seem to match that, but I might be wrong. Did you buy the actual Juggernaut book or just get some templates of the site? There’s a pretty significant difference.

Now, I’m going to ask a question that could come across as a bit condescending, but I don’t mean it that way. What is your understanding of programming, exercise selection and the like? I ask because I’m not completely sure how well you understand the underlying principles.

TL;DR systems like Juggernaut, Cube and 531 - and conjugate training, come to that - are not concerned so much with individual training days or even week or month long training cycles. They are concerned with driving progress (adding weight to the bar in our case) over long periods of time, which is largely determined by underlying principles. Variables like your exercise selection, intensity, recovery, specificity, etc are manipulated in order to further the overarching goal. You cannot look at them simply as a set of instructions to be followed for a period of time to achieve a result, rather as a practical application of the underlying principles.

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My belief is as long as you work hard in the gym on what you want to get good at then you will improve at those things. Unless you have a meet day set up I also don’t think that a set and rep scheme is super important as long as you are failing before 10 reps on the working sets (don’t be repping the the little yellow dumbells for 100 and expect gains :smiley: )

Exactly as Markko said I would avoid a ton of variations until you know what your weaknesses are.

The body learns primarily through repetition so a ton of variations right now would just hinder your learning process of the big 3.

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@MarkKO

My understanding is kind of mismatched at the beginning when something new is handed to me. I didn’t buy the book, I just took a sample template he had laid out in one of his free manuals for bench, deads, and squat, that come along with the subscription. So that’s probably why what I wrote was different.

On the subject of programming and exercise selection, I can read a template, or a spreadsheet, and have the understanding as it is, but when I actually put whats written into real life actions, everything always comes out different, due to how my body works, composition, age, sex, etc.

But this happens to me everytime I start something new. I’m so concerned about the day to day steps as written on paper, but when I look back six months I can see how far ive progressed. Most of the time when I try to learn something new, I end up either completely going back to the tried and true that have always benefitted me, or I tweak the programming so much that it doesn’t even look like I’m doing the original programming.

uhm, I hope I’m making sense with all this. I do understand that the main focus is shifted towards progression, but I get so caught up in the day by day processes and asking if I’m doing everything right, that I end up changing everything anyways. My body always ends up telling me what to do and what not to do. Because the exact same thing happened to me when I tried to incorporate DoggCrapp training. But I also came to terms and realized that I’m still young, and I haven’t been training as long as others so I probably don’t need to train like that anyways.

So I think when I first get handed something new, I always flock to the initial habit of taking everything as a set of intructions written in stone, but by the next month I look back at my training and have morphed it into something else because that’s what yields progress for me.

For the dumbells I stay far away from those things anyways lol. And ive noticed ive been doing very good with the training ive laid out for myself before I tried to venture off into the other type of training systems. And i always end up tweaking things to the point where its not even the original programming anymore, just because my body slowly tells me what does and doesn’t work. And i agree with the variations part, because most of the time when i add too many variations in, i just stall at the same weight for a while.

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I have a good clear understanding of the max, speed, and rep principles that Juggernaut talks about, but i think where I’m messing up is focusing too hard on the different training that can be done under those three principles. Same with the Cube training, and Westside.

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That makes sense.

I’d suggest actually getting the Juggernaut book, and the Cube book. Read both before picking one.

With the whole changing to suit your body etc, I know where you’re coming from but I would advise against it in relation to main lifts and how much assistance you do. Sure, if the program demands lat pull-downs for 50 reps and you do cable rows or Hammer Strength rows for 50 reps it won’t matter. Different story if the program demands lat pull-downs for 50 reps and you do 100 reps of tricep extensions because you think your triceps need the work.

A good rule when deciding whether to alter what the program demands is to ask whether you want to make the change because you don’t like the mandated exercise. If the answer to that question is yes, don’t make the change. All too often we opt out of an exercise because we don’t like it when we don’t like it because we suck at it and that sucking is a symptom of a weakness we need to fix.

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well with that, i wouldn’t venture off and train a body part that had nothing to do with the training, i actually followed the template and it called for that many reps with a light weight, but id do the before mentioned where its a different machine but targets the same muscle group. But to me i felt like i needed to be doing the exact same motions with the exact same equipment, but now i realize that as long as the progress is showing up then its okay to tweak here and there. And i also used to kind of tweak things because certain things would cause discomfort. I would make sure my form was correct, but sometimes id still feel pain afterwards, so i figured it was how i was moving or whatever piece of machinery i was using.