Meltdown

Just popped my meltdown-cherry today. Great program, I almost blacked out after the last set. However, I got some question for the meltdown-veterans out there:

  1. Should I adjust the weights on the deadlift and squat in the 120 second brake? I cant do 10 rep on the last set if I dont reduce the weight on these exercises.

  2. Do you think it would be a good idea to swap bench-press for push-ups? The push-ups are in my opinion a bit too easy.

  3. I can only do 8 chin-ups (been on holiday for a month). On the last set, I can only do about 4 (with terrible form). Would it be better to do pull-downs instead of chinups on the last set?

Thanks!

  1. Yes. That’s what I did, and it worked very well.

  2. If you can reserve a bench for yourself, I don’t see why not, except for the problem of potentially failing and getting pinned under the bar. I’d use a spotter if I were you.

  3. If you have a spotter, get him to help you do the pull-ups rather than do pull-downs. If not, try a close parallel grip, which should allow you to get more power on the movement.

Hope this helps.

I had no problems with pushups being tough enough. In the process of putting a weight down, I just pulled my hands and feet back and went right into pushup. I allowed absolutely no rest between my exercised. I did alter the routine though, and cannot remember where I had pushups in my workout. But I also don’t see a problem with doing bench.

Depending on where you work out at, there might be a machine available designed to make you lighter. The one I saw had a flip up bench so you could work out with either your bodyweight, or less based on what weight you put on the stack. Probably the only machine I saw where the more weight on the weight stack, the easier the exercise.

Yeah at the club i go to there is 2 different machines you can use for pullups that make you lighter.

One of them you have a pad to kneel on, and you can put anything from 20-150 pounds or so of weight on it that will lighten your load.

Anotehr one has a bar you stand on to do the same thing.

how bout DB Floor Presses in place of pushups.

just a thought.

What I did was just keep increasing the pushups till I was doing about 20 each set. But I did lose strength; but of course, I lost strength on every other excercise as well.

Try doing the pushups with your feet elevated on a swiss ball. A strength coach told me that it is a very metabolically demanding exercise, and this, I believe, is the purpose of a program like meltdown–to increase metabolic expenditure.

Also, make sure to stick to the tempo prescription. If it’s slow enough, the push ups should burn pretty bad.