Natty Training and Double Stimulation

One of the very best training “techniques” I have experienced has been the incorporation of the feeder workout or the “double stimulation” workouts CT wrote about awhile ago. As long as I didn’t overdo it (I have a very bad tendency with the “if it is great, do more!”), the double stimulation workouts aided in muscle recovery as well as aided in growth.

I have been incorporating CT’s best damn workout for natty’s philosophy into my own training recently, and it has worked absolutely wonderfully for me. My split, my exercises, and my intensity techniques (or purposeful lack of them) are different than the program CT outlines, but the principles of low volume (only 1 working set per exercise, and depending on frequency, only one exercise per body part…WAAAAY different than what I had been doing for decades) and high frequency has been simply a breath of fresh air for my training. This is coming from a previous steroid user and one who is well above what some call “natural limits” still.

I’m wondering about incorporating the double stimulation workouts back into this new regimen, but I’ve held back a bit due to a little anxiety about effect on recuperation given my frequency is so high now (bodyparts trained at least 3 times a week). Of course…I’m going to try it…but looking for some compelling rationale of why others think this would be a bad idea.

"I have a very bad tendency with the “if it is great, do more!”

If you did the Double Stimulation technique, wouldn’t you be back to your former bad tendency?

Touche!!!
Funny, I didn’t even think about that at all!! LOL.
I don’t know how others feel when using the CT natty training template, but I just notice I’m so much more ready to train and not so wiped out. Time in the gym has been cut to roughly a third of the time I had normally spent (though I’m there more often of course). With my mentality and disposition, the “I should be doing something more” comes out with a vengeance.

Thanks for noting this. : )

You’re Welcome, but thinking about your inquiry, you might try something like this:

Day 1: A1 Best Natural
Day 2: A1 Double Stim; B1 Best Natural
Day 3: B1 Double Stim
Day 4: Day off or A2 Best Natural
Day 5: A2 Double Stim; B2 Best Natural
Day 6: B2 Double Stim
Day 7: Day off
Day 8: A3 Best Natural etc.

I’m sure you get the idea.

Buffd,

After three weeks, I was wondering how you were doing on best damn. Did you adapt it at all?

Hey bud…no, I actually took your astute observation about my tendency to do too much and settled down to just focusing on my version of CT’s best damn workout. Double stimulation was fine and dandy in its time, but frankly I don’t believe the extra stimulation would benefit…I think it might actually be a detriment for natty trainers.

Main themes of my training these days:

  • minimum sets…basically one “work” set per movement. I am averaging roughly 2-3 movements per bodypart these days. Some days I only do one movement per bodypart.

  • Each bodypart trained 3 times a week

  • Liberal use of pre, peri, and post training nutrition

Frankly, with my previous training mentality, I was afraid of “losing” mass and strength with so little work. To my utter amazement, not only am I gaining mass, but my strength has really gone up as well. At my age, I am not focusing on singles strength, but strength for 4-6 or 8-10 rep ranges. On rare occasions these days do I go lower or higher than that.

What this tells me is that since going natty, I have simply been really “overdoing it” in my past training from a bodybuilding standpoint. Note what I said there: bodybuilding. Not powerlifting, not olympic lifting, not overall conditioning training. Strictly hypertrophy training.

Honestly, I would have NEVER EVER even considered doing this type of training on my own, because my mentality and experience limited my ability to accept such different training paradigms. It took an article, very well written by CT and one that just made sense to me, to change me.

Can I ask what your pre/intra/post nutrition looks like

Sure!
Pre-workout is roughly 2 hours before training. It’s usually a normal meal (carbs, proteins, fats) from rice/potatoes/veggies/beef/chicken/fish, not too big, not too small. I used to think I needed a real “pre-workout” drink or some pre-workout bar (like Finibar or Plazma), but seriously, after all this time I found what works best for me is normal food roughly a couple hours before training.

Intra-workout is Plazma. Nothing else. I’ve tried alot of different supps for Intra and I always go back to Plazma.

Post is simply another meal. No need for Mag-10 or any other supplements. Just food. I wish I could say something more exotic, but it has come down to this.

Just to mention that I am once again using double stimulation sessions. I have 4 main workouts and the sessions in betweens are 30-40 min double stim workouts and I’m having my fastest progress in a long time. Of course I’m coming back from a photo shoot prep BUT I actually kept the same diet as during my prep with the exception of including one cheat day and one half day of carbing up… so not a drastic change.

In 3 weeks my “normal” weight (what I weight when I’m not retaining water and tons of glycogen from my cheat or when I’m not depleted from 3 days of low carbs) went from 201 to 204. Condition is the same fat-Wise, if anything I have a bit more chest definition, but I do have a very slight film of water whereas for the shoot I was granite for the last 2 weeks… I actually prefer my current look.

My Schedule is:

Day 1: Lower body max effort (also do a lot of upper back work)
Day 2: Double stimulation (lower body/upper back)
Day 3: Upper body max effort
Day 4: Double stimulation upper body
Day 5. Lower body dynamic effort (also do a lot of upper back work)
Day 6: Upper body dynamic effort
Day 7. Either off day or low intensity pump work for muscles I felt were neglected

I basically do some type of upper back work everyday… and it is BY FAR what has progressed the most.

Not to be a social media whore, but I post my daily workouts on my instagram account #Thibarmy

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While it’s not a physique shot here is what I’m looking like at the moment:

First video was shot 2 weeks after the second one (confusing I know) you can see a little bit of what I was saying with fuller looking but holding a film of water

The tricep action in the deadlift video is pretty wild!

Would DS be as beneficial on BDW since you are hitting everything 3x per week and even hav overlap with your push and pull workouts? It seems like the pull workout is double stimulating many of the pushing muscles and vice versatile already?

Can you do DS with sled work to minimize stress?

CT, thanks for bringing this up. I’ve been avoiding extra training stimulation as described above in my earlier posts, but I might actually try the schedule you outlined. I am a bit anxious about the increase in volume however that double stimulation would provide, and am mainly contemplating adding CNS stimulating volume work like what is outlined in I, Bodybuilder. So, mainly concentric reps…very few eccentrics. And not too much! I’m keying on the “don’t exhaust glycogen stores too much” aspect of this natty training protocol.

Yes, sled work (mainly concentric) falls in the category of any “extra” work I might do. I like your thinking with regards to “minimizing the stress”.

Again, I have to say, the train of thought with this type of training philosophy has been SO different than what I’ve done for years and years. I am REALLY liking this; I’m never “wiped out” anymore, and I am keeping my muscle mass (heck, I might even go as far as saying my body is changing…getting alot harder and denser looking…I love it).

Would you mind laying out what a week/session looks like?

This is an outline I’m very much interested in. I was looking into training like DeFranco’s Washed-Up Meathead template…but to be honest, I’m not ready to totally hang it up yet. I want to be able to still chase my kids and surprise some of the ‘young punks’ on the court or in a foot race (on rare occasions; I DO realize I am indeed getting older) at 43. I’m a Type 2B as far as I can tell so I think this would be ‘perfect’ and with the dynamic effort days it would help boost my aging athleticism.

Thank you for always sharing so much of what you have learned for free when you could crank out book after book every time you learned something new. Looking forward to reading more of your in the trenches wisdom and implementing what works for me.

Jay

Coach, I’m coming for dem delts.