Thibs Q&A April 21-28

post away

Coach

Is it a good idea, at all, to refer to Coach Poliquin’s super-accumulation program when doing the overtraining part of Get Jacked Fast? i.e. strength loss to be expected, and other similar details that are not included in Get Jacked Fast.

G

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
TRU76 wrote:
I am just finishing up week 10 of your “Get Jacked Fast” Program and I love the results. What training program would you recommend after I am finished? Also what kind of diet if I want to stay lean?

Thanks for your help

When transitioning from a fat loss diet, the most important thing is to avoid a fat gain rebound. To do so, you must GRADUALLY increase your carbs and caloric intake to a level that allows you to gain mass without pilling on an unwanted amount of fat.

To do so, start with the diet you finished with (the last regular dieting phase, not the peaking one) and gradually add carbs every 1-2 weeks. But before adding anything in, evaluate how your body is responding and see if it is okay or not to add those carbs in.

For example, start with your current diet and add 50g of carbs post-workout. Keep the rest of the diet intact.

After 1-2 weeks re-evaluate how your body reacted to this increase in carbs. If you have not gain what you consider excessive fat, then you can increase carbs intake by another 50g, consumed in the morning preferably as fruit.

After another 1-2 weeks, evaluate your progression again. If you have not yet began adding too much fat, you can add another 25g or so. Add it in the meal following your post-workout meal.

You continue to do this until you reach a point where you are gaining fat too fast to your liking, then back off a bit and stay the course.

As for the program. It depends on your goals and especially your current needs.[/quote]

Hello Coach,

  • I want to start a growth phase right after my last contest. Would you still recommend the above steps to avoid fat gain rebound? If so, how long do I have to follow the above dietary recommendations before I start weight training for the growth phase? I’m competing in the under 70 kg category and as of today morning my weight was 69 Kg and I am 27 days out from contest number 1. Contest 2 will be one week after contest 1.

A few questions regarding the training that I intend to do. I want to do a long term controlled growth phase (15 months) with size as my main goal. I will be doing specialization cycles starting with hamstrings, calves and forearms. I want to purchase your Mechanical Drop Sets DVD and I have a few questions about it.

  • Do you specify a training program in MDS or do you give instruction on how one can create his own program using MDS. Kind of like how you give instruction in your ‘How To Design A Damn Good Program’ and ‘The Specialization Zone’ articles.

  • Is it possible to use MDS in designing specialization cycles? I’m not doubting you or your MDS program DVD. I just really want to do a specialization cycle for my hamstrings first because they are lagging and I want bigger wheels.

Thib,

After re-reading your Reality Show Mass Circuit article and the discussion that followed, I decided I will heed your advice for what you recommend for your body comp. clients (and also to keep the variety going):

DAY 1 - Reality show mass circuit
DAY 2 - Metabolic pairings workout + low intensity cardio for 20-30 minutes
DAY 3 - Whole body strength workout followed by HIIT

I plan to do around 30 mins low-intensity cardio on off days.

So my questions are:

1). If I wanted to include two workouts from your Running man throughout the week, where would they best be placed? I am thinking one can be after the Day 3 whole body strength workout, but what about the other one? Will a second running workout drain my CNS too much?
2). Since I am trying to accomplish a lean body composition so I never have to diet again (hah) and also focus my goal towards strength while maintaing a lean physique, I am a bit confused on how to manipulate carbs with my training approach. I want to limit carb intake obviously, but I don’t want to limit it so much that my workouts suffer drastically (i.e. when doing lactate-inducing workouts such as Day 2 or the Day 3 running workouts). Would you think a carb cycling approach is best for me where I have a high carb day on Day 3 (250g), two moderate carbs days for Day 1 and Day 2 (around 150g), and low carb days on all the off/low-intensity cardio days (trace carbs)?

Thanks in advance.

  • Andy

Hey Coach,
I just read your old articles about pendulum training and had a question. After you’ve done phase 1 again in week 5, would you start back over the next week with phase 1 again, or move on to phase 2 in week 6?

A quick and simple question:

I’m a big believer on bodyweight exercises for athletic performance. I’ve trained judo for a year now, before that I’d been weight training for about 2 years. I’ve met several judoka who got very nice numbers on the big three (squat, bench, dead) and the olympic lifts, after only a few months of training.

This reinforces my belief that strength built from bodyweight-related compound movements translates very well between exercises. All this time spent throwing and grappling obviously builds some good strength.

Now one of the staple exercises most martial artists believe in and do a lot of, are push-ups. I’ve been a fan of them for years and believe that doing them helps increase my benching when it comes to bodyweight reps. I have a friend who is an amateur powerlifter, and swears that push-ups don’t help your bench at all. While I won’t go as far as to say that doing a lot of push ups will get you a 400lb bench, I’m absolutely certain that being able to do 80-100 pushups, will mean you’ll:

  1. Quickly progress in weight once you start benching
  2. Definitely help with reps for your own bodyweight.

The reason I’m so interested in bodyweight, is of course since competitive martial arts have weight classes, and being able to repeatedly manipulate your own weight on different axis, should translate into competitive performance.

So my question:

Am I wrong, and are push-ups pointless for increasing your benching capability?

Coach,

I’m not losing any weight on Get Jacked. I have recomped a bit and I am very pleased. (Finished week 4, down 1 lb and 1.5 inches fell off my 40 inch love handles - I’m 6’3" @ 235) If I don’t drop much fat weight, could I follow up GJ with your Keto Diet?

Also, if I were to run the program again in the future, would I make adjustments to the diet or run it as is? (Assuming fat loss was still needed)

Thanks.

hi Coach,
I post my questions again,
I hope for your answers,
thank you

last year, during my fat loss phase, I followed the Anabolic Diet (Dr. Di Pasquale):
medium fat/high protein/strict low carb during the weekdays…
just on weekend, or only on Sunday, free “clean” carbs and small amount of fats (proteins, of course).
It gave to me great results.

Now I bought Get Jacked… FAST!and I would like to use it.
If I have understood well, in “Get Jacked” there isn’t a real carb-up day before many weeks (week 11)…just one cheat meal on sunday.
Right?

At my first reading I think it will be a problem to me to workout (with weights)more than 4 days per week (I don’t have time).
Can I decrease/pair or cut anything?

what do you think about the use of Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA), Sesamin Oil and Acetyl L Carnitine during a fat loss program?
How much should be taken?
thank you again.

Due to your advice I’m going to start a more aggressive cut with guidelines mainly from your “refined physique transformation” article but I have one question.

You stated earlier how you feel interval training is a bad idea during a very low carb diet. I noticed you also bring this up in the article which helped clear up a little confusion. However you say that 1-2 lactate workouts (almost like interval training) should be done per week and that “4-8 x 400m sprints with 90 seconds rest would also work very well as a lactate-inducing workout.”…isn’t that exactly like interval training though and counterproductive on a very low carb diet?

Thanks for clearing this up for me.

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Due to your advice I’m going to start a more aggressive cut with guidelines mainly from your “refined physique transformation” article but I have one question.

You stated earlier how you feel interval training is a bad idea during a very low carb diet. I noticed you also bring this up in the article which helped clear up a little confusion. However you say that 1-2 lactate workouts (almost like interval training) should be done per week and that “4-8 x 400m sprints with 90 seconds rest would also work very well as a lactate-inducing workout.”…isn’t that exactly like interval training though and counterproductive on a very low carb diet?

Thanks for clearing this up for me.[/quote]

I like the lactate circuits much more so than 400m. But no, it’s not like intervals.

Here are the differences:

  • The lactate circuit have a resistance component to it (lifting weights) which will at least provide some growth stimulation whereas the intervals are purely catabolic in a low-carbs state.

  • The 400m runs are not long in duration, around 60-90 seconds per run and you normally do 3-4 such runs with a relatively long rest interval, so the amount of work is high enough to increase lactate production but not high enough to have the negative impact that intervals can have.

[quote]MorphingMatt wrote:
Coach,

I’m not losing any weight on Get Jacked. I have recomped a bit and I am very pleased. (Finished week 4, down 1 lb and 1.5 inches fell off my 40 inch love handles - I’m 6’3" @ 235) If I don’t drop much fat weight, could I follow up GJ with your Keto Diet?

Also, if I were to run the program again in the future, would I make adjustments to the diet or run it as is? (Assuming fat loss was still needed)

Thanks.[/quote]

You can run the program using a keto diet for most phases, but I would add 25-50g of carbs after the interval sessions when you have them.

[quote]steinnes wrote:
So my question:

Am I wrong, and are push-ups pointless for increasing your benching capability?[/quote]

Yes and no.

While bodyweight exercise are effective (especially chin-ups, pull-ups, 1-leg squats, etc.) when you reach a point where doing more than 15 reps is easy they will not help maximum strength much.

They can help build strength-endurance and your capacity to recover from set to set, but not really strength.

That having been said, bodyweight exercises do improve neuromuscular coordination quite a bit. So those who have been doing a lot of them prior to starting training will have a head start when it comes to increasing strength in the basic movements. But an individual who has a large lifting background will not benefit much from body weight exercises (when it comes to limit strength) if they are too easy for him.

HOWEVER one way body weight exercises could potentially help build strength in related weight lifting movements is my improving your capacity to use the muscles involved in the lifting exercise.

Performance in a movement is highly dependant on your capacity to use the muscles involved. Recruiting and maximizing the use of a muscle is a motor skill, and motor skill is developped through repetition and frequency of practice. Since push ups (for example) can be performed quite often, they could improve the capacity to recruit and use the delts, chest and triceps. So while the push ups, if they are too easy to build strength, can still help you improve your lifts by making you more efficient a recruiting the muscles involved in the bench press.

Coach,

I was planning to run your HSS-100 series of programs for the remainder of the year. i.e. go through each of the specializations.
Do you recommend starting with the basic HSS-100 and then change to the specializations or does it not matter?

Also, Is there a resource available for ideas on choosing the special exercises? Vince Girondas stuff?

Thanks.

[quote]Evil1 wrote:
Coach,

I was planning to run your HSS-100 series of programs for the remainder of the year. i.e. go through each of the specializations.
Do you recommend starting with the basic HSS-100 and then change to the specializations or does it not matter?[/quote]

I’d go through the spec phases THEN use the general HSS for 6-8 weeks.

[quote]Evil1 wrote:

Also, Is there a resource available for ideas on choosing the special exercises? Vince Girondas stuff?

Thanks. [/quote]

Look for my articles called ‘‘Violent Variations.’’ There are 5-6 of them each presenting several special exercises.

Coach,

I apologize if you answered this before but I couldn’t find the thread when I scrolled back. I’m on a keto diet right now to cut and was wondering how or if I could use receptormax. I presently use your tip about using BCAA’s before and during the workout which has really saved me, thanks so much for that advice. Would using three pills a half hour beforeand as recommended drop my blood sugar too much? Should I still use it before my other meals?

My other question is when I finish the diet I will slowly introduce carbs back in starting at 50gms a day and titrate from there, but I would like to split the dose peri and post workout. Would it still be ok to take the recpetormax again pre workout?

By the way thanks so much for all the free advice you’ve given us on this site it has really made an impact in my routines and my lifestyle.

Hi coach,

just a few questions that’ve been bugging my mind lately:

  1. I’ve read some good stuff about ZMA. It’s a bit pricey, though, and there are just so much supplements you could invest. To get the positive effects of ZMA does one have to use it all the time?

  2. What are your thoughts on consuming large amounts of BCAAs during workout when trying to gain mass? (instead of carb/whey type formula)

  3. Should lunges be done on quads or hamstring day?

Coach

Can I past and copy my question from Thib’s Q&A - April 13 - 20? It was the last one and the thread was closed.

Thanks.

Is it OK to use one scoop of Surge Workout Fuel before each of the 2-a-day sessions in phase III of Get Jacked Fast?

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

I like the lactate circuits much more so than 400m. But no, it’s not like intervals.

Here are the differences:

  • The lactate circuit have a resistance component to it (lifting weights) which will at least provide some growth stimulation whereas the intervals are purely catabolic in a low-carbs state.
    [/quote]

That’s interesting, this whole time I’ve been avoiding anything like this on low carbs because I figured it was the same as (if not worse for you than) intervals.

It could not replace normal ESW with another structured program though right? (as in if you already had a 4-day split made it wouldn’t be good to have these replace 2 30min. walks during the week right?)

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

  • The 400m runs are not long in duration, around 60-90 seconds per run and you normally do 3-4 such runs with a relatively long rest interval, so the amount of work is high enough to increase lactate production but not high enough to have the negative impact that intervals can have.[/quote]

Hm, 8 intervals of 60 seconds is basically exactly how I would set up my intervals when I used to do them so I guess my way isn’t traditional intervals because it’s close to your description of sprints. My “intervals” only had 60sec. of rest between sprints as opposed to 5min. though so that’s a big difference

Regarding the lactate workouts mentioned above, how close to failure should these be? I know they should not be to failure but if you were to give an estimate, about how many reps do you think one should have left in the tank at the end of a (15 rep average) set of a certain exercise?

Secondly, should you try to progress by 5lb. or so each workout or should the weight stay constant as long as you are doing them?

Thanks coach