Your 30-10-30 Results

30-10-30 Results? I have been utilizing 30-10-30 (and similar) for about 3 months with limited outcomes (maybe slightly better lats & chest) how about you? We’ve all followed Ricky’s very thorough reporting who’s results have been frankly unimpressive, and Mark’s competition photos which are. Anybody able to duplicate Dr. Darden’s claims of massive improvement over a short time frame?

I’ve never been interested in any plan that says you can get massive muscles in a certain short time. Those are a great come on but for most people it won’t work but I will say that I’m finding this 30 10 30 routine of Dr Dardens as good if not better than most routines I’ve ever tried and that’s a lot!!
Scott

Hang in there imbubber… I’m a beginning trainee who just started the Extreme HIT program after on-and-off training for the last nine months. In the forum post titled “Calories for skinny fat lifting 6’7 210 pounds” there are some beautiful before pictures. I’m looking forward to the after pictures and measurements.

May not be what you’re looking for if you’re an advanced trainee but I believe that this program does represent a leap forward in exercise science. I used to train regularly when I was younger, and I’ve tried all sorts of HIT and non-HIIT programs and I think Dr. Darden has had a lightbulb moment here. I was on this program for 3 weeks when it came out, and even though I was on a reduced calorie diet I’ve never seen changes in 3 weeks like I did on this program. I’m going to run this thing for 3 cycles with slight variations in exercise selection while eating like a truck and see what I can do with it. Hoping to get to put up videos this week and track measurements after each cycle.

Alex

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How long have you been training, and how much muscle mass did you gain in the years that you trained.

I guess I wasn’t clear in my question. I’m not asking for advice about what I should do, or my results. I was asking what results anyone achieved following 30-10-30 program, and specifically if anyone was able to approach Dr. Darden’s claims.

It seems there’s several guys on here who are doing some form of 30 10 30 training and unless I’ve missed it I haven’t seen any gain reports like those of Tyler Darden but very few offer to report in detail like Ricky has done. I think some of these guys are still in the beginning stages so hopefully reports of actual gains or not will come in down the road. I suspect quite a few people are trying 30 10 30 but like me don’t keep detailed logs of weight and muscle gained or lost, etc etc. I just record the day and exercises used and weight or reps increased or reduced . I know, not much help.
Scott

I’m a beginner who started a couple months ago. I did the BIG routine about 22 years ago, and gained 18 pounds in 8 weeks. Well, now I’m 44, and not looking to gain quite that fast for fear it would be mostly fat gain. So, I started again with the BIG routine for 4 weeks, then used some routines mentioned in old school body building for the next 4 weeks, just didn’t eat quite as much as when I was young. I used some of the old super slow techniques with negative emphasis (a 5-10 cadence), but also mixed in 30-10-30, and eventually just some standard 3-3 lifts. I had gained about 6 pounds in around 7 weeks. After week 8, I took a week off (COVID shot, so I decided a good time for a down week to reset.)

Then I came back and started the 30-10-30 first workout in Metabolic Challenge. I picked my weights fairly well. I think I was a little light on the biceps curl, and I hit failure at about 25 seconds on the bench press, with the others perfect. I moved well between exercises, with no more than 35 seconds between 1 or 2, the others dead on 30. Afterwards, I felt tired and out of breath. However, tired like I just sprinted a 100 yard dash and dropped and did 10 pushups. Meaning, I just need a couple minutes to catch my breath, and then I was ready to start working out. It felt like a good warmup. All I wanted to do was now start lifting more. I had zero pump. The next day I had zero soreness. It was like I had barely did anything. In fact, after a 4- 5 minutes, I decided to do some extra rows.

Well, next workout I went back to my old routine. Felt like I’d worked hard again. However, yesterday I decided to give it another try. Started again with exercise 1. Adjusted my bench and curl weights slightly, so they were perfect. Again, it felt like I did some good cardio, like I had been playing basketball or something. Not the same as pushing most of 10 exercises to failure, or at least heavy weight with few reps. I just feel like I could stop, take a 2 minute break, and do 6 more exercises. This time I only waited about a minute and then I decided to do some more rows again.

I think this definitely will be easier on my system to recover, since I don’t feel like I’m pushing myself much. I’m going to continue on for at least a couple weeks to see how it goes.

Maybe because people are not following the program as written…i am seeing A lot of individuals posting changes to the program as they see fit

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Good remark there faf40,

I have had significant gains in strength and hypertrophy the past year using Dr Darden’s principles. But yes, I have not followed strict procedure, mixing different strategies in order to prevent adaptation and stimulate growth.

Of all the principles I find 30-10-30 to be the most demanding, for sure making an enormous inroad, and always bringing me to a stage of overtraining if done on its own for more than 4 weeks. But - I am more into 30-10-30 to failure, having a hard time leaving more than one rep in the tank.

Currently investigating other principles (Zone training) but will absolutely return to 30-10-30 regularly. One of the best routines out there, in my humble opinion.

I too have made some progress, lost a few more pounds 205 to 201, feel the cardio workout from it, see more muscularity in the mirror, love the fact that it’s 10 to 15 minutes…i will keep doing it too

Thanks for your comments, seem to validate the benefits of Dr. Darden’s programs.

== Scott==
I think so many of us have been under the spell of too failure workouts for so long that it’s dang near impossible to shut that off. On those 10 reps we just want to keep pushing it to the limit. I think the sooner we can consistently get it into our head that stopping two reps short of failure on the 10 rep part the sooner we can reap the real benefits of 30 10 30.

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I’m going to be logging out and following it to the letter starting next week, I even have the Plazma and Mag 10. I’ll have progress photos, and the weights I used listed as well as any notes that I have. For anyone interested, it’ll be in the training log section.

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Curious to your opinion to the supplements…i am not using any as I am still working on leaning out

I don’t have any experience with them yet as I’ve been saving it for 30-10-30, but its affects on cortisol and helping recovery definitely interests me.

Dr. Darden

Not sure if this was asked in another thread or not…do you recommend the Plazma and Mag-10 supplements even if losing weight

Thanks

With the addition of Plazma and Mag 10, you’ve added another variable to the test.
How will you accurately know if the improvement is due primarily to the program or the supplements?

I don’t blame you. I always approached my efforts to improve with a “shotgun” approach. I didn’t have the patience to limit the variables to one.

I have not tried it in losing fat. Sorry.

That’s ok

== Scott ==
If I recall correctly it was said that with out the Plazma etc supplements you could hope for a certain percentage of improvement and with them an even higher percentage of improvement. I forget the numbers but it’s in an older Darden post.