Reactive Training Systems

Mike Tuchscherer · Guru

Template Design

Nick U · Senior Member

Mike, I can see and have known that you don't look for complete recovery from the begining of the week till the end. I've not had real good success with that style of programming, possibly due to USAFA. I've made considerable gains in the last few months by programming with the intent of getting 100% recovery from workout to workout. Have you had any experience training for full recovery? What could be gained in my program from building a small recovery debt in the middle fo the week? Not concentrated of course,just a deficiet made up over the weekend. I'm pretty knowledgable about how to monitor this fatigue, so my real question is how much of a delayed training benefit should I be looking for

-- Edited by Nick U at 05:48, 2008-09-23

Darius · Veteran Member

Mike,

I liked the 3 day template you designed for me. However when you're doing 5 slots for upper body-bench you have to be careful. The last 2 bench sessions for me have been a wake up call. Using TOO high a percentage and not reducing the weight during the week. The last 2 sessions my bench speed has been VERY slow and my joints (forearms & shoulders have been stiff & sore) so tomorrow I will skip benching altogether.

The deadlift every week seems to be working ok. I'm surprised by the fact that I can deadlift decent weight for a pretty high volume. I used to be paranoid about deadlifting for fear of overtraining but now I'm begining to think of the dead as just another lift which needs to be trained.

BTW have you seen this article on block periodisation-

www.drsquat.com/articles/periodization.html

Mike Tuchscherer · Guru

Nick U wrote:

Mike, I can see and have known that you don't look for complete recovery from the begining of the week till the end. I've not had real good success with that style of programming, possibly due to USAFA. I've made considerable gains in the last few months by programming with the intent of getting 100% recovery from workout to workout. Have you had any experience training for full recovery? What could be gained in my program from building a small recovery debt in the middle fo the week? Not concentrated of course,just a deficiet made up over the weekend. I'm pretty knowledgable about how to monitor this fatigue, so my real question is how much of a delayed training benefit should I be looking for

-- Edited by Nick U at 05:48, 2008-09-23

The advantage of building up a fatigue debt during the week and using the weekend as recovery is that you're more efficiently using all your time. If you design your template so that you have 4 workouts during the week, I think you'd find it hard to NOT have a fatigue debt by Friday. The Saturday and Sunday off-days allow you to recover.

You could program it so you had 3 workouts during the week and one on the weekend, which would allow for more evenly applied fatigue and recovery throughout the week. There really isn't an inherent advantage to either one -- it's just taking your schedule into account. The reason I always held a fatigue debt while at USAFA was because my weekends were precious and I didn't want to spend it training. That's perfectly fine to say -- it just needs to be accounted for.

If you're not responding well to a fatigue debt, it could be a number of things going on -- not the least of which is that you might just not respond to that sort of physiological stress. The advantage of working up a fatigue debt during the week... there isn't much of one, but here's the reasoning.
You have to generate fatigue in order to supercompensate. The more fatigue that you recover from, the greater the strength gain (all else being equal). You are either in the process of a) recovery/supercompensation or b) fatiguing / detraining. It's about making the best use of your time to ensure that you are causing and recovering from as much fatigue as possible.
That's the theory. The practical application is difficult. There's tons of other considerations and "all things" aren't equal. What I can tell you is this:
1) Use Fatigue Percents and through the adjustment process, determine your weekly recovery rate
2) design your template so that on a Medium Stress week, you have a little extra recovery time.

If you start like that, you should be fine.

I think that answers your questions. Let me know, okay?

Mike Tuchscherer · Guru

Darius wrote:

Mike,

I liked the 3 day template you designed for me. However when you're doing 5 slots for upper body-bench you have to be careful. The last 2 bench sessions for me have been a wake up call. Using TOO high a percentage and not reducing the weight during the week. The last 2 sessions my bench speed has been VERY slow and my joints (forearms & shoulders have been stiff & sore) so tomorrow I will skip benching altogether.

The deadlift every week seems to be working ok. I'm surprised by the fact that I can deadlift decent weight for a pretty high volume. I used to be paranoid about deadlifting for fear of overtraining but now I'm begining to think of the dead as just another lift which needs to be trained.

BTW have you seen this article on block periodisation-

www.drsquat.com/articles/periodization.html

I hadn't read that article, but I had read one of Chris T's other articles that was very similar to this one (but longer and more detail oriented). He was one of the first guys I noticed talking about block periodization (for free anyway) back in the late 90's or early 2000's. Thanks for the link!

I'm glad to hear deadlift is going well. Can you give me some more info on your bench? Are you using Fatigue Percents to regulate your volume? What is your exercise selection like for each day?

We'll get it sorted out....

Darius · Veteran Member

Hey Mike,

Mon is just plain ol' bench Tue-could be bench shirt or pin presses-(prefer the shirt-for some reason I hate partial lifts)Wed after the deadlift pause benches or narrow grip bench. Fridays are usually narrow grip benches or pause benches again.

At the moment I'm using fatigue stops but since the fatigue percents are more reliable I will study the chapters more closely and see if I can implement them in my next cycle. In the manual it mentions using fatigue stops for 6-9 months and than using FP's.

My meet is coming up on the 19th of Oct. I have tried a squat suit 3 times and still havent hit depth with straps on. The bench shirt seems to be ok-I've got a loose shirt which I think I can get around 30 pounds. I think I may go raw at the end of the day but let's see how my training goes.

With the squat suit I dont know whether I need to add more weight or my technique isnt right. I am literally driving my ass back hard and than opening my knees but I'm still about 4 inches above parrallel. I can see you have similar issues with the squat suit. I'm new and this is only my second meet-live & learn-lol!.

Thanks for your help, Mike!

Mike Tuchscherer · Guru

You're doing a lot of the same thing. You're pretty much raw benching 3x a week. Grip and pause are good changes, but they're small. It would be easy to keep them there too long or mis-regulate the volumes and just flat-out overdo those movements.

Also, is there a reason your template is Mon, Tues, Wed... Fri? Having 3 days in a row seems odd to me.

My reccommendation is to get more variation if you can. If you can't, then you will need to closely regulate the volume and intensity of each lift. Also, if you can understand Fatigue Percents, go ahead and use them. The book says to wait 6-9 months because it can take that long for people to understand what Fatigue percents are all about.

Hitting depth and what's fine for training vs what will pass in a meet is a tricky thing. You might need more weight and you might just need to be more aggressive. Also, your depth will probably be better for singles than it will be for multiple rep sets.

Darius · Veteran Member

Mike,

It's a 3 day template based on what you recommended-

Monday
Squat
Bench
Squat

Wednesday
Bench
Deadlift
Bench

Friday
Squat
Bench
Deadlift
Bench (extra bench slot for 5 upper and 5 lower slots per week)

Mike Tuchscherer · Guru

Okay. that's better. In your above post, you have Mon, Tues, Wed, Fri. I must've misunderstood. My reccomendation still stands, but it's good to know you're not doing anything crazy.

Darius · Veteran Member

Mike,

In regards to Fatigue debt & volume how do some guys get by with such low volume & mainly high intensity? I mean I've seen guys like Matt K, Jim Wendler of elitefts and other guys like Coan, Furnas, Chaillet who just work up to a max and do this week in week out & make progress.

Is that kind of training suited to them physiologically & psychologically?

Mike Tuchscherer · Guru

It is suited to them psychologically, and from a physical standpoint most of their training has been adjusted to fit their physical specifics (mainly referring to work capacity right here).

This is why I teach people to program stress -- not volume. Because if you program stress, it takes work capacity into account.

I don't know about Doug Furnas or Challet, but I'm pretty sure Coan followed a linearly periodized routine. While his effort may have been high all the time, the intensity wasn't. Same with Jim Wendler.

I know that people will associate RTS with high volume / high frequency lifting because that's what I'm doing. It doesn't have to be that way. RTS can go whichever direction you choose. If you want to apply these traits to fatiguing principles and follow a more westside-ish approach, that's doable too.
Think of the training philosophy like a gun. You have M-16's, Mk-88's, Ak-47's, etc. That's like your training philosophy (Westside, Sheiko, Old School, Block Periodization, etc). RTS is like the laser sight you put on the gun to help you be more accurate.

Some training philosophies are inherently better than others. But which one is "best" refers to which is best suited for you given your current state of training. Some still have serious flaws. This is why I don't follow one root system. I have my own method of programming within the RTS construct, but you can use it to develop the philosophy of your choice.
For example, many "powerlifting systems" don't address the longevity issue. It's beyond this reply, but it's also something that needs to be accounted for. That's normally my problem with extremely low volume programming. If it takes place over a long enough period of time, it will ruin your work capacity. While that in and of itself may not be a big deal, having a crappy work capacity means you're more likely to just focus on the main lifts and neglect all the other injury prevention related stuff. That's just one issue and all I have time for right now. If there's continued interest on this subject, let me know and I'll follow up.

I'm sorry this is all over the place. It's a bit of a complicated thought and I don't have the time right now to do it justice, so please try to make sense of this. If you can't, let me know.

Darius · Veteran Member

Mike,

I get what you're saying regarding RTS and volume. I find I need volume. I wish I could be like Wendler & train the deadlift & squat once every 10 days but it wouldnt work for me.

I am going to have to rawdawg it at the meet. I am now going to do an intensity block for 2 weeks followed by a deload week and the meet is on 19/10.

I was thinking of keeping along the lines of 4 upper body slots & 4 lower body slots-

Monday
Squat
Bench
Squat

Wednesday
Bench
Deadlift
Bench

Friday
Squat
Bench

Can you help me with regards to exercise selection? My gym is pretty basic & I have to stick to the basics. Like I mentioned before I have surely overtrained the bench probably in regards to volume AND intensity.

In the intensity block for example-would one day be a lighter squat day than the other-ditto for bench?

If I was using just the lifts themselves and maybe pause benches & squats how would I ensure I'm not overtrained.

Sorry for all the questions & thanks for taking the time to answer them.

Mike Tuchscherer · Guru

I would suggest making the second squat movement on Monday some type of DL movement to achieve a better balance between the two. Of course, if you did it like this for a particular reason, then try it and see what happens.

As far as turning this into exercise selection, first you want to name your slots. Here's what I'm thinking for you:

Monday
Primary Squat
Secondary Bench Main
Deadlift Supplement

Wednesday
Primary Bench Main
Primary Deadlift
Secondary Bench Supplement

Friday
Secondary Squat
Primary Bench Assist

If that looks good to you, then we can hit up exercise selection.

Darius · Veteran Member

Yep=looks good to me Mike!

Mike Tuchscherer · Guru

Okay. The template can now be used. The exercises can change depending on the stage of training you're in, but the template can stay the same for prolonged periods of time.

Here's how to break it down...
"Primary" means "Primary Emphasis"... i.e. the exercise is used to develop your Primary goal for this block of training. This usually means Geared or Raw depending on your goals.

"Secondary" means "Secondary Emphasis"... the opposite of Primary

Bench, Squat, Deadlift are self-explanatory

"Main" means a main lift... maybe the contest lift for that emphasis. Maybe not, but if not, it's very close and highly specific.
"Assist" is closely related to the main lift. An example might be board work for the bench press. It's close in terms of movement pattern and weight used, but ROM is different.
"Supplement" is just a little less specific than "Assist". This usually has changes in movement pattern such as Inclines or Dips. It's usually used for higher reps, too.

So, by that, a Primary Bench Assist is an "Assist" exercise (close to the main lift, but not still significantly different) for the Primary Emphasis of your Bench training for this block.

So, using this knowledge, what movements would you pick?