Fortitude Training (Review)

[Jim]

LOL!



Do you have somewhere to put a home gym?... I've gone through various phases over the years where I've used mine for weeks and months on end - a great time saver. (I show it off here, when I was back in Arizona - it's in FL with me now. This set-up was about $5000. www.ironmaster.com. Maybe something similar over there.)

When you have to wake up to tend to the new baby (CONGRATS!), you could just grab a workout...

-S

He will be tending to the baby
He'll be grabbing some formula and a nappy not a workout bud lol

 

[Pscarb]

LOL!



Do you have somewhere to put a home gym?... I've gone through various phases over the years where I've used mine for weeks and months on end - a great time saver. (I show it off here, when I was back in Arizona - it's in FL with me now. This set-up was about $5000. www.ironmaster.com. Maybe something similar over there.)

When you have to wake up to tend to the new baby (CONGRATS!), you could just grab a workout...

-S

I still remember the text in the original plan being in capitals telling me if I missed a meal to make it up [emoji3][emoji3]

I will be able to train (not in the first two weeks though) but I will be pushed back to 3 days a week for a while which works well for me, just got used to training twice a day 4 days a week at the moment..........problem is just not really eating enough to take advantage of it......

I preach to all my clients about consistency and the need to increase calories but due to one reason or another in the last 6-8 months failed in doing it myself but it will be sorted I am sure

 

[flynnie11]

@Scott Stevenson

Hi Scott,

During an intensive cruise you state to train twice a week and muscle rounds only

Not sure if its been mentioned already but how would you approach diet on this?

For example in your ebook, you state for 100g person 5000cals training days and zero carb 3750cals off days

If only training twice a week and muscle rounds would you have 2 days of 5000cals and 5 days of zero carb days on non training days?

weekly cals would then on average drop a lot

 

[Scott Stevenson]

@Scott Stevenson

Hi Scott,

During an intensive cruise you state to train twice a week and muscle rounds only

Not exactly. From the book (r.e. Intensive Cruising):

"Training frequency is also reduced by training only train 2-3 x / week (once every
3-4 days or so), depending on how your recovery needs and the length of your
Cruise. (This would entail only 3-4 workouts in the above example.)"

How many times / week you train depends on when you stop your Blast and how long your cruise is. The duration of the cruise is based on the duration of the balst, too. Also, your life's schedule dictate how often you end up training during the Cruise to some degree, of course. E.g., If you do a 2 week Cruise, then it might be 10 days of training with 4 workouts, which would end up entailing 3 workouts in a given weeks time. If you Blasted for only 3 weeks, then you'd cruise for 1 week and would only train twice during that period.

Not sure if its been mentioned already but how would you approach diet on this?

For example in your ebook, you state for 100g person 5000cals training days and zero carb 3750cals off days

If only training twice a week and muscle rounds would you have 2 days of 5000cals and 5 days of zero carb days on non training days?

weekly cals would then on average drop a lot

Actually, I cover this question in detail on p. 128 . It's one of the Frequently asked questions at the end of the book.

The answer to your question is very much "it depends." It depends on how the Blast went as well as if you're training to gain size (off-season) or using FT while dieting down.

(Also, those #'s are just hypothetical of course. There can be HUGE variability in terms of what a person actually needs in terms of kcal to make gains. I mention this b/c so very frequently get asked for a stand-alone diet or strict, black n' white guidelines for gaining, etc. but I want to make it clear that those values in the book were just to illustrate a point, not necessarily to form a strict basis for developing your own diet. If you happened to weight 100kg and were gaining with 3500kcal / day, jumping to 5000kcal / day wouldn't make sense. )

-S

 

[Leviathan]

@Pscarb or @Scott Stevenson

Wanted to start this next week but nrefa bit of clarification on something.

Not sure if its been covered in this tread along the way so thought if ask....

Its in regards to number of sets per given exercise.

Say for example tier 1, day 1, it says

Loading sets: thigh, quad, ham adduct - 1 set
6-12 reps. Calf's - 2 sets

Pump sets : chest/back, sh/abs, bis/tri 1set
15-25


Now are those the number of sets total per exercise and no more, or do you include a couple of warm up sets

So for the thigh loading set, say if I did leg press, would I do just 1 set to failure before moving to the exercise for quads, or do maybe 2 warm up sets leading to the heavy loading set to failure?

Same with muscle rounds, again let's go with leg press, would I pick a weight I knew I would fail around 15 reps and do 6 sets of 4 or would I do a couple warm up sets before the 6x4

I guess same goes for the pump sets

Also I see as you move through the tiers, say we are now on tier 3, on the over view sheets, the amount of sets, mainly for loading sets has increased, where on tier one mostly all have 1 set, some having two.

I can see thigh loading sets gives from 1 set to 3...now is that 2 warm up sets and 1 working set to failure, or would I do 1-2 warm ups then 3 heavier working sets, going to failure on last set?

Many thanks

 

[Pscarb]

The sets given are working sets do as many warm up sets as you need to do to warm the muscle/joints before going for your heavy set

Same for MR choose a weight you can do 15 reps and then do 24 reps.....

For the upper tier levels it's the same the sets given are working sets so you would do 3 working sets on tier 3 with as many warm up sets as needed.......
Just remember when doing more than 1 working set you don't go to failure on all of those working sets just the last one, the other sets you stop 1-2 reps short of failure

 

[Scott Stevenson]

THANK YOU, Paul! @Pscarb

-S

 

[Con]

Well I certainly made Scott a monster of a thread with this one....with that knowledge driving me let me ask him "one of those questions"

Scott how would you set up a higher frequency training plan without muscle rounds?
Would you just do the load lower pump upper day 1 load upper pump lower day 2 then repeat for day 3/4?
Have you every experimented with doing a rest pause set in the DC style instead of muscle rounds?
Thus on MR day you either do a rest pause set or a pump set.

I don't know about everyone else but MR are just not always my cup of tea.
They feel great for some exercises but I will admit that a regular rest pause set would be far easier to utilize especially when training with various people that don't strictly do the same program as your self.
I can't help but imagine I am not the only one with this mind set (MR are by far the least popular part of FT for the people i have trained with....and I have had over 10 different people join in for several FT sessions over the past year and a bit!)

 

[Scott Stevenson]

Well I certainly made Scott a monster of a thread with this one....with that knowledge driving me let me ask him "one of those questions"

Scott how would you set up a higher frequency training plan without muscle rounds?
Would you just do the load lower pump upper day 1 load upper pump lower day 2 then repeat for day 3/4?
Have you every experimented with doing a rest pause set in the DC style instead of muscle rounds?
Thus on MR day you either do a rest pause set or a pump set.

Yes, Big thread!!!

Ah, there could me a ton of different ways to do this, really. I would probably start by asking the person what kind of training has worked for them (heavy loading vs. higher volume reps, for instance) and formulate the program around that. If someone had done a lot of DC and liked RP's, then that could be a focus (but see below).

Secondarily, I do think think the using a "conjugate" approach to set types, as you're saying above, is important (different Set Types), so this could be:

---Some kind of heavy loading Focused Set
---Some Kind of Cluster Set
---Some kind of Metabolic Stress-focused

I'd want to include some of the following, too:
Progressive overload with auto regulation
Variety of exercises
ETC, ETC... I could go on an on.

So, to simply, in place of Muscle Rounds, I'd want to see what that person LIKES doing and what's worked best for them. If they like heavy training, then more of this could be used in place of the MR's. Or like you say, perhaps just a pump set / metabolic stress-oriented set.

I'd want to be wary with the RP's, just in that they have so many failure points that volume would have to be limited (due to neurological / immunological / endocrinological stress).

I don't know about everyone else but MR are just not always my cup of tea.
They feel great for some exercises but I will admit that a regular rest pause set would be far easier to utilize especially when training with various people that don't strictly do the same program as your self.
I can't help but imagine I am not the only one with this mind set (MR are by far the least popular part of FT for the people i have trained with....and I have had over 10 different people join in for several FT sessions over the past year and a bit!)

I find a lot of folk actually like the MR's more than anything, actually, but some of this is b/c the exercises are chosen freely on those days.

I'm totally down for folks (esp. if they've used FT for a while) choosing to modify to match their personal needs. As I said, I think RP's are bit tougher to recover from, but they can certainly be a part of a program. I'd not try to swap out the MRs on a 1:1 basis with DC-style rest-pause sets, that's for sure.

I'm very glad you've got a lot of folks doing FT. Do you mean it would be easier to do and RP set vs. an MR in the context of training a couple people at once?...

-S

 

[Con]

I don't mean putting PT clients onto a FT program.
I wouldn't feel right using another man's system on my own clients like that.
I do have one client that is using FT but he bought your book and I mainly assist with the diet portion he has the training covered pretty well at this point
But due to the gym dynamic I have where I allow a lot of people to train with me periodically a lot of people have done MR's with me.
I see your point about people loving them if they purely follow a FT program.
I am talking about a situation where Joe Member jumps in for a workout with me and then in turn gets put through a MR set.
It's usually very difficult to get them to perform it correctly and with the right weight.
At least straight off the bat.

I am really big into higher frequency training and always have been.
If I am not hitting a body part twice per week it's out of the ordinary that's for sure!
As far as clients the most I ever split a program up is into p/p/l but more common is upper/lower or full body.
An entire workout for arms as an example is not some thing I would personally do unless I am joining in with a friend and then it's more about the social aspect than pure results on that day.

I always have great results when I do FT and I intend on getting back to that style of training (more full body than the p/p/l i currently follow in prep) in the off season.
4 days per week suits me well especially due to how busy I am throughout the week.
But I would like to adjust it slightly so that it's more appealing for friends/members to get a session in with me instead of alienating them.

This is where I when I begun to think about using the FT template (day 1 and 2 are PERFECT IMO) but change day 3/4.
Of course you're correct doing more than 1 all out RP set for a body part would be total overkill especially with the high frequency!
But lets say doing....
Day 3 Lower
1 set of thigh in a rest pause manner
1 set of quad in a pump manner
1 set of hamstrings in a rest pause manner
1 set of hamstrings in a pump manner
2 sets of calves in a pump manner

Of course your answer will be "do what you will think works for you" but I was curious if you had set up any FTesque programs where MR were not used?

 

[Pscarb]

I don't mean putting PT clients onto a FT program.
I wouldn't feel right using another man's system on my own clients like that.
I do have one client that is using FT but he bought your book

i have had a few clients use FT and have ones now that have come to me because of FT I insist that they buy the ebook then will help them with the set up as I work with them, mostly I give them advice on exercise choice, when to deload (not many like to have a week off, well less training) plus diet set up (like you do)
I have no issue with this I make it clear this is not a training system I have created and as long as they have purchased the Ebook from Scotts site (I hope this is all good with Scott)

 

[flynnie11]

Not exactly. From the book (r.e. Intensive Cruising):

"Training frequency is also reduced by training only train 2-3 x / week (once every
3-4 days or so), depending on how your recovery needs and the length of your
Cruise. (This would entail only 3-4 workouts in the above example.)"

How many times / week you train depends on when you stop your Blast and how long your cruise is. The duration of the cruise is based on the duration of the balst, too. Also, your life's schedule dictate how often you end up training during the Cruise to some degree, of course. E.g., If you do a 2 week Cruise, then it might be 10 days of training with 4 workouts, which would end up entailing 3 workouts in a given weeks time. If you Blasted for only 3 weeks, then you'd cruise for 1 week and would only train twice during that period.



Actually, I cover this question in detail on p. 128 . It's one of the Frequently asked questions at the end of the book.

The answer to your question is very much "it depends." It depends on how the Blast went as well as if you're training to gain size (off-season) or using FT while dieting down.

(Also, those #'s are just hypothetical of course. There can be HUGE variability in terms of what a person actually needs in terms of kcal to make gains. I mention this b/c so very frequently get asked for a stand-alone diet or strict, black n' white guidelines for gaining, etc. but I want to make it clear that those values in the book were just to illustrate a point, not necessarily to form a strict basis for developing your own diet. If you happened to weight 100kg and were gaining with 3500kcal / day, jumping to 5000kcal / day wouldn't make sense. )

-S

Thanks Scott

I have had to ebook for years and have followed the diet my last 2 off seasons and following it now

I just started fortitude training for the fist time this week

I have done 2 muscle round workouts

Suprise how hard muscle rounds are. I did muscle rounds for leg press and thought I was going to die ha

However Traps are an area I am working on this off season and I noticed that you neglect direct Trap training in your program. Is there a reason for this ? Do you feel did get hit with other exercises?
I had genetically gifted calves so I don't train them. So I did 2 muscle rounds of Traps instead. Would this be something you would recommend doing

Start another blast in 2 weeks and will be doing fortitude training for the entirety so using these 2 weeks as a trail to gauge weights used etc. Before I Deload for a week or 2 after next week

 

[Scott Stevenson]

I don't mean putting PT clients onto a FT program.
I wouldn't feel right using another man's system on my own clients like that.
I do have one client that is using FT but he bought your book and I mainly assist with the diet portion he has the training covered pretty well at this point
But due to the gym dynamic I have where I allow a lot of people to train with me periodically a lot of people have done MR's with me.
I see your point about people loving them if they purely follow a FT program.
I am talking about a situation where Joe Member jumps in for a workout with me and then in turn gets put through a MR set.
It's usually very difficult to get them to perform it correctly and with the right weight.
At least straight off the bat.

Yes, it's hard to feel out the weight for some folks who aren't used to doing that, even if they could accurately predict a 15RM.

A thought here for you is too simply err on the side of going to light and then have that person be sure to go very slow with the reps, which will tend to keep them within the constraints of the MR rep scheme. (They'll do fewer reps going slower.) This will be pretty tough, too, of course.

I am really big into higher frequency training and always have been.
If I am not hitting a body part twice per week it's out of the ordinary that's for sure!
As far as clients the most I ever split a program up is into p/p/l but more common is upper/lower or full body.
An entire workout for arms as an example is not some thing I would personally do unless I am joining in with a friend and then it's more about the social aspect than pure results on that day.

Same here, my man. I had figured out that higher frequency suits me back in the 90's and was doing something very similar to DC training before I found Dante's Cycles for Pennies thread. (I was pretty stoked to find that...)

I always have great results when I do FT and I intend on getting back to that style of training (more full body than the p/p/l i currently follow in prep) in the off season.
4 days per week suits me well especially due to how busy I am throughout the week.
But I would like to adjust it slightly so that it's more appealing for friends/members to get a session in with me instead of alienating them.

This is where I when I begun to think about using the FT template (day 1 and 2 are PERFECT IMO) but change day 3/4.
Of course you're correct doing more than 1 all out RP set for a body part would be total overkill especially with the high frequency!
But lets say doing....
Day 3 Lower
1 set of thigh in a rest pause manner
1 set of quad in a pump manner
1 set of hamstrings in a rest pause manner
1 set of hamstrings in a pump manner
2 sets of calves in a pump manner

Of course your answer will be "do what you will think works for you" but I was curious if you had set up any FTesque programs where MR were not used?

RP sets de facto provide less training volume than MRs:

E.g., your 15RM might end up to yielding 21 reps total with a DC-style RP set whereas doing MR;s with that load might get 24 reps, but you can get away with doing 2 or more of them.

The upshot of this is that you're got less wiggle room for adjusting volume to created Volume Tiers for Day's 3 and 4. But what you CAN do here is simply use fewer failure points with the RP sets. (Yes, I've considered what you're proposing and played around with it a bit, too - this was the kind of thing I did over the last few years of DC training and in developing FT.) For instance:

GENERALLY
Volume Tier I - A double RP (2 failure points),
Volume Tier II: Triple RP (3 failure points)
Volume Tier III: Triple RP with a static (standard DC)

WM's (Tier II / III) or Pump sets (Tier I) could be added sparingly to bring up weak muscle groups and used for things like arms, too.

We can call the above strategy Fortitude Crapping... LOL

-S

 

[Scott Stevenson]

i have had a few clients use FT and have ones now that have come to me because of FT I insist that they buy the ebook then will help them with the set up as I work with them, mostly I give them advice on exercise choice, when to deload (not many like to have a week off, well less training) plus diet set up (like you do)
I have no issue with this I make it clear this is not a training system I have created and as long as they have purchased the Ebook from Scotts site (I hope this is all good with Scott)

Paul, you've helped me so much in spreading the word about FT, I've got no problem whatsoever with how you might benefit from FT (short of perhaps impersonating me and going on tour... LOL).

A LOT of folks who buy the book are trainers / run gyms, etc. A LOT, so I presume they are using the system with clients. There is a guy over here (friend of a friend) who started using FT to train his clients shortly after it came out. This guy LOVES the system and, from what I'm understand (from him actually), he uses the Family Man plan to train essentially all of this 3x / week clients (with some of his own twists, I guess now). The details are not important (albeit pretty annoying, actually), but I suspect his clients do not know a thing about me.

-S

 

[Scott Stevenson]

Thanks Scott

I have had to ebook for years and have followed the diet my last 2 off seasons and following it now

I just started fortitude training for the fist time this week

I have done 2 muscle round workouts

Suprise how hard muscle rounds are. I did muscle rounds for leg press and thought I was going to die ha

However Traps are an area I am working on this off season and I noticed that you neglect direct Trap training in your program. Is there a reason for this ? Do you feel did get hit with other exercises?
I had genetically gifted calves so I don't train them. So I did 2 muscle rounds of Traps instead. Would this be something you would recommend doing

Start another blast in 2 weeks and will be doing fortitude training for the entirety so using these 2 weeks as a trail to gauge weights used etc. Before I Deload for a week or 2 after next week

Hey Bud!

Glad to hear FT brought you closer to the "other side," at least for a brief moment.

A couple thoughts on traps:

If you're doing heavy squatting and (partial) dead-lifting movements (and even heavy OH pressing) they will tend to grow for most folks. In other words, get to where you're pulling 250kg rack deads and squatting 200kg for Loading sets and your traps will likely not be small.

Traps would fall under Back thickness exercises, too, so you can include them there, in particular as an MR movement or even a pump movement. I like to do BO rows in a relatively upright position, which means I can handle more weight and this also targets the upper traps, too.

For an MR, BB, DB and machine shrugs are all options. Stiff-legged DL movements will also load the traps quite nicely.

For Pump sets, you can target the upper and middle traps nicely by using a supported (T-bar) row and do a shrug only movement. You can set up an incline bench to essentially do the same with a BB or DB's. (This can be a nice one if you can position a bar under an incline bench, lying face down on it. Pull UP and BACK really hard with the traps on each rep. )

-S