[Sam Horwell]

Thank you buddy for you reply

If you have an oppinion for the questions i asked from louis i’ll be happy to listen

Thanks

In regards to the questions above..

1st Q –
Example –
Monday – you’re doing 30sets for chest
Tuesday – 30sets for back
Wednesday – 30 sets for legs..
Ect

The systemic fatigue from that will be huge and carry over into subsequent sessions..
Just because you’re “frying” your chest doesn’t mean the systemic fatigue isn’t being carried over into your pull & leg days, you may be able to feel recovered for chest by the next chest session but after a couple of weeks you will be very burnt out due to the overal weekly volume you’re actually doing across all training days..

Q2 –
If you’re doing 24sets and progressing 16 but the last 8 aren’t progressing, I’d say what is the need to have them sets In there?
Aslong as the first 16 cover different muscle groups within what you’re trying to train – for example.. if you’re training back and the 16 sets is split evenly – 8 sets lats, 8 sets upper back and these sets are all progressing why would you then need a further 8 sets of lats/upper back if these aren’t progressing, this is where the upper limit of your recovery capability would be and be your MRV..

Them extra sets that aren’t progressing are essentially just fluff stuff that aren’t directly contributing to any muscle gain but they are contributing to putting you further into a hole you can’t climb out of..

Hope that answers the questions

[Sam Horwell]

Absolutely awful sleep last night.

Morning weight 201.6lbs

weight hasn’t moved for the last 2 weeks now so significantly bumping up my training day calories to try and move the scales and performance in the gym.

New training day macros;

Calories – 3950 (+200 from carbs)

275p +EAA intra

600c (+100g carbs)

50f

Rest day macros will remain the same.

was tired at my usual time of around 9.30am so decided to try and go to sleep, felt like i was just laying there for about 2 hours, was awake every hour too hot and restless as it was far too windy to have the window open last night – think its time for the fan to make an appearance although my girlfriend wont be best pleased.

thinking of trying out unwind and potentially PM priming or Sleep stack as i usually find it easy to get to sleep but staying asleep is almost impossible for me and im finding myself having to have a 30minute nap midday to feel somewhat normal going into the afternoons.

Anyway, was on the fence about whether or not to train this morning due to the poor sleep as i really didnt want my workout to suffer however when i got up and got hydrated i felt a bit more up for it so decided to train.. bad idea.

session started off well on hamstring curls but my heart rate increased after that and found it hard to calm down and dial into the session.

full session;

Seated calves x 2

lying ham curl x 2

smith squat x 1

h/s hip press x 2 (completely messed up loading top set loading and only hit 4 reps, going to go back to the 45degree h/s leg press as it felt much better and more powerful after squats)

seated hamstring curl x 2

single leg quad extension x 1

adductor x 1

On paper this looked like it would be a fairly easy session and probably would’ve been if i was fully recovered but going forward I’m planning on splitting quads & hams across the week as coming off the back of PPLOPPL and only hitting 2-3 movements on legs per session, hitting a full leg session just buried me and i didn’t enjoy it at all tbh.. was in the gym far too long also, anything over roughly 75-90minutes for me and I find I’m burnt out.. live and learn.

going forward i have adjusted the training plan, I have kept the overall weekly volume the same but have spread the frequency of exercises more evenly across the week to hopefully see some improvements and explosiveness going into each movement.

Plan going forward is;

– Pull + Hamstring (Lying curl + adductor moved from leg day)

– Chest & Arms

– Rest

– Quads & Pull

– Delts & Arms

– Rest

– Rest

Hopefully i can get a better sleep tonight before Delts and arms tomorrow.

[Sam Horwell]

Stick with a set number or excersises at maybe 1 set for compounds & 2 for isolations maximum and over the coming weeks assess if you’re progressing in weight/reps/visually and feel good..

If you’ve ticked all the boxes your volume is probably in a good spot and you could potentially look at adding in maybe a set to a compound to see if it brings any further gains or not over the next few weeks..

Ideally when planning training we want the most from the least.. why go into a session doing 12 excersises with 4 sets when potentially alls you could need is 4-5 with 2 sets..

I know what I’d rather be trying to progress on..

Realistically though, you know if you’re doing to much after a few weeks, you could probably keep up insane amounts of volume for a short time but you’ll just burn out quick and the motivation to train just won’t be there, it will catch up with you if you’re doing too much

[Sam Horwell]

Rest day today.

Went to be early last night as started to feel a headache come on and found it hard to keep my eyes open, didnt have the best sleep but going to have a short midday power nap today to help out.

Rest day Calories –
275p
400c
50f

Meal 1 & 2 have gone in already and currently sitting at 5000 steps.

3 more meals for the day and 5000 steps left to hit my minimum weekday step goal no matter what phase I’m in.

Leg day tomorrow, looking forward to it

[Sam Horwell]

I have one top set 8-12reps then a back off set at 12-20 for each exercise. I only do 1 exercise per muscle group. I’ve added 1 extra set of single legged squats and rdl on lower body days . 3 variation days. It’s mostly lower body that I’m feeling the fatigue from. I only do more than 1 exercise per body group when I am running a split routine.

It all sounds well in theory running upper/lower but honestly you need to just go with what you enjoy and can also recover from.

There’s no point in forcing a split that’s burying you (and from the sounds of it you can hardly drop volume as you’re already at a low volume) I’d switch back to a split body or push, pull, rest, legs, rest repeat..

Just because you have more time/days available now to train there’s no need to force yourself to do more if the capability isn’t there to actually DO more..

Hope that helps bud, stick to what you enjoy

[Sam Horwell]

Training day today.

Pull day went as follows;

Single arm H/s reverse grip pull down – 6, 12

Single arm H/s row – 8, 15

Bent over smith machine row – 8

H/s Low row – 7, 14

H/s Pull down (Mid/Upper back focused) – 7

Reverse pec dec – 10, 16

H/s preacher curl – 13, 9, 11

Good session overall, really connected well with all movements working primarily in the 6-10 and 12-15 rep ranges. only 1 set taken on the smith row and pulldown to asses recovery capabilities. felt strong until the end of the workout. will run this volume for the next 2 rotations to see if there is room to add any additional sets if needed.

Plan is to top up back and biceps for 2sets width, 2 sets thickness, 4 sets bicep on my upper day on Friday morning before heading into 2 consecutive rest days (which I’ve never usually done) will be a test of mental strength as sometimes just being in the gym helps me calm down for the day.

[Sam Horwell]

Nice upper focused split.

If you’ve been running it for 6 months this shouldve been enough time for you to gauge for yourself how you’ve recovered so far and feel.

If you feel that your recovery and progression have been spot on over the last 6 months and you enjoy running that split then I wouldn’t change anything going into prep and just continue on with it.

Potentially look at scaling back on volume as you get deeper into prep depending on how high it currently is

[Sam Horwell]

Post up your current split so input can be made if it’s too high volume..

I find the problem most people seem to have with upper/lower splits is that they add far too many movements and try to combine what they’d do in a full push&Pull day and try to combine in into just an upper day.

Pick 1 excersise for

Chest compound

Shoulder compound

Tricep compound

Lat

Upper back

Bicep

Tricep

Then depending on weakness’ you could look to add a lateral isolation to upper 1 & chest fly/isolation to on upper 2..

If your back is a weak point, look to add another lat or upper back variation instead. But fundamentally I’d start with just the 1 movement per muscle group for 2 sets and assess recovery from there if it were me.

[Sam Horwell]

Everyone’s recovery is different.

Personally if I were to run similar volume + frequency I would be buried after a few weeks and need a deload but some people can handle more..

If you’re recovering well and making progress then I’d say to carry on and see how you feel in the upcoming weeks.. if you can run it for a few months before needing a deload then I’d say you’re in a good spot.

Only you know if it’s too much or too little based on the feedback across the week.

[Sam Horwell]

Hi Marc, what is your current training split? Are you training 4x per week and is this a push phase?

[Sam Horwell]

I get your point, the reason I asked is because I saw the video Jordan uploaded DEADLIFTS=THERAPY, and he mentioned that he does his main bicep work with legs and he only did 1 set at the end of pull for more frequency. I also get his point and also agree with the whole increased frequency idea (depending on the person, their development and their needs of course). What I can not understand is how just 1 set is enough for someone like Jordan, even if he only has 2 sleeps to train biceps again, yes he will recover from 1 set but my question is not if he can recover…it’s the complete opposite, is 1 set really ENOUGH for HIS level of development to cause a hypertrophic response?

It’s all relative though.. 1 set of biceps for Jordans size/strength is just as challenging and adaptive as 1 set for you or me.. training to failure with loads that YOU have never touched before will inevitably lead to a hypertrophic response.. just because jordan is the size of a gorilla doesn’t mean he now has to do 10 sets of biceps to grow them further..

[Sam Horwell]

I’d aim for either full body x 3 if you can spread out the days to 1 day on, 1 day off or if you can literally only train on them days I’d try push towards – upper, lower, full body and then all body parts are still getting a 2x per week frequency

[Sam Horwell]

Personally, I think the leg extension is far superior for getting the quad short..

Youre not able to replicate the time spent in that contraction with the likes of a leg press/squat.

Leg press/squats would benefit more of the lengthened/stretched as when you’re at the bottom in the hole that’s when your quads will be most fired as opposed to a leg extension the quad is more activated at the top in the stretch.

I wouldn’t worry about trying to get your legs tucked fully under the seat, aslong as you’re hitting a decent enough rom it won’t matter to much.

[Sam Horwell]

I think you’re overthinking it lol just go with a serving!

Lol thanks Michaela, appreciate the response

[Sam Horwell]

By the above logic , we would only need 15g leucine a day to grow…..so now we can acknowledge thats silly

lets use common sense , its a meal that we are trying to replicate, so having as close to a full serving of protein is as ideal as possible, the min i would classify as a meal would be 20g , so having a serving and half of peak aminos would be a gd start point, or peak aminos + more regular eaa

Haha, thanks Jordan! I’ll go for 1.5servings