Scott Stevenson
Forum Replies Created
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Massage guns can be used excessively and add to muscle injury created by a training session:
https://academic.oup.com/ptj/article/101/1/pzaa199/5958507?login=true
(The full paper is linked above.)
“On July 3, 2019, a 25-year-old Chinese woman with untreated mild iron deficiency anemia (baseline hemoglobin: 103 g/L; normal range: 115–150 g/L) presented at the Outpatient Department, Shantou Longhu People’s Hospital, Shantou, Guangdong, China, with significant fatigue and pain in her thigh muscles for 3 days, affecting her ambulation and asso- ciated with a 1-day history of tea-colored urine. Two and 3 days previously, she had cycled in a gym intermittently at an intensity of 6 to 7 mph for approximately 30 minutes each day. Right after cycling, she received percussive massage over her bilateral thighs for nearly 10 minutes through a commercial percussion gun for the purpose of massage and relaxing tired muscles. This treatment was provided by her coach, who did not take a medical history of the patient before the treatment and gave the treatment without supervision by qualified health care professionals. The patient developed pain in her bilateral thighs that evening, and urine discoloration was noticed 2 days later. She reported a previous tendency to bruise, even with minor trauma, but otherwise she had been generally healthy, with no family history of relevant disease or psychosocial concerns. She did not report any prodromal or aggravating events.”
It’s possible that if you’re using the massage gun to work through existing DOMS (so you can train, i.e., using it to warm up a sore muscle) that you’re perhaps training more than is optimal.
<font face=”inherit”>If you’re so sore that </font>you routinely (or repeatedly) treating DOMS, you could be worsening the situation at least in terms of disrupting recovery.
The Devil’s in the dose. 🙂
-S
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Sorry – Little late to the party!
What did you want to get my opinion on specifically?…
(As far as just 1 set to failure, that will depend on the Volume Tier: The System includes three of these which would be chosen based on recovery abilities of the trainee.)
-Scott
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Can anyone recommend a decent quality brand and also where they buy it from please.
Many thanks!
What do you plan to use the KW oil for?…
Do you know the risks in using it?…
(I ask really to protect you and hopefully educate in a way that will help down the road with product selection and use. You question suggests to me that you’ve probably not even googled for the product as it is found in ebay and amazon, and it’s actually so ubiquitous that maybe this is why you thought there were multiple brands?…. It’s made by Prince of Peace. I’ve never seen a knock off although there are hundreds of similar liniments available…)
-S
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I know the video @scott-stevenson .. I actually bought your Fortitude Training programme 5 or 6 years ago and remember reading it front to back repeatedly until I understood everything exactly. I learnt a lot from following this.. and I’m still continuing to learn from you to this day!
THANK YOU, Clare! From what I’ve seen / read, you are a phenomenal teacher yourself – a natural giver of your time, care and expertise. It’s an honor to have contributed to that in some way! 🙂
-S
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Clare and Jessy!
My pleasure and thanks for the kind words. Gosh, it took nearly as much time to get this post up (I had to post it repeatedly, finally without any links for it to appear here), as it did to write it.
Yes, it’s been quite amusing in one sense and insightful as to the level at which many approach their training intellectually to see how often (several times a week usually) folks simply say that a muscle round is boiled down to “6 x 4” without any mention of picking a load, progression, rest interval, etc. It’s quite humbling to get tagged so often in stories on IG, for example, but also motivating for me to try to help more folk out.
If you google “How to do a Fortitude Training Muscle Round” you’ll see the video I put together just to explain in execution and the background theory. (A great time saver for me! 🙂 )
-S
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So a cluster set is essentially a prolonged set broken down into 6 small sets of 5 reps with short rests in between and one failure point. @scott-stevenson refers to them as ‘Muscle Rounds’ in his Fortitude Training and uses 6×4 sets. For these you would pick a weight that you can do around 15 reps max on. Perform 4 reps, rest for 10 seconds, then perform another 4 reps, rest 10 seconds and so on until you reach the final 6th set. On this set you keep going until you fail. If, however you fail before getting t
o the last set, either drop the load immediately and continue or make a note in your log book to adjust the load next time around so that you reach that final set. (I hope I did Scott justice explaining that correctly!)[/quote]Clare and Jessy,
Most folks use the terminology here very loosely (I’m not entirely sure why), but as far as I can tell (from the research) and for the sake of avoiding the confusion of using multiple terms that have not specific meaning, here’s the low down:
Cluster sets are simply any kind of organized grouping of sets that divided by a rest interval that specifically doesn’t allow for elimination of fatigue from the previous set. (This is kind of my way thinking of these, but this is the term that Mel Siff and Verkoshansky use in Supertraining. So, even if you’re doing short rest interval sets, but coming back to the same level of fatigue (or roughly that), then you’re not doing a cluster set. A rule of thumb could be resting longer than a 1 min between sets and you’d not call them a cluster set – just straight sets with short rest intervals.
So a cluster set could be a DC Training style rest-pause set (failure points at the end of each set, breaths dictating rest interval) and FT style Muscle Round (nice work on the description there, Clare – see my youtube for a whole video on this a Leo Costa Titan Training Muscle Round (can’t recall quite how he explains them, but it wasn’t terribly specific – those the FT MR was borne), Borge Fagerli Myo Reps and any other way you’d want to break things up:
4 sets of 5 reps.
6 sets of 5 reps.
5 sets of 3 reps.The most diabolical of these that I know if are what is prescribed in PITT Force Training: (Note that part of
the Program which I’m not totally familiar with entails NOT taking full rests by racking, i.e., doing more like a DC style Widowmaker…)So when someone calls a cluster set a Rest Pause set (that’s not a DC training RP or Mentzer RP set – see below) it’s akin to calling a truck a Ford F150, even if the vehicle is a Chevy, Dodge or another brand. Like there are many kinds of trucks, there are many kind of cluster sets. (FYI – Dante used the term Rest-Pause because Mike Mentzer had a technique involving – I think – something like doing 6 singles with a slightly below 1RM load with a short rest interval (maybe with the idea of getting as many of those singles as possible, with the idea of progressing by getting more until one can do all 6(?), after which the load would increase.)
So, anyone can come up with their own cluster set, but IMO, the magic is in designing it such that there is a way to gauge and coax progression. (See my vid for how I do this with FT MR’s…)
-S
P.S. I had some links in here to help illustrate, but the board was booting my response… 🙁
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The 6 by 4 set is mentioned in the ebook but never utilised in the example workouts (as far as I can see); can someone explain where exactly to utilise this technique in the rotations. I’ve been PPL for a good few years and will sometimes throw a cluster, rp where I think it’s needed but what’s the official line on this
Is it a reference to a Fortitude Training style Muscle Round perhaps?…
-S
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Take bodybuilder A – Trains for 10 years, high volume, medium intensity 10-20 rep range, mainly trains for the pump
Bodybuilder B – Has always trained to failure, beaten the log book for again 10 years – strength is primary gauge for progression provided form and execution are adequate.
Both have made progress.
Now bodybuilder A decides after 10 years of training like a pussy, to begin logbooking, progressing strength and pushing himself like Bodybuilder B. – Does he now have more scope for overall progression?
Bodybuider A will have more room for progress b/c he’s not been focused on progress and been training like a pussy mainly, regardless of the volume of training.
Bodybuilder B cant start training like A was, high volume low intensity and getting any of the progression A has got up until now, as he will go backwards. – JP tried Reps in reserve as less demanding form of training and went backwards. So really he can only continue at the rate he’s going.
This is not certain at all (that higher volume would cause regression). For Jordan that was the case, but there is a massive amount of biological inter individual variability at work here.
For instance, in this study: https://escolatef.eadplataforma.com/upload/files/1207202015945973253-damas-et-al-2018.-jscr.-individual-muscle-hypertrophy-and-strength-responses-to-high-vs.-low-resistance-training-frequencies.pdf
Individuals trained one leg 5x / week (15 sets to failure) and the other either 2 or 3x / week (6-9set / wk). Some grew better with higher and some with lower volume. This isn’t the exact scenario here as these were untrained subjects, but you need only look to people like Ronnie Coleman vs. Dorian and compare training volume to see that there is some span in terms of what seems to be optimal at a high level of development.
Are we boxing ourselves in, in terms of overall progression by doing low volume training early on in our training careers, as we cant as easily tap into the rewards of other facilitators of growth later down the line.
Jordan has unique amount of single-minded focus, attention to recovery, etc. which have meant he’s very much optimized his training regime in a way that few have. But someone, for instance, who just trained with a lower volume approach and didn’t try to push the volume for whatever reason might very well find that shifting toward higher volume, more RIR is helpful.
You’ve painted a kind of black n’ which scenario for the sake of this though experiment / question, but for instance, adding in high (or even really high rep sets is something that Dante Trudel’s done with clients (e.g., 50 rep sets), as well as other techniques (pause in the hold reps on squats and presses for instance) that reduce absolutely load to prompt more growth. Those kinds of strategies (ala Pump sets in Fortitude Training) are a break from the 6-12 rep, heavy, progressive overload only type of training that will work for a LONG time for those who are willing to do so and are more along the lines of a metabolic stress, prolonged time under tension, etc. approach which is at the end of the spectrum where “volume training” sits.
Another suggestion. would doing:
High volume < Reps in reserve < then Low volume reap more rewards? once we have reaped most of the rewards from the one before.This is all hypothetical, as it would take years to do a study going from less intense training styles to more intense. I would be interesting seeing someone like regan grimes switching to low volume
Switching training styles – periodizing – is a damn good idea and works for many (e.g, folks who will use DC, JP, FT and MD training… LOL ).
Regan trains damn hard from what I hear (e.g. according to Fouad Abiad…), so I don’t know if he’s the best example…
More to say on this, but I’ll leave it at that… 🙂
-S
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Congrats, AJ!!!
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Means so much from yourself Scott thank you!
Was very cool to hear, my man! Good to see you over here, too. 🙂
KEEP KICKING ASS!
-S
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Congrats, AJ!!!
-S
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ahah I must be honest: I didn’t even think you could dig so deep into every aspect of the program… btw I posted this some days ago and received many positive feedbacks from many guys on this forum… but hearing if that may sound reasonable to you at a first glance (I’d never ever ask you more than that in this context…) in your fatherly way of talking would be very very appreciated (even though I know that the only actual way to know if it works for me is to try, see, maybe make mistakes and learn from them). Of course everything logbookedHey Bud,
If you’re looking for generic feedback, I’m not your guy. The responses from the members on this site are of a VERY high quality from what I’ve seen.
I’m going to tell you that if you REALLY want to make progress beyond what you can now, one thing you can do is become a student of the game and this starts with making the effort to dig deeper into what you’re doing, why you’re doing it and learning what works for you. The above does none of that and I were to tell you, “Sure, looks great” it would be a disservice you, especially in this case where you don’t seem willing to look critically at what you’re doing.
You’re going to make mistakes and learn from them. The last thing I’d want to do is contribute to any false sense of security by saying you’ve got a good program (which is VERY may well be and likely is, given the feedback you’ve gotten). That doesn’t help you grow.
Better yet – ask yourself why, after all the good feedback you’ve gotten, you still are asking for my feedback… What is the source that the insecurity, distrust or whatever it is that comes across as uncertainty?… Dig in on that, use it to drive you when you’re training, use it to figure out how you can become better and THAT will be something you’ll take with you for years, long after you’ve finished the split you’re currently running (and possibly even if you’re not even bodybuilding…).
So, I’ll just leave you with the answer you gave yourself, but you don’t quite trust, just yet, “The only actual way to know if it works for me is to try.”
All my Best, my man!
-Scott
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Sorry I didn’t want to be unfair or disrespectful or ask you to do more than what you are supposed in this specific conrext. I just don’t know how much work and context it’d take to do so.. I’m sorry
If anything I have to thank you for the time you are taking to answer my questions.You’re totally welcome!
Not disrespectful at all. I’d only ask that you formulate a specific question.
You might notice that I tend to be pretty wordy, so if you’re wanting me to look over your entire program that’s really narrowed down at all – you’re asking about everything all at once, essentially. (E.g., we could dig in deep on every single exercise, how / why you chose to do each of them, how well you execute each of them from a mind-muscle connection standpoint, whether the might lend themselves better to another set type, etc., etc., etc.)
I bet you’ll figure out a LOT more than you might have guess if you can nail down in your own mind what it is you’re concerned about specifically. 🙂
Also, there’s something to be said for just diving in – a lot of good learning comes from making “mistakes” and this will happen. 🙂
-S
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i’ll do left side and immediately right side with the same weight going immediately back and forth between the 2 sides. (4reps-4reps) for 6 times. I ensure I do not fail before the 4th set, if I do fail on the 4th or 5th mini set I’ll drop the weight and continue until I have completed all 6 mini-sets, so that I have a single failure point (at most 2, but I try to avoid that). If weight is too light on the 6th mini-set I rep out to failure, even if it is more than 4 reps …
To answer about exercise selection the reason might vary. It may be for the sake of variety: If I lose barbell row I might switch to low pulley row as well as to a unilateral exercises like dB rows… or maybe it’s just that I like certain exercises like one arm preacher curl… or maybe because I train in a home gym (bb, db, rack, jammer arms, lat machine and low pulley) and I may need some exercise variations or to save my spine from axial loading (I won’t squat or DL 3xweek but I can still progress on Bulgarian split squat let’s say while not having a leg press or a hack squat)
No, I am not trying to compensate any asymmetry but I find that when I perform a set to failure with a unilateral exercise (let’s say Bulgarian split squat) I can’t match reps with the other side unless I rest for 3-5 minutes (maybe due to systemic fatigue?) but with muscle round I tend to hit failure for the same number of reps with the 2 sides.
I don’t care if the training effect is exactly equivalent but just to know if that sounds reasonable and can progress well…
Btw could you give me a feedback on my whole routine (obviously I’ll give you more context)Sounds like you got the MR down! 🙂
I can’t tell that you’re doing anything but auto regulating the use of the MR for various reasons, pretty much on the fly. OTOH, if you’re not concerned with matching / controlling or monitoring volume and the only advantage of the MR is that you can get the set done in 2 min vs. 6 min if you wait between doing two straight sets, then I have the sense that your approach is not terribly systematic.
However, if you just want to have a set option as a standard alternative for your normal straight sets, and this option is a single unilateral MR, then I guess that’s OK by me. I would expect you’d progress on that if you’re processing otherwise, but if you’re making an option that simply used according to your own discretion (kind of the way in which Pump sets are in Fortitude Training), I’d not use that as a major program component to ensure and monitor progressive overload.
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As far as feedback on your entire program, that falls into my category of “unfair” questions. To give someone meaningful feedback, a massive amount of context (meaning a complete intake) is needed IMO, and that’s not something that’s fair for me to do when I have clients who pay for my services. Also, there’s often very little input on the side of the person asking, meaning they’ve not even dug in enough to have formulated some specific questions. If someone’s put together a program with so little thought that you’re lacking in insight as to where it might be troublesome or have weaknesses, then digging in a bit first makes a lot more sense. (You have to remember, I’ve been reading the “what are your thoughts on my program?” threads for well over 20yr now. 🙂
-S
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As to whether a FR Muscle Round (performed unilaterally) is equivalent to 1 straight sets (6-10 and 10-15 rep ranges), I would first want to know:
• How are you executing the Muscle Round? Many folks I’m finding aren’t doing them as I have set them out in Fortitude Training. (I literally don’t recall yet seeing a single person who has given a correct description of how to perform a FT MR on instagram. I’ve posted up a bulleted description, and will often just copy and past that in when I’m tagged on IG.)
• If your’e doing a FT MR, then you’re talking about a single failure point vs. two failure points (with the two straight sets). A MR will create greater inroads into recovery vs. a single straight set, but not as much as two straight sets to failure, GENERALLY speaking…
• Exercise selection is gonna matter: If you’re putting in exercises that can be done unilaterally for the MR, then these could be different than what you’re otherwise doing (for the straight sets). Will those exercises be lost or put in elsewhere / on a different session?…
You said you were doing this “so that neither of both sides suffers.” Is there an assymmetry that you’re concerned about mainly and wanting to use a unilateral FT MR to remedy this? (There are other options of course if so.)
-Scott
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