Comparing STS 2.0 to XTrain!

[Kellyro77]

I haven't seen this discussion yet, so thought I'd get a thread going.

Has anyone here gone through the STS 2.0/XTrain rotation in the guide yet?

I'm going to start that particular rotation in about a month after doing a fill-in STS 2.0 rotation upon completing the 12-week rotation from the guide.

I'm bringing up XTrain, too, because today I decided to do XTrain's Burn Sets Bi's and Tri's. I was supposed to do STS 2.0 Body Parts Biceps yesterday, but was listening to my body and really felt I needed to give myself a rest day. Since today was Body Parts Triceps on the calendar, I decided to instead make up for missing biceps yesterday by doing XTrain Burn Sets Bi's and Tri's.

I was in for an unpleasant surprise!

For whatever reason, I thought Cathe moved fairly slow in her Burn Sets workouts and had long breaks between sets. Nope!! She moves pretty fast in comparison to STS 2.0, and the rests between sets are only about 30 seconds. I got totally spoiled by STS 2.0! I even found myself saying "nope!" when a 30 second rest was over and pausing for another 30 seconds before moving forward.

So, just a heads up - the pacing in XTrain is different from the pacing in STS 2.0. I actually think this will be interesting when I do the actual rotation from the guide. As we know, changing things up is always good for our body, so maybe I'll see some additional benefits when I'm swapping between XTrain and STS 2.0 workouts, going a little quicker one day with shorter rests and slower with longer rests the next. Although I reserve the right to put in longer rests during XTrain, period (now that I know how helpful they are!)

Bright side is seeing I hadn't lost any strength since the last time I'd made entries on my Xtrain workout notes. In fact, I was able to push a little heavier on some sets. Happy about that!

Anyone else notice the differences between the two series?

 

[Debinmi]

I'm planning to do a variation of the STS2.0/Xtrain rotation in October/November (some different cardio substitutes). This month I'm re-visiting older 3-day split series (S&H, PS, Gym Styles & RWH). Last week I did P30 - you are so right! The pacing is vastly different! This makes the workout more intense in one sense - I like the rests in STS2.0 - they made the workouts not seem so stressful. Interesting how I was used to the faster pace in other series & didn't give it much thought, but after 3 months of STS2.0, I'm now more inclined to slow things down a bit too.

 

[Kellyro77]

Coming back to this. I never got around to the STS 2/XTrain rotation, but I'm now doing a modified 12-week XTrain rotation (modified, meaning I'm swapping out some of the cardio and lower body days for other Cathe cardio and lower body workouts - the cardio and lower body work in XTrain is too repetitive for my liking).

I have to say, I'm actually appreciating the faster pace and shorter rests so far. Of course, I've only JUST started (on day 1) and did Chest, Back and Shoulders. NOT the Burn Set version yet.

I'm happy to encounter a bit of cardio factor in the upper body workouts. I've been pretty low-key since the beginning of the year where cardio is concerned, so some added cardio is welcome right now.

It remains to be seen if I'm going to want to hit pause during the rests in the Burn Sets workouts, but I'm actually enjoying the pace in the non-Burn Set workouts.

 

[nckfitheart2009]

I have to say, I'm actually appreciating the faster pace and shorter rests so far. Of course, I've only JUST started (on day 1) and did Chest, Back and Shoulders. NOT the Burn Set version yet.

I have not done XTRAIN recently but I can confirm it is an endurance fast series compared to STS 2.0 Burnset is the only ten reps in Xtrain series but the rest period is tight.