Question for functional fitness folks

[L Sass]

About 2 weeks ago I decided to give my body a break from my Cathe stuff for a week and use my TLTs - but only for a week. Well, I did the TLTs with some Jari Love mixed in, and scaled back on my cardio - got to the end of the week and decided it felt so good I'd go for another week. Now here I am at the end of week 2 and - you guessed it - I'm considering going one more week. Why? Not sure - these really are a different kind of workout and balancing them with the Jari's (S&L and RTTC) is nice. Just wondering what those of you who have done a functional fitness rotation thought and how long you did it.

Lorrie

Pain is temporary - quitting lasts forever
Candace Grasso, CC-V-6

 

[dorothyrd]

I did the TLT's last winter for 6 weeks straight. By the end I could not wait to get back to a good hard weight lifting routine. I felt I lost fitness and think the best rotation for me would be heavy weight lifting with the FF stuff maybe once a week. I really disliked just doing these, but I wanted to give them a chance and learn them well before I judged. they were just not hard enough for me.

 

[kathryn]

I think the TLT's are good as a 'recovery' from heavy lifting, done for a week (2-3 of them during the week) after 3-4 weeks of the more traditional lifting, then back to the traditional stuff.

I did this for a while (before I got distracted by other workouts!) and it seemed to be a good way to reinforcing the core muscles and stabilizers, so that when I got back to the heavier stuff, I could lift heavier and more efficiently.

You could also integrate them into a weekly program, like doing an upper/lower split routine (day 1 and day 3) and one TLT (day 5) each week.

ETA: if your TLT/Jari rotation is working for you, I'd say give it another week. But sometimes it's hard to judge when you will hit the point of diminishing returns ('plateau') unless you have experience with the particular rotation (like "I did this for 3 weeks about 6 months ago, and at the end of it, found that I'd lost strength, so this time, I'll only go 2 weeks").

 

[ivorygorgon]

I hurt my back about 6 weeks ago, and because recovery has been slow, for the last week I have been doing a much lighter rotation. I can tell you that when I do the TLTs they don't feel so much to me like a workout as they feel like physical therapy. When I finish BBBB it feels like I had a massage and a chiro adjustment. I am also noticing, since I did Cardio Coach 3 last night, that I got less tired during this workout. There is a point in this workout where Sean says "If you're feeling spunky, you can hit the rewind and re-do this challenge." I always think to myself "yeah right!!!" But last night I actually felt like I could have added an extra challenge. I didn't because I didn't want to push it. I think I may have been overdoing it without really realizing it, and the "rest" has been doing my fitness level a lot of good.

The moral of my story is, if it feels right to you right now to continue doing the TLTs, why not? You can always continue and do a heavier rotation later.

Just my $.02.

 

[mspina]

I had originally planned to do a TLT/TLP focused rotation, but after one week of it, realized that there was NO WAY I could keep that up exclusively. I'd lose everything I just gained from the X. But, I've come up with a rotation that incorporates one per week, and I'm kind of liking it. I'm doing exactly what Kathryn proposed - a 2 day UB split, plus one TLT/TLP per week (in addition to 2 cardio days and a yoga day). I also tack on some of the ab work that I like (some sections of TLP:CF are wicked!) to cardio days or strength days that don't already have ab work built in. I think I'll like this set-up.

m.