Rotation question - anyone?

[Flex]

Hi All,

I've decided to "go nuts" and have ordered the entire intensity series (obviously, frothing at the mouth for this one), AND the Slow and Heavy Series.

Just received, and started doing CTX Upper Body and Leaner Legs about a month ago. Prior to that, I was doing Power Hour 3x/week (actually stuck to just Power Hour for about 5 months, obviously waaaay too long on one program).

Thinking of rotating strengh work-outs as follows (I also do cardio each day):

CTX Upper Body/Leaner Legs (Upper Body on days 1,3,5/Legs on days 2,4,6)
Slow & Heavy (will try to do each work-out 2x/week)
Pyramid Upper/Lower Body (rotating days as above)

Does anyone know/have an idea how long I should remain on one program for (E.g. Use Slow & Heavy for 3 weeks, then swith to Pyramid for 3 weeks, then back to CTX Upper and Leaner Legs for 3 weeks???)

Also, what do people think of the Slow & Heavy series? I've been frightened of it, but am making a lot of gains with CTX Upper Body and Leaner Legs...therefore, not so scared anymore. Ready to jump in. What type of benefits have people seen with this series?

Thanks,
Flex

 

[jillybean]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Dec-29-02 AT 03:21PM (Est)[/font][p]Congratulations on your new purchases! First of all, I think that doing CTX upperbody and Leaner Legs 3x's a week is too much. Just my opinion, but Cathe designed the CTX series to work each body part one time per week. She suggests doing more than 1 body part per day, when time permits, but 3x's a week just seems too much. Do you have Body Max or Circuit Max? These are nice compliments to CTX. You could do something like this:

Sat. 60 min of cardio
Sun. CTX upper body
Mon. 30 min of low intensity cardio and LL (or just LL if you're tired)
Tue. CTX upperbody
Wed. Cardio
Thu. A circuit workout (like Circuit Max or another workout that incorporates cardio work and endurance leg work, or LL again if you're up to it - I can only do that one 1x per week)
Fri. Rest

Cathe posted this rotation for Pyramid UB and LB:
Mon: Pyramid Lower Body
Tues: Pyramid Upper Body
Wed: Imax 2
Thurs: off
Fri: Cardio and Weights
Sat: Pyramid Lower Body with the first 5 intervals of IMAX 2
Sun: Pyramid Upper Body

With the Slow and Heavy, I personally did not bulk up. I used the Pure Strength series for 8 weeks which built the house for me, so to speak, then switched to S&H for 3 weeks, which was like adding the paint and decorations. If PS gave me definition in my shoulder, then S&H gave me seperation and deeper cuts. It is a great series but quite fatiguing. I seriously had to cut down my cardio with this series. You might want to try the CTX rotation above (or some variation of it) for 4 weeks, then do the upperbody lowerbody roation Cathe suggested for 4 weeks, then do a S&H rotation. I did the following with that one:

Sat. S&H C&B CTX All Step cardio portion only
Sun. S&H L&S
Mon. Cardio
Tue. S&H T&B
Wed. Cardio
Thu. Power Hour or a circuit workout (to make sure I hit each body part 2x's per week)
Fri. Rest

You might be able to add more cardio, but I was tired and hungry when I attempted to add more. Hope this helps. Have fun!!!

 

[Flex]

Excellent! Thanks so much!

I think I'll be cutting down to 2x/week with my "longer" strength training" videos, and throw in the new cardio and weights video from the intensity series.


Thanks again!