Welcome to the first Intensification phase of the new cycle.  Since we want ALL of your muscle fibers to grow, we need to expose you to some heavy loads to tap into those fast twitch fibers.  Plus, if you’re stronger, you’ll be able to lift heavier weights for more reps in the next phase.  But don’t let the longer rest periods fool you, you’ll be feeling pretty wiped by the end.

If you’ve been with us for previous phases, you’ll notice something different about the Chin Up and Pull Up reps.  They don’t match up with the rep scheme of the A1 exercise.  It’s written as 10-12 reps on a [2010] tempo for each set.  Now, you may be thinking “I can’t do 12 unbroken strict Chin/Pull Ups.”  That’s fine.  You’ll do as many as you can on each set.  So your reps over the 4 sets may look like:  8,7,5,2.  That’s fine.  The goal, over time, is to keep increasing your total reps until you’re close to 12 on each set.

I’ve also included a little “remedial work” on the second upper body day - hitting your rotator cuff and muscles that control the shoulder blades.  This will help keep your shoulders healthy, strong, and bulletproof.

And again we’ve got some Drop Sets.  In case you forgot, or haven’t done previous phases with them:

• Do your prescribed reps.
• Drop the DB’s and pick up slightly lighter ones
• Immediately perform another set of reps with the lighter weights
• Then move on the other half of the superset, which also has a Drop Set at the end.

If necessary, review the video on the main Team page for a refresher on how to read the rep/tempo/rest notation.  Post questions and comments on the Team Feed.

Have fun, stay hungry, and get after your new PHYSIQUE.