Restarting DC

[RZIDE]

I recently did an 8 week DC cycle and was very impressed. I feel I made some decent progress and love the structure. But, my body basically said screw this along with my mind since I'm into my finals at school.

My question is, when I start back after my cruise week, should I try to rotate in new lifts? What are some good variations you all would recommend? Right now I'm doing the basic compound movements and don't really have any outside the box lifts.

If not, and I do the lifts I've already been doing, where should my weights be? I understand there is probably no black and white answer but should I try to keep progressing from my last heaviest weight? or should I start relatively "light" (weights Ive done in the past) again to keep the reps up then progress as normal?

Sorry for compounding so many questions into one post!

[Sammich]

The absolute WORST time to change exercises is when you're still progressing on one. Keep milking that fucker for all it's worth.

When you start a new blast, take one or two steps back from where you left off last time. That way you give yourself a little leeway to get back into the groove without going backwards *too* much.

[mentalflex]

The absolute WORST time to change exercises is when you're still progressing on one. Keep milking that fucker for all it's worth.

When you start a new blast, take one or two steps back from where you left off last time. That way you give yourself a little leeway to get back into the groove without going backwards *too* much.

I don't think anything else needs to be said....

A friend of mine "thought" he needed a cruise. I told him, listen, you had a shitty week, rest up over the next few days, de-stress and keep blasting. I think he pushed back one training day where he wasn't feeling well. The next 2 weeks of his blast he added the most size out of any period on the blast.

Even if you need to take a day off to extend a good blast, do it. Get the most you can out the train while it is moving. It is easy to re-gain steam when you are still rolling versus from a dead stop...

[Collabera]

I don't think anything else needs to be said....

A friend of mine "thought" he needed a cruise. I told him, listen, you had a shitty week, rest up over the next few days, de-stress and keep blasting. I think he pushed back one training day where he wasn't feeling well. The next 2 weeks of his blast he added the most size out of any period on the blast.

Even if you need to take a day off to extend a good blast, do it. Get the most you can out the train while it is moving. It is easy to re-gain steam when you are still rolling versus from a dead stop...

THIS.

Sometimes you might just need an extra day or 2 of rest and not an entire cruise. Which can range from 1-2 weeks.

With that said, 8 weeks is a good time to take a cruise week, especially if you have some things going on in your life that need to take a higher priority. That's the flexibility of DC. I've done it a few ways, take a cruise week every 8 weeks on schedule, and taking a cruise when I knew my body needed it. The former had me growing pretty well and progressing without ever feeling run down. The latter helped me learn more about my body and its needs. Occasionally, a heavy back day took it out of me for a week and I thought I needed a cruise but really didn't.

So no, there is no black and white answer here.

To answer your other question, I typically attempt the same weights in my rest pause sets I left off with. You're not going to lose strength in a week. If you do a 2 week cruise, I usually back off a bit on the 6s and 12s on back thickness and legs.

[RZIDE]

Makes sense. Thanks for all the info and as to the cruise, it was most definitely needed. I hate cruising but I was shot!

[Collabera]

No problem. PM me with ANY little questions you may have.

Learn to love cruise weeks. Since they are suppose to be "active" it gives you a chance to do some new movements that you may want to try and throw into your DC training some day. I like to go pretty light and focus on "intent". Meaning I truely evaluate which muscles I'm activating in a certain lift. Train mild, get a pump, and admire your hard work and find new motivation to keep crushing that log book the next week.