North Coast Miller
Level 9 Valued Member
My experiment with Cluster Sets is ending with a deload/R&R week to be followed by basic sandbag modified DeLorme.
Clusters, as I settled upon worked very well for building upper body strength and size. Arms haven't been this big in quite some time. The only lift that didn't really take off was my loaded PUs, but they did come back to the levels they were at 2 Summers ago. Also PUs were the most effected by my degenerative disk flare up, that really threw a wrench in this training block.
The high volume and high frequency applied lo legs wound up leaving me perpetually sore and tight in the legs. A good sign that this is effective, but a bad sign that I never really acclimated to it. Part of this might be that my limited ability to load resulted in fairly high rep counts for some of the exercises but that only partly accounts for it. Next time I work in a block of Clusters I will need to dial back the number of repeat intervals when doing lower body. Still, I was able to progress quite a bit and similar to my upper body lifts more or less doubled the number of reps at a given loading compared to my start values in all exercises.
All in all very successful, Clusters are a potent tool at any rep range, and a mentally easy way to really dial up intensity and volume.
Clusters, as I settled upon worked very well for building upper body strength and size. Arms haven't been this big in quite some time. The only lift that didn't really take off was my loaded PUs, but they did come back to the levels they were at 2 Summers ago. Also PUs were the most effected by my degenerative disk flare up, that really threw a wrench in this training block.
The high volume and high frequency applied lo legs wound up leaving me perpetually sore and tight in the legs. A good sign that this is effective, but a bad sign that I never really acclimated to it. Part of this might be that my limited ability to load resulted in fairly high rep counts for some of the exercises but that only partly accounts for it. Next time I work in a block of Clusters I will need to dial back the number of repeat intervals when doing lower body. Still, I was able to progress quite a bit and similar to my upper body lifts more or less doubled the number of reps at a given loading compared to my start values in all exercises.
All in all very successful, Clusters are a potent tool at any rep range, and a mentally easy way to really dial up intensity and volume.
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