Extending Stage 3? - JP Fitness Forums

maggieandmommy · 05-05-2008, 06:31 PM

I was reading Nancy's post about the body matrix and it reminded me of something I've been thinking over the last week or so.

Does it ever make sense to extend a stage by a week? Would that be counterproductive? For Stage 1 and 2, I progressed nicely and made nice gains and by the end was doing things with nice form and good weights. For Stage 3, I'm struggling. I've barely increased weight at all, and I still look like an absolute disaster on the body matrix. Seriously--I can only do 4 or 5 lunge jumps before I have to stop and catch my breath and my balance. Pathetic. Plus I'm having lots of knee pain with the exercises in this stage (there's lots of lunges, though, so that doesn't help). I've got arthritis, but it's fairly well under control, and I did take a week (or most of a week) off between Stage 2 and Stage 3. I don't know what to do.

I'm halfway through with Stage 3, and I just feel like I'd made more progress by this point in the other stages.

Any ideas or thoughts?

missjane · 05-05-2008, 06:45 PM

Stage 3 comes back as Stage 5.

maggieandmommy · 05-05-2008, 06:50 PM

lol so does it matter if i'm still sucking in stage 3 when i'm just going to come back to it in a couple of weeks or should i focus on not sucking in stage 3 and then improving in stage 5?

i still think i might need more time to "not suck" in stage 3.

baffled111 · 05-06-2008, 09:09 AM

Just follow the program. Stages 2 and 3 are really short and are over before you really get the hang of them. And they are repeated. I figure Allwyn must have had some purpose in mind when he wrote the program that way. It all comes together the second time around.

Tia · 05-06-2008, 12:48 PM

What r u? Crazy or something?!

I just started Stage 3 (workout A1 took me 1 hour, 19 minutes w/warmup and cooldown) and this is the 1st stage that I just can't WAIT to be done with (especially knowing that it comes back to haunt me in stage 5)!

But hey, to each her own!!!

maggieandmommy · 05-06-2008, 01:19 PM

lol well, yeah, it's TOUGH, but tough is good, right? hmm...maybe I am a little crazy! hehehe

Aoife · 05-06-2008, 01:28 PM

pfft. whatever. usually one changes the program before adaptation sets in. if it hasn't yet and doesn't seem to, then go ahead. you prolly want to reserve the final decision for when you're actually at that point and at the intended end of the stage. in the mean time just work on getting everything down and working out all the rough spots.

Lunges kill my knee, in part because of the heavy quad work, as I tend to easily let my quads become stronger relatively than my hammies and glutes. Try driving down through the heel on the front foot, activating the glutes, and if need be raise the toes a bit.

Lisa~ · 05-06-2008, 01:53 PM

Aoife is right on track with her answer. Try to figure out how to lunge without hurting your knees. Let that be your focus right now. Don't decide fully about extending this stage or not until you're done with planned time-frame. And if your knees are still hurting at that point, then move on to stage 4 and hopefully the change of exercise choices will give them a break. You'll come back to these movements soon enough.

This is alternating periodization, that's why you come back to the same exercise scheme with a lower rep range. Repeating the stage 3 and stage 4 series would make more sense to me than prolonging stage 4 by itself. So you've got options.

maggieandmommy · 05-06-2008, 02:39 PM

thanks, ladies! That makes sense! I'll focus on getting the lunges right without the knee pain (I need more dynamic warmup to help there, too, I think...my quads and glutes are fairly tight until about halfway through the workout, so clearly I'm not loose enough at the beginning) and then just see what happens at the end of stage 3.