-: Okay, so my keys to having
a successful neurological program.
I need to emphasize that initiation.
I need to make sure that the contraction quality
in that first inch is huge.
And so if you look at power lifting or Olympic lifting,
it's their ability to create that force from the beginning
that determines whether or not they're gonna get that rep
and how well it's gonna go.
In hypertrophy, it was no reps off and so in neurological,
if I had to put it right, there's no soft starts.
Everything is initiated 100% so to speak.
So we need exercises that are gonna require us
to initiate from, either the most overloaded position,
or accelerate through resistance.
So the difference is gonna be which element am I training.
If I'm training speed, I probably want the
hardest part to be where I'm starting.
So once I create that momentum, the exercise is getting
easier so I'm getting that kind of tricking my body into
saying hey if we generate momentum this is really easy.
If I'm focusing on load, then either I use so much load that
I can generate the momentum, so even if it was still heavy
at the bottom it's just that it's so heavy that I can't
generate a significant amount of momentum.
Or I use something where the resistance is actually
increasing as I'm pushing through the exercise
or gaining mechanical advantage so that I can't generate
momentum after the beginning portion
because the resistance is actually getting heavier.
It's slowing down my ability to create momentum.
With this, the resistance definitely needs
to match the intent.
So if I'm trying to do speed work and create momentum
and I pick too much resistance,
the exercise isn't actually cheaper.
I'm not gonna get that benefit of recruiting more
fast twitch 'cause my body is gonna say
okay that was not cheaper, we're not gonna do
the fast twitch first because
that was wasted energy in this case.
So the load the needs to match the intent and the intensity
that I'm trying to train for and the quality
that I'm trying to train for.
If I'm just trying to recruit as many fibers as possible,
then I want as much load and I wanna be trying to contract
as hard as I can simultaneously without the exercise
ever getting easier for momentum because I want as many
fibers contracting as much of the time as possible
so I don't have any weak points in that.
Contraction intensity obviously needs to be 100%.
Not the whole workout, per say.
So your nervous system will potentiate throughout a workout,
meaning your ability to contract a lot of fast twitch,
your ability to contract at high intensities, will go up.
At a resting state your nervous system
is much more calmed down.
So I couldn't walk in and do my heaviest squat or
my heaviest power clean right now.
What I would need to do is I would need to potentiate.
Get warmed up, start taxing my nervous system a little bit,
getting it to be firing more efficiently,
getting the mitochondria to rev up, start making more ATP.
All of those things need to happen.
So the 100% intensity, you may have,
if you're doing load based stuff, you may
not be going 100% in your first few
exercises because you would generate momentum.
So if I'm working up in weight and I'm maximally contracted,
at a weight that was say at 60% of my one RM but I'm
gonna work up to where I'm doing 90s and 95%, as I'm doing
that warm up if I maximally contract there well I'm really
only stimulating my nervous system in the stretch or
the starting position of that exercise.
So I'm kind of training speed component there and
I'm working towards load component later.
And what I probably want to do, there's nothing wrong with
actually stimulating some speed stuff but I want to make
sure I've wired my nervous system for the rest of the range
of motion, which means I will want to do some stuff where
I'm not creating a lot of momentum and I'm waking up the
nervous system in terms of recruiting the fibers that
are gonna be needed in the middle and end range, and not
just the fibers that are gonna be needed in the first inch.
Now if I'm doing a momentum based workout and I'm focusing
on speed work, then obviously I don't have to focus as much
on the rest of that rep but what I would do is
I would go through an activation where I'm getting that
muscle, working it through its whole range of motion.
Just making sure I'm primed with that feedback with that
muscle and that my muscle connection is really good.
And then I would start progressing in my speed work and
then yes, all of those will be 100%, but what will happen
is if you're doing speed work and you're doing that 100%,
as you potentiate your ability will go up.
So the speed you're able to move at a lighter weight might
not be much faster than what you're able to move at your
maximal weights because your ability to recruit that fast
twitch is gonna get better from set to set to set.
So it will go up as your weights go up but in order for that
to happen you need that 100% on all of those sets.
So 100% maybe all of the working sets for sure.
If I'm in a momentum based program, if I'm in a load based
program, I probably do need to do a little bit less than
100% contraction on a couple of those warmups.
Or at least a couple of those warmup reps each set.
So there's nothing wrong with doing a couple explosive reps
and then a couple controlled reps or vice versa as you're
progressing through your warmups for you know working
on any of the big four lifts:
bench, deadlift, squat, pull up type of thing.
When we prime, kind of already getting into this sorry,
you want to stimulate the nervous system and in order
to do that you need to do it both centrally, in the brain,
you want to get that beta wave state so you have to create
some neurological demand for the body.
And we can also do some nutritional stuff, which we'll
talk about, to get the brain more beta, energy based state.
We want to increase production in that synapse,
which means we actually have to tax the energy production.
So a lot of times we will be ascending our work load
throughout a neurological workout so I tend to prefer
loading parameters where the intensity demand goes up
throughout the workout rather than say well this is a 5x5
and the weight stays the same.
That tends to be more heavy hypertrophy work
than really true neurological work.
Because if you do this right the neurological system should
be potentiating so you should be able to go up in your
ability to contract, the intent at which you can do it
should change like how explosive you can do things and
the amount of tissue that you can do
should be ascending up.
And if you fatigue from a metabolic perspective or
from an inflammatory perspective early in the workout
because you're doing a linear based strength workout,
you're not gonna get to the same peak neural quality.
Neurological adaptations are all about what is the highest
threshold neurological work I can achieve in that session,
not so much the volume that I can achieve it at.
So the volume aspect is important for the hypertrophy
adaptations, the peak neurological output that I get that's
what's really gonna transfer over to this.
So you wanna set up your workout so that you can get your
maximum potential in terms of fast twitch recruitment or
total motor unit recruitment within that given workout.
You don't want to fatigue from some other reason before
you're able to achieve that in the workout.
We need to make sure you practice the motor pattern.
If it's a squat day you should squat as part of your warmup.
If you're doing a metabolic phase and you're doing squats,
you probably don't need to a lot of squats to warmup.
You could warmup your quads with leg extensions and
you can warm up your glutes with some bridges and
you could do all sorts of exercises to warm up the muscles
and the cardiovascular system without having to spend
a lot of time on the motor pattern.
When you're doing neurological stuff you need to spend
more time on the exercises that you're actually gonna do.
Getting that motor pattern set so that the brain understands
okay what are we moving, how are we moving it, and then
slowly getting to the intent and loads that
you're going to be moving.
So we move forward here.
I would suggest that when you prime for the nervous system
that you prime the stabilizers and the synergist a bit as
well because as you're going through that movement pattern
with lighter loads and what not, you're not potentiating
those stabilizers to work at a higher degree, which means
if you're really connected to the muscles that you're trying
to work in terms of the agonist, the things that are really
doing the work, but not the stabilizers it means you're
gonna get greater potentiation in those prime movers but
your stabilizers might always kind of be lagging behind.
So one thing I like is actually to do some things to
potentiate those stabilizes and the synergist early in the
workout so they kind of are ahead of your prime movers so
stability is never the limiting factor.
So that you actually get those things that are gonna help
you do the work properly potentiated first so you're less
likely to lose execution, you're less likely
to injure yourself, you're less likely to
see your form break down as you go through your sets.
Same thing, we need to make sure
we go through the full range of motion for that.
Get fully shortened with an isometric for these stabilizers
so if I'm bench pressing today, well I want to
actually make sure I'm doing something
where I'm pulling my rhomboids together.
I might do a bicep and tricep squeezes in the short
position or one exercise, one set where I'm kind of
potentiating those muscles.
I might do external rotation and things like that that are
gonna help stabilize that exercise.
If it's squats, okay, then I might do some gasrock and some
calf and some spine and abdominal work at the beginning.
Not to fatigue, just to potentiate those things so when
I go to the squat technically all those stabilizers are
actually ready to work at a higher threshold than what
I'm squatting right now so they're not kind of back trailing
the muscles, the prime movers, the quads, and the glutes
as I'm going through that exercise.
Make sure you emphasize the quality of the work.
If the goal is to be explosive,
your warmups also need to be explosive.
If your goal is that you're gonna be accelerating through
something, then you need to have that.
If your goal is that you're focusing on initiation,
you need the intent, the quality of what you're training,
to be a part of that warmup as well because if my warmup
is only slow stuff and then I get in the work set and all of
a sudden I'm doing something dynamically, remember that's a
different motor pattern for your body it's gonna recruit
different things first when you change the intent and
you change the execution of the exercise.
So you need to actually make sure your workout that you're
priming incorporates some of the qualities that you're
going to use in that main body of work.
And like I said I prefer a progressive increase in intensity
or load in the working exercise
rather than these linear things.
I think those are more for a... those tend to work more
when the goal is volume, which kind of gets us towards
more so hypertrophy type programming with a little bit of
neurological benefits but I mean if you're gonna do a
neurological phase, maximize the neurological benefits.
If you're gonna do a hypertrophy phase,
maximize the hypertrophy benefits.
Don't do a hypertrophy training in a neurological setting
so that you're basically doing a poor, less effective
hypertrophy workout using a neurological system.