-: Welcome everyone to the third
Practical Application Portion of course three.
This week Adam and I will be walking through
Neurological Training stuff
different adjustments and things that we can make
as you're assessing your clients.
So you've seen this before,
these are kind of the four main categories
we'll be going through throughout this presentation.
And just starting off with a recap to figure out
if the program was actually incorrect to begin with
what are we looking at versus just was the stimulus
not the right choice for this person at that time.
So if we're looking at
was it just not a well written neural
and well written program for a neurological goal
these are some of the things that you would likely see
in your check-ins usually probably in that first week
or even within the individual workouts you're doing
so you're getting metabolic types
of fatigue or failure or stress.
Your performance starts dropping later
in the workouts kind of right off the bat,
or you're getting some excessive local soreness
are usually the main things you would see
if we're doing too much volume at too low of an intensity
or it's just not enough rest
or a whole host of other things
that starts pushing us either more
towards a hypertrophy type stimulus
or those like systemic type of metabolic stresses.
Sometimes even if the program is written incorrectly
they just might not be a good candidate
for neurological training at that given time.
So that would be when you have a program
that seems to fit all of the parameters
it doesn't seem excessive in any direction
but they're immediately seeing some of those
increases in daily stress or anxiety
that we might associate with in an overdoing of intensity
or something like that.
You might see changes in their digestion
and bowel movements right away.
So that could be watery stools
or excessive frequent bowel movements
that they're over agitated.
The nervous system is over agitated.
So in that instance, we might want to pull them out of that
maybe work on some metabolic stuff that is less stressful
to the nerve system that could be IRMs.
Again, we're only taking one set to failure
or like a very low intensity systemic program.
The other thing that Adam mentioned the other day
is using neuro reps without actually going to failure.
So we're still getting some tension work in,
but we're not actually stressing them
neurologically very much.
So this is almost like the no stimulus stimulus
where we're just practicing movements.
So something like six to eight reps
with something you could do 10,12 reps
with not actually having failure.
And then if we're actually working on helping them assist
with their nervous system fatigue or agitation
whatever it is using those calming nutrients
that coach Kassem talked about
in one of the previous lectures, like the TMT approach.
So Theanine, Taurine, and Magnesium
or sometimes using something like adaptogens.
So the KSM-66, which is like an ashwagandha extract,
Rhodiola, things like that.
Those will all be a little bit more specific
to their individual situations.
So before we get rolling with some of these adjustments
we wanted to clarify some of our terms here
so that we're not here through next week
walking through every possible scenario and a clarification.
The main points are the first one we will focus on is
in neurological training,
when we talk about magnitude or intensity
we're talking about the percent of their one rep max
or relative load that they are using.
So the load is the main variable
we're actually gonna be focusing on
when we're adjusting magnitude
or in this case, we were just referred to as the intensity.
The second thing is because in these programs
volume and intensity are very closely intertwined.
You will usually notice that when you're adjusting one
you will adjust the other with it
but you can bias what you're adjusting more of.
Are you adjusting more volume
which is gonna be the number of sets
for the purposes of this presentation
or are you adjusting the actual percent
of 1RM that they're using across those sets.
So we're not necessarily defining volume
as the tissue specific work in this case
because that comes with a whole host of other things
we have to talk about that are a bit beyond the scope
of the adjustments in this particular unit.
So some examples, just some general guidelines for you guys
when writing these programs.
So some examples set and rep ranges
with some general rest periods
for these neurological programs.
These would be like all straight sets
could be ascending load
or if you were doing like a intensity performance
type of approach for someone
that would also be applicable here.
So what we also did for you,
because when we're talking
about adjusting RPEs and RIRs,
which will play into the next slide
RIR, when we're in lower rep ranges
is easier to manage for people.
They can usually be pretty accurate with that
for the most part of they're moderately trained
but RPE can be more specific.
So I gave some examples here
to kind of clarify what that means.
So at five reps in an RIR zero,
means you can't do another rep, pretty straightforward.
If you're using RPE,
you could do a five rep RPE nine.
So you still couldn't do another rep
but maybe you could add a little bit more load.
So it wasn't exactly 100% max effort
but an RPE 10 would mean you can't do another rep
or add more load.
So when we look at that
and we apply that to kind of the typical format
we would use for a very simple neurological program
we gave you a little bit more probably
than we needed to hear
but giving you some program outlines
helps with the context of our later adjustments.
So we're gonna pick it basically
pretty much have two exercises for the most part.
The first one is like our primary exercise.
We're gonna be biasing more towards the length
and position of the muscle
and usually a length and resistance profile bias
for the most part.
The RPEs and RIRs are going to vary based on the goal
that we're applying this neurological program for.
Are we doing it for a de-load
or for neurological coordination
then perhaps we're gonna use more of a gradual ascension
of the RPEs or the RIRs.
Where if we're going for performance or intensity,
we're typically going to scale up faster
and try and maintain a top weight
or a top load until we hit failure neurologically.
Okay, so now into our main section
so the first one is the stimulus stress to recovery ratio.
So as always, if we're gonna start with the stress
we have too much volume or too much magnitude
which in this case will be too much intensity.
So coach Adam is going to kick us off
with our first example here.
-: All right, guys.
So here, we're gonna be in a neuro phase here
and here we have a Fat Loss client.
So just kind of envision what we're doing here.
So we're gonna be de-loading
we're coming away from some kind of a metabolic training
whether it's a local stimulus
or a systemic stimulus, Okay?
So we're here we're, de-loading that
we're de-loading like,
maybe we have like a reduction in calories.
We've been into a deficit.
We've been pushing even had some success there
but we know we need to come out of that, Okay?
So we're in our neuro phase here.
Okay so some biomarkers,
we are waking in the middle of the night,
we're seeing some sleep disruptions
and you know the thing that...
Like Cody and I talked about yesterday
about this is especially with Neuro 2
is one thing you wanna with your sleep
is that you've seen that sleep get worse.
Through the neuro training
where in neuro training, you're going
this is new, why is this happening?
Because sometimes you can get some of those clients
where you're kind of working on some of those things
and you're improving sleep
but they may be still having some instances
where they like kind of waking up one time,
Hey, we went from three to one.
Okay, we're getting better.
We're still on the right track.
But now all of a sudden we've gone
into neuro and we're going, what's happening here?
Why is this new thing happening?
Why is, why are we back to two or three times a night
waking up or something like that.
So we're seeing these sleep disturbances here
and we're also having now excessive, local muscle soreness.
So that's a big one here guys.
Like actually, if you know, in the theory discussion
in the theory lecture, I should say with coach Kassem
he was like, your soreness has to be
in that right, that sweet spot.
So, having a little bit of soreness the next day
it is fine, but you you don't want this
to be a prolonged thing.
You don't want muscle soreness.
We don't need dorms here going
on with nervous system training here, neuro training.
Okay, and then we're having a hard time
maintaining focus throughout the day.
This is kind of one of my things I quote,
like I see that pop up and a lot of biomarkers Cody.
So it's like if this is more of my observational ones
but that potato, like coach Kassem talked about
and with the potato and I'm not saying
this is new stuff occurring, right?
Like these people don't have after nine...
Afternoon rolls and they noticed it's getting worse.
they just, they don't wanna use their brain throughout
the day like I can't concentrate and focus.
I just but, I don't feel like you want to work out
but you want to train one of your,
like what do you want to do, right?
That that's what's going on here.
And then performance markers here.
Boy, I wrote that really little Cody, whoa
unable to hit workout progressions.
And we're seeing that even
in the beginning of the workout,
when our volume is really high Neuro 2, you're just
you're not seeing top plates being hit.
So for example, in somebody with this
when you're seeing this, it's like,
hey, Cody we talked about this too.
Like a real life application that,
hey, you should be doing this exercise for such
and such load I know you can do that.
Why aren't we seeing that done here?
Why are we not seeing increases?
We just came from something like a phase
of systemic and you were doing 80 pounds on this exercise.
Now it's neuro.
Why are we only doing 90?
Like that doesn't make any sense like this.
We should see some increases in load here.
And we're not seeing the board.
So the whole workout is just like average.
We're not hitting any kind of progressions
very well at all here in this thing and right away until two
because it just feels heavier than it should that day
that that's a key indicator here.
Okay, so here we start with our basic
kind of a real basic neuro program.
Not even basic actually this is a really good neuro program.
This would be something that I would run myself here.
Cody would running this thing many times here.
So with this year, we're using ascending load theory.
You can see we've got six sets of six.
Notice those RPEs of working up in ascending
like in increasing the intensity, increasing the load here.
And you'll notice what you're sending over
trying to get to that one big top set.
That's the big thing that we're going for here.
And then we're going to another exercise here.
Most likely, like you saw an example
the coach Cody gave you the second leucine muscle one.
That's going to be the exercise loaded
in that short position here
most likely or mid to short visit position.
So you can see what we're doing here.
Six sets and enforces we have 10 overall sets here.
And then if we think that the volume is too high here
we gotta use our trainer brain here.
And the obvious solution is a reduction in volume here
but just by reducing the sets, okay.
We're not looking at magnitude here and Cody
you and I, we were, our eyes were kinda
going back in our hand, going with neuro
when it comes down to volume there's a...
You have a couple of choices
but it's really gonna be about adjusting sets.
When I look at neuro when it comes to volume,
when I'm thinking volume is high
I'm going to go, okay, let's reduce some sets here.
And you'll notice too, that guys
when I reduce the sets here
notice that the rep range doesn't change.
So it's not like we're going from set four sets
to like we're going five sets to four sets.
And I didn't go from five sets
of six to four sets of like eight.
That would be like a normal logical.
If you're thinking of your head like progression
remember we're doing a regression here.
So just a slight drop in the set
just taking a set out there too.
And another little, just a little like hobby off
to this program is
in this program here I reduced the sets of both exercises
but there's nothing that says
that maybe you could reduce one, right?
Cody we could just go like,
hey, let's kind of cut out the short here a little bit.
And you can cut out like a set
or two on the short exercise or the next one, if you wanted.
And that would be another reduction in volume.
If you want it to even be a little bit more conservative
with reduction in volume here, okay.
Next example we have here, okay.
Cody, would you like me to do this one to?
-: Sure you wanna kick it off?
-: Yeah, sure I will.
I sure will.
Strengthen performance will here.
So we are here...
When you see that, guys
you got to think about what you're doing here.
When you say strength and performance goal
think of all of the lectures
and everything that you've listened to so far,
what is going on in your head in
a strength, performance goal?
Like where would we have our nutrition?
I'm asking that there's five of you in here right now.
We're going for strength...
We're going for strength and performance here.
Even if whatever your overall goal is
strength and performance for neuro you better eat some food.
That's all I'm gonna tell you, you better eat food, right?
We need maintenance or even,
it's nice and it's very fun to get strong
on a surplus of calories Cody will tell you too.
I love eating calories
and try and get from there really strong.
It works really, really well.
So if your goal is to get stronger here
and that's what you're doing,
like we want these measured progressions feed the machine,
feed the machine, okay?
So you're talking maintenance,
maybe even a slight surplus here
here, depending on what you want to do not we know,
so strengthened performance will
trouble falling asleep, mind is racing.
That's a big one, heart tired and wired type stuff, right?
I'm exhausted, but my brain won't shut off, right?
And then when they do fall asleep, it's just literally
because you like, but it could coach Kassem and say
you're not falling asleep because
you're falling asleep because you're literally passing out.
-: Passed out.
-: Yeah you're passed out.
That's not as good either.
So mind racing more easily frustrated, some mood swings
you'll see with this too.
And Cody to I'll ask that question later,
its gonna come later in slide I wanna say that.
Never hungry well for a nerve, no, that's not...
We're supposed to have a good maintenance dose
to food or a surplus like we like food right now.
We don't like to not be hungry
that is very no, that's a negative.
Improving top late we're improving the top plate
for the main list.
So let's say it may lift you're coming into that day
for your quads and what you have quads and delt
or something you're going,
hey, it's neuro I've got heel elevated
heel elevated squat today or maybe some hats
and you might be able to hit that first movement
like might be able to hit it
but then everything else falls apart after that,
it's just getting worse after that
or no progressions or hit
your B exercises are not really seeing any progressions.
Like you've been progressing
am I my describing that right.
Cody has a pretty decent, like, kind of, sort of.
-: Yeah I mean, it's like maybe they're able to
add a little bit, every other week
or so to that main one but no other improvements.
But the main thing we're looking
at is that while we are seeing some progressions
we're having all these other negative biomarker
feedbacks telling us that something is off.
-: Right and I really liked this one too,
because the low back always feels tight.
And you will see that in neuro and Cody,
I could sit here for 90 minutes and talk
to everyone about just this one thing
I could literally do that
I could literally...
This is what causes people to spend 15 minutes
on the goddam foam roller, okay.
I can't do it unless I foam roll, come on, man.
Right, so low back is always tight.
That's that global soreness.
Wait a minute something's off here, right?
So let's take a look at this.
-: Its that non-specific soreness
that Kassem touched on in the lecture.
So you're not...
You shouldn't be probably doing a bunch of like
little low back hyper extensions
that would make your low back sore or tight
but it's getting indirectly loaded and fatigued
from usually in this case, the intensity of the load
you're working because those stabilizers
are going to be a limiting factor at some point to.
-: Exactly, exactly.
Thank you.
-: So I threw some extra math if you will
in here for you guys to kind of
illustrate this a little more clearly.
So we talked about this is a performance goal
so we're trying to work at a higher average RP.
We're trying to work up to that kind of top weight
and see if we can maintain that performance.
So in this example, if we look at,
the average RPE or average intensity for this case
we're looking at about an eight but we're thinking
that maybe that is a little bit too high.
So if we adjust and simply adjusting the RPEs
with no other variables so we just have them
ascend a little more gradually.
So they're still able to perform those top loads
but we're decreasing the average intensity.
In this case, with the shift we made
it's about an average intensity decrease of 0.5
which works out to a little under,
a little over six and a half percent decrease
in average intensity throughout the course of the workout.
So this is where it a little hazy
in terms of like what's being adjusted because yes
we're decreasing the intensity.
But by doing that
we are also decreasing the volume of load lifted
if that makes sense.
So it's one of those cases where it's maybe
not a clear delineation on what most people term as volume
but our focus is biasing it
towards the intensity change
to try and decrease that potential stress for this person.
-: And Cody like this.
I told you that like as in competitive lifting these RPEs
or I use on a daily and weekly basis
with my lifters and actually that global sort of thing too.
Cause I'm looking at a competitive movement
where we're trying to move neuro.
I'm like looking for absolute perfection too right?
I want it to be as clean and as neat as possible.
And I use these RPEs
and to give you guys an example, think of it like this.
Let's just say, for example
somebody like squat leg press like such, it doesn't matter.
Their max load on this thing
for the rep range for set of four is a hundred kilos, right?
You're like we should be able to get up
to like a hundred kilos for a set of four that's the goal.
If our RPEs are a little bit too high
but like to give you an example,
you can say, okay, here's a hundred kg
but you would look at your sets previous to that.
And you could be like, it's like 85, 90, 95
then a hundred, that's really close, like RPE.
But you know that there's a goal for that.
Like people can do that.
I wouldn't go for like a max RPE like going
if your max was a hundred I'd probably go
to be probably 90 at that point, right?
But if you're there at that tightly close
that tightly compact what Cody has done is like,
hey instead of doing like 80, 85, 90, 95, 100
and then try and hit that 100, spread it out a little bit.
So it's a little bit less.
So now you're talking like 50, 60, 70, 80, whatever
then boom pop the 100.
So the loads before that are not as intense.
So that average were interest me too.
You get a nice little
when you kind of like really conservatively that nice set
that that top set feels pretty damn good.
You're a little more, yeah.
-: Your nervous system has a little more time to potentiate.
So in some cases, if there, if you know
there was a little bit of,
fatigue building up here, which there is going to be
to some degree, you may actually find
that you're still increasing that top weight where
you're able to increase that top weight right
off the bat by just slightly changing your early RPEs.
-: Yeah, good example.
-: All right.
So example number two.
So exact same original program.
The other option we have is actually
adjusting the rep range, right?
So this is where we talked about that intensity
and volume are gonna be very closely related.
So I could simply increase the reps
to six, which is going to force them to
decrease the absolute load that they can use.
But if I adjusted that and we're still doing eight sets
that's a massive increase in work volume.
And then we run the risk of overshooting volume.
So to accommodate that
we're just using our trainer brains here.
It's like, okay, well, if we drop it down to six reps
that's more than what we would consider
the manageable range for this type of work.
Again, you can reference those set
and rep guidelines we gave
at the beginning of the presentation.
And then we also did,
kind of a slight intuitive adjustment to the rest periods.
Maybe it doesn't have to be that big of a drop again
kind of depends on how strong this person is already
but they're probably not gonna need quite the same
amount of rest as they did to do a max set of six
that they did for a max set of four.
All right and onto the other part of the equation here.
So if the nutrition is the part
of that ratio that is insufficient
we have calories and macros.
So some of these are a little more
a little simpler than some of the previous ones
because there's less variables specific to the stimulus.
So if they have not enough calories
their weight might be start dropping quickly.
But the big thing to watch for there is
in a de-load from a metabolic program
where maybe we were creating some inflammation
they were retaining extra water.
We switched to this program, we de-load that stress.
If they start dropping inflammation and water
those first couple of days
they might drop weight pretty quick
depending on how much they had accumulated.
So you have to consider that as well
and not just be like, Oh, their weight,
dropped three pounds in the past three days.
I mean, I need to give them more food, not necessarily.
You would probably watch for that initial drop
and then you should see it level out.
If you continue to see it, drop pretty aggressively
but their pictures weren't looking any better.
Again, this is where measurements and photos
are very, very important or very helpful.
So if you have a leaner person, photos are great.
Cause you can usually see this stuff pretty easily.
It's like, Oh, they drop five pounds,
but they look a lot leaner.
Okay, most likely water or someone who's maybe
a little more overweight.
You'd probably be looking more at like circumference
measurements on their waist, right.
'Cause that's typically where you'd start holding bloat
and water and stuff where maybe even see,
you might even be able to see some changes in their face.
If they're a little bit puffy and they start leaning out
in their face, but the rest of your body
doesn't really change and their weights dropping
probably a good indicator that maybe
there were some water retention going on there.
-: And Cody the key thing too.
And we talk about this all the time
like weight dropping quickly, like if I'm in a neuro program
and I would never base my decision on just that, right.
It's always accompanied.
So you're like, how would you know
how can you distinguish if the weight drop is good or bad?
Like I'm looking at a lot of other stuff.
And if somebody is coming
from metabolic and they drop that inflammation
think of like, that's a good thing.
Like that should be coming down.
So we shouldn't see like negative signs of anything else.
Like we should see lots of things.
Like we should be performing in the gym
if we're losing inflammation that's good.
And then we came from metabolic
we're dropping this inflammation
you have the weight dropping.
It's two pounds, three pounds I don't know
that might be too much
we don't know what Cody and Adam said
look at everything else.
Hey, my sleep is good.
I have a good appetite, I'm hitting like we're two weeks
into the program and I'm getting PRS already.
Yeah, who cares?
That's awesome like that's a good check-in
but you said the weight loss was that maybe
maybe you use everything, the whole tool there.
So don't, don't get over
like just with one biomarker.
We've been saying that over and over again
but we still get those questions
cause somebody's like well my guy dropped weight.
Okay, go on what else happened?
Go I'll wait, yeah, like that, yeah.
And that's what happens.
I mean, we see that Cody too, especially
with a lot of the clients that we train
in general population when fat loss,
like the numbers on the scale are the biggest thing
paying attention to you
you're like we gotta eat everything in context right?
So that's the big one here that I really
like that I was thinking about that last night, Kassem,
like I'm going to really rely on performance,
at that weight, if we're dropping weight too fast
and neural phase, like yeah the performance
is gonna go down and sleep spent really those two,
like and that's what coach Kassem hit on the workout.
I'm going, yeah, that's the thing, right?
So that's the big one right here guys real big one.
-: And then the kind of two other main ones we'll see
is they only are able to really get amped up during training
or they really only feel like, feel good during training.
And that's gonna be once those are transmitters,
get up-regulated in the CNS the
central nervous system gets kind of ramped up a little bit.
This is slightly different than the overdoing
the volume and the potato scenario.
Because in that case
they'll still be able to perform in training
but they won't necessarily feel energetic during training.
Whereas this person might still be able to
get some energy during training.
So that would be kind of the thing I would watch there.
And then the third thing we usually see is
a decline in performance, but everything else looks great.
That's it very simple.
So it's like, they're not able to add load
or maybe they fail a rep early or repertoire too early
on the last set or two, but sleep, energy
everything else seems to be okay.
Maybe you're just a little under
on the nutrition for the recovery side.
Macros I mean, this is a little bit of a tricky one
cause it's like, we're not pushing a very glycolytic pathway
or anything where it's easy to see like.
Carbs were definitely they too low.
Like we saw in the local metabolic and systemic stuff.
There's very distinct things that you can watch for
in neurological training carbs usually
aren't the limiting factor
but like a was mentioned previously
there can be like a slow depletion effect.
So usually that's not something you'll notice
if you're just de-loading someone,
cause you're only there for a week or two,
unless you're like way under on carbs.
But this would normally be more
for like a performance based scenario
or performance goal person where they're doing this
for three, four, five, maybe six weeks.
And then all of a sudden at the end of week two or three
you're like things start going weird.
So that would be, maybe we start seeing a little bit
of sleep, but their performance maintains first.
Sleep's usually gonna go first or maybe the performance
drops at the end of the workout, even though it
doesn't feel that hard.
And I've had this myself when I was experimenting with
carb cycling and things years ago.
So I was doing a neuro program and I got to a point where
it's like the way it doesn't feel any heavier
but nope that rep it's just not there.
I just can't do that rep anymore.
I don't feel any more fatigued.
I don't feel exhausted
but the performance is no longer there.
(soft music)