The Workout Principles

Alright, so like I mentioned in my previous post. I cut a bit of volume (sets/reps) while cutting

Reasons being, your ability to recover is diminished when cutting, less macronutrients = body efficiently using whatever you consume. 

We work the body in a way that, it’s first priority is the keep you healthy. Definitely don’t want to die doing this, or cause long term health problems. Second, to preserve muscle mass over fat, you know, in case you needed to wrestle a tiger for your food like our ancestors. 

Disclaimer: none of this shit is my own. All ideas have been stolen from intelligent people who have made sense to me. Look them up if you’d like Martin Berkhan (genius), Kinobody, bodybuilding.com forums (where I am manlet), and just google in general

To prime the body for muscle preservation. I do the same method of working out as usual. Just slightly altered for a different need. 

It really doesn’t matter what workout you do. There are just principles to follow that if followed will allow the most efficient path to a desired outcome. 

I’m my case over the last 3 or so years. In terms of lifting weights, this has been in order:

-Strength/Speed/Power/Explosiveness

-Stamina/Endurance

-Size

The good news is, when you properly balance the first two, a natural result is the third.

Now, the principles I have been following to progress to these ends. I’ll go over each of these.

-Diet (which I’ll speak about in another post)

-Stimulus for intense muscle contraction (Strength/Power)

-Stimulus for muscular fatigue(Stamina/Endurance)

-Primarily Compound movements/free weights

-Consistently increasing difficultly as adaptations occur (+weight/+reps)

-Ideal stimulus frequency (how often)

-Efficiency (gym ain’t home)

These are the main factors. It doesn’t so much matter the exact program. If these are followed, you can mix things up in your own way. And understand what works, what doesn’t. And why.

Now, the details. I will go over each point, explain the benefit, how I incorporate it into my workouts, and what happens if this aspect is neglected. (Which sadly a lot of people do, the internet has information, but it’s definitely information overload, and one must critically think, try evaluate and sort out)

-Stimulus for intense muscle contraction (Strength/Power)

Ok, I’m sure many have heard, you gotta lift some heavy ass weights to get big. And it’s true.

But why? What’s behind this, causing your body to adapt in such a way.

The human body is adaptable. Through training, there is a perfect adapted physique for every sport.

Muscle is a sign of raw, Newtonian, physical power. 

Power = force produced per rate of time. 

I.e let’s say I bench press 100 lbs x 1rep, it takes 2 seconds for my concentric contraction (pushing out/muscle shortening) 

My rate of power = 50lbs/sec

The purpose of increasing weight, and doing sets where you lift at a rep range of 4-6. Is to increase this power level (you’re literally a Pokémon)

Now consider the fact, by bench pressing 50lbs, and contracting in a quicker manner (aka explosively/yet controlled) so that the concentric contraction that’s 1 second.

The rate of power remains the same 

Power = 50lbs/sec

This tells you that. It’s not so much the weight you lift. Rather. The force of contraction. The heavier weight just naturally stimulates a greater contraction from the environment. The greater the contraction. The more fibres of each muscle are used and with more intensity.

Your body receives and through constant consistent Stimulus, adapts accordingly. (Increasing efficiency of contraction/ strength of contraction/ and speed of contraction) which naturally causes a progressive increase in muscle size.

However lifting heavy weights is only one way to achieve this intensity contraction. 

Other ways include, 

-explosively training, like I just explained, slightly light weight, faster contraction. 

-Taking slightly longer rest periods. Muscle recovers and contract harder

-using slow negative reps

-consciously squeezing the target muscle through the entire rep range (especially at the top of the concentric part of the contraction) keep in mind, you must develop a strong muscle/mind connection to take full advantage of this. A lot of slow controlled reps with light weight will usually do this (aaka THE BUURN) I’ll do a post about this later

-pausing at top and bottom of particular movements to eliminate momentum

-making sure to go through entire range of rep with proper form.

If neglected: You simply won’t adapt. You won’t be more powerful. You’ll probably have the muscular endurance of a marathon runner. And might look like one too. You’ll be able to bench 95lbs for 30 reps... but that’s probably it. You’ll probably be able to punch a guy 30 times in a fight piss him off and wear him out. But you’d probably never be able to one-punch-man him. 

Either way, something to consider, and definitely consciously utilize

Next point... 

Stimulus for muscular fatigue(Stamina/Endurance)

Real world sports and activities rarely just require raw strength and power. Most often. You require longer bouts of endurance, followed by explosive power released with timing. 

Paraphrasing poorly From the MMA trainer Firas Zahabi

“training for just Strength is like being a tow truck, you’ll be able to move heavy weight, but the time requires, speed explosiveness and agility, you’ll be left behind. A more balanced approach will make you more like a Ferrari, you’ll have the strength to move things, but also the speed/agility/stamina/power when needed”

In this way, I believe it is just as important to build muscular endurance, with muscle, cardio and conditioning. 

I tackle this by incorporating sprints/longer runs/ stready state cardio at a heart rate between 120-160bpm

And also in my weight lifting routine, by lowering weight, and aiming to fail between 8-16 reps (instead of 4-6 for strength) 

Also focusing on speed of contraction

Other things you can do

Higher reps (feeeelin more of the buuurn) aka lactic acid build up, which your body will learn to efficiently work with the more you do it

Longer sets, taking time on both the lengthening and contracting portion of each rep, eg. taking 3 sec up 3 secs down

Shorter rest periods between sets eg. 30-1 minute

Neglecting this aspect: I pretty much explained it but 

-winded and out of breath easy

-Can’t keep up in sports

-You’ll be the pissed off guy in a fight, who got jabbed in the face by a marathon runner 30 times while waiting for the right moment to one-punch-man the guy, but get inevitable exhausted and knocked out LOL :( 

-simply can’t move that fast 

Next point... number 3 here we go

-Primarily focusing on compound movements/ Free Weights

There’s definitely a time and a place for isolation exercises and machines, however in my opinion it definitely should not be making up the bulk of your routine.

-first it’s a damn inefficient use of time

the time it takes could have been used to stimulate a whole string of muscles in another compound movement

-there are very few real world movements/sports/martial arts/etc that require use of a single muscle eg. Doing a dumbbell front shoulder raise, it’s definitely a good exercise to add to your repertoire. However most of your strength power, and efficiency will likely come from seated or standing dumbell/barbell shoulder pressing. In addition, it will work your core/triceps/back/midback/medial delt/posterior delt as well.. as well as many stabilizer muscles.. which brings me to my next point

Isolation/machines can neglect important stabilizer muscles, which if not properly balanced will very likely result in injury down the road, especially when the main muscle targeted gets stronger and weight is increased over time. This also results in your body being really efficient in specific movements from a specific angle. However in the real world, the body is used in almost every direction. To lift the arm in a front delt raise manner would likely show up significantly less frequently than pushing at all angles above the head (the way a shoulder press would resemble)

Sticking to mostly compound movement will result in a mostly balanced physique. With less “chinks in your armour” so to speak. 

Negative aspects of neglecting this: 

-you’ll only be efficient and powerful and specific angles (youlll be doing the robot all the time)

-You have a much higher likely hood to injure yourself if exercising from other angles

-You’ll find muscle imbalances that will become more pronounced over time

-You simply won’t make as much progress as someone who focuses on compound movements. One reason being you wasted all your value time doing less bang for your buck exercises

-you’ll probably injure yourself opening a can of peanut butter

Next point... point four..

Consistently increasing difficultly as adaptations occur (+weight/+reps)

I can hear you say “no shit” in your head.

It’s hugely important to always push for progress. And track and remember your previous personal best, and push to either increase weight/reps/speed of contraction etc.

I don’t know if it’s best, but I typically push till I fail. And after weeks or months at a specific rep range, when I finally hit the top of it let’s say 4-6 reps for dumbbell incline press. When I hit 6 reps, I increase the weight and build up again, up to 6 over time.

I do this as well for my higher rep sets focused on explosiveness. 

Negative aspect of neglecting this:

You’ll stop progressing. You’ll literally be wasting your time and won’t get anywhere

You are not giving your body any further reason to adapt. 

Next point... number 5..

-Ideal Stimulus frequency

Now for this. Everybody is different. And you’ll find as you progress, your body will adapt to things differently as well. When I started I did more whole body routines every other day. I progressed quickly and the frequency of hitting each muscle group every other day was perfect for me to make my “noob gains” however over time, my body adapted for this.

I stopped making gains, I had to put more intensity and volume in each body part to continue to grow and adapt. I took a two day split from Martin Berkham, focusing on opposing muscle groups each day. Hitting each muscle group harder, but giving up each group 4 days or so to recover between Stimulus (besides heavily taxed muscle groups used in a lot of movements like abs/forearms/some biceps triceps etc)

Each person has to experiment and find their own frequency for themselves though. Some recover quick, other are a bit slower/more likely to injure themselves. 

You can optimize this by keeping your diet perfect. Usually when you’re bulking your frequency can afford to be a little higher than when you can cutting. Because of the extra resources your body has for recovery. 

Negative aspect of neglecting: 

Too frequent-> won’t recover well. Will be wasting time. Won’t progress. Susceptible to injury. Higher resting heart rate all the time. Constant lethargy. Low motivation to train

Too infrequent-> won’t be progressing at the optimal rate you could be. Progress will likely half because of infrequent Stimulus. Soreness after most workouts (like first time back in the gym)

Final point..

-Efficiency

You likely have a job and other things to do, you  likely don’t want to live in the gym. 

If you’re like me, you want to push hard, give your all and be in and out 60-90 mins max. 

And don’t want to go every day as well. I typically go every other day. But if circumstances call for it, I’ll throw in an extra day of rest every few weeks.

Well. These are the principles. The main ones I know at least. Do whatever you want, but if you follow them. I promise definitive progression. 

However I’ll put my workout in the next post. So you can take what you want and add to yours.

Good day folks.