Before Kitty and I started this project I asked her a few questions.
- Do you trust me 100% to leave the training to me?
- Is it ok if most of the concepts go completely against current norms?
- Is it ok if I base a large portion of your training on what I can see in the middle of sessions?
Every response was “yes of course”
So the foundation of all kitty’s programming was biasedly based on maximizing recovery and regeneration while adding muscle and gaining strength. Key component is regeneration.
Instead of only considering recovery of muscle I chose to focus deeply on recovery of CNS. This means far more time out of the gym then in the gym when it comes to conventional “comp prep”
Rough breakdown of a typical session with Kitty
Average training time 45 mins
Session per week 3 sometime 2
Cardio, none
Average exercises per session 3
Each session is always full body.
I know what your thinking, how can you drop fat and increase muscle and strength with only2-3 hours in the gym a week? What about the volume? Or the cardio? Or the longer rest periods for full regeneration of strength?
The magic is in the execution and quality of each individual rep. We literally take our sessions rep by rep and ensure they are done with technicality, speed, power and precision.
Lets contrast it.
A typical protocol of 3x12-15 reps we all know the first 10 are easy and are done with increasing effort, it’s only the last few reps that we push. Funny enough it’s these last few reps, which kicks into gear the fibres associated with strength and have the most potential for size. The next set you are fatigued and it may only take 8 reps to find the same level of intensity. There is no doubt racking up this volume has solid effects and stimulus on muscle but it also greatly increases the time needed to recover. Not only that if we take a set to complete failure it is highly taxing on the CNS, which is once again responsible for recovery.
Here is what we aimed to remove from kitty’s sessions because the following list is what makes comp prep and training life in general miserable and very easy to fall off the wagon. Don’t get me wrong I don’t shy away from a good 3 hit out at my local commercial gym but is it actually achieving the outcome or is it momentary pleasure?
Grinding reps
Cardio
Extremely high volume
Long session times
Long recovery times
Risk of injury
Giant list of exercises
Stagnation
Loss of muscle size and strength
Decrease in POMS (profile of mood state)
So how do you make session’s fun, increase strength, ensure 100% recovery, drop body fat and always look forward to training? That is the million dollar question right…
There exist a zone for each movement that will house the heaviest weight that can be accelerated as fast or if not faster than lighter percentages. It normally occurs between 70-85% depending on the client. This is what we are aiming to find each session. To find this zone we use triples because its been found in many professional and research circles that when moving weight as fast as possible rep 3 on average will have the highest EMG reading.
We start at 40% and build the weight up gradually with each set until we find a weight that looks dramatically slower. Using this method for our primary lifts achieves a few things (keep in mind our guidelines above)
We will average 10-14 sets of 3-4 reps = between 30 and 60 reps for primary movement each session of which we will do this 3 times a week. Therefor sometimes reaching over 150 reps of this movement per week. I think our volume is covered J
Each rep is lifted as fast as possible therefore stimulating our primary fibres for strength and size without the burden of performing 8-10 reps just to get there and because we are only performing 3 reps our recover is based on “feel “ whenever kitty feels as if she can give the bar the same amount of intensity of effort she will lift again. Sometimes that’s 10 seconds and other times its 2 minutes. Either way we are purely fatiguing the fibres that have the greatest response. That’s our time component coveredJ
Because we are largely limiting metabolic stress (the burn) we rapidly increase muscular recovery and regeneration. Maximizing recovery covered J
Because we are working largely with the sympathetic nervous system and never pushing grinding reps it keeps the following brain chemicals flowing. Nor epinephrine, dopamine, anandimide, serotonin and endorphins. These are all performance enhancing drugs not only physically but jack up learning, motivation and creativity. We all know Kitty loves her business and her 4 million clients so we have to keep her sharp so she can continue to deliver her passion everyday.
If at any point I feel we are pushing the limits of the nervous system through slower then usual reps, longer rest periods then usual, misfiring and lack of coordination during common lifts we will cut the session early and focus on recovery therefore reducing risk of injury.
There is always a downside to something that sounds so great…. Training like this will not give you a pump, you wont feel exhausted, you will hardly sweat and your social gym time will be cut in half because your training time will be 3 minutes.
Judge the result not the process…
Kitty’s results to date.
Starting weight 73.2
Current weight 72.7
Total mls started at 116.4
Current mls 87.2
Starting deadlift 160 kg (broken arm healing)
Current deadlift 185x2 (pro raw in 4 weeks)
Starting safety bar squat 100kg
Current safety bar squat 130kg
Training like was was a development of my many years in the gym, finding the patterns in people who clearly rose above current gym and training norms and who were in it for the development of people not just to check at there local gym and get an arm pump.
To explore this in further detail and how it can work for you please feel free to message me.
Or check out
http://nathanielhodges.blogs.com/my-blog/2016/02/10-overlooked-components-of-powerlifitng-preparation.html
Nataniel
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