COACH THIB’S TRAINING JOURNAL 3

Monday January 24^th

Why am I using a concentrated approach instead of a concurrent one?

Concurrent meaning that I would train strength and power to a similar extent in my training (probably with some hypertrophy too)?

For several reasons:

1. I have a large difference between my muscle mass, strength and power. Specifically, my muscle mass is greater, proportionally than my strength (years of focusing on bodybuilding), strength is proportionally much higher (at the beginning of this training cycle at least) than power. For my current goal (sprinting fast) I require a much greater increase in power than strength and I want almost no added muscle mass (ideally, I’d lose some in the upper body and gain some in the lower body). It makes no sense to spend the same amount of training on strength and power (much less hypertrophy).

In my current approach I have 3 power blocks and 2 strength blocks, and the former are 1-3 weeks longer than the later.

2. With my goal(s) (sprinting fast, jumping high) strength and power have different levels of importance. Even if my strength and power were balanced, it would still be justified to spend more volume/time on power than strength.
3. A larger training dose for a specific capacity leads to a greater and faster improvement in that capacity, if you can systemically recover from it. The advantage of a more concentrated approach is that you are able to invest more volume in training the target capacity without ending up doing more overall work.
4. It’s simpler to avoid burning out/overtraining when you are only training one capacity. Especially if you have a busy/stressful life. The body’s system and capacities recover at different rates and have delayed adaptations that are not the same either. It is harder to judge if you are providing a sufficient stimulus for all the trained capacities. If you are, it is easy to overdo it (with two kids at home, being 44 years old and having a business even more so). And it is just as likely that you will not do enough for 1 or 2 capacities if you try to do too much at once. When you are only training one capacity it is much easier to control whether you are doing the proper amount of work.
5. “Power” is not a single capacity, nor is strength, at least not the way I train them. “Power” includes speed-strength (1.0-1.3 m/s), strength-speed (0.75 – 1.0 m/s) as well a reactive strength (being able to absorb force and use it to produce an explosive movement) and high acceleration strength (jumps, throws). For strength I like to divide it into eccentric, concentric and isometric strength. If you were to work on all of these at the same time it would give you 7 different capacities to train, not just two. Now, if you are satisfied with only training one of each, it’s easier to train strength and power equally. But for what I’m doing, I need to develop all of them as much as I can.
6. I have a very long period to achieve my goal (January to November, 11 months) so I can afford to spend longer times devoted to each capacity. Whereas if I only had an 8-10 weeks period I would have to use a concurrent approach.
7. I can’t sprint yet. Not technically or physically, practically; I live in Quebec, we have roughly 3 feet of snow out. We are also in lockdown and all sport facilities are closed (including indoor tracks), not that the later mater that much because the closest indoor track is 30-40 minutes away and with two young kids I don’t have the luxury to travel 60-80 minutes and do a 90 minutes sprint session. I’ll have to wait spring to do my sprinting. Which is why it is even more important to have a high amount of power work.
8. That’s how my brain works. I don’t respond well to chasing two rabbits at the same time. I can totally use several methods in the same week (or even in the same session) but I am more focused and motivated when I feel that all my efforts are going in the same direction (chasing a single outcome). Intellectually I do understand that strength work will contribute to make me more powerful and that it would still be working toward a unique end goal. But emotionally that just kill my motivation. Which is why, even though I intellectually understand the Westside conjugate (really, it’s a concurrent approach), and know it works, I could never stick with it even though it includes everything that I love.

I’m not saying that it is the best way to program. Just that for me, in my current state, with my goal of the moment, and how my brain works, it’s the best approach.

My (ideal) training schedule will be:

Monday: Strength series

Wednesday: Strength complex series (each series has two combined exercises)

Friday: Strength wave loading

Saturday: Strength & power complexes

I have a lot less leeway for schedule adaptation because of the sheer trauma of each training day compared to my previous phase. If I need to make modifications because I can’t train on any of the weekdays (work, appointments, kids) then I’ll either skip a workout or push everything forward one more day. But I thought about that and planned a four 4-weeks strength block even though I wanted to do a 3-weeks one. That accounts for situations where I must push my workouts forward one or two days.

Today’s training:

Series AA – 1

Power snatch from blocks work up to heavy double

Series AB – 1

Iso pull (power position) 3 x 6 reps (max effort for 1-2 seconds per rep) ,

Series AA – 2

Power snatch from blocks 3 x 2

Series AB – 2

Iso pull (power position) 3 x 6 reps

Series BA – 1

Top half squat eccentric overload (weight releasers) 3 x 3 (315 bar weight to start, heaviest controllable eccentric)

Series BB – 1

Hip thrust slow eccentric 3 x 5-7

Series BA – 2

Top half squat* eccentric overload (weight releasers) 3 x 3 (80-85% of highest total weight reached earlier)

Series BB – 2

Hip thrust slow eccentric 3 x 5-7

Series CA – 1

Bench press eccentric overload (weight releasers) 3 x 3 (185 bar weight to start + ½” band), heaviest controllable

Series CB – 1

Rope hammer curl swinged/explosive concentric, slow eccentric 3 x 5-7

Series CA – 2

Bench press eccentric overload (weight releasers) 3 x 3 (80-85% of top weight + ½” band)

Series CB – 2

Rope hammer curl swinged/explosive concentric, slow eccentric 3 x 5-7

*The top half squat is slightly above parallel

IMPORTANT NOTE: I might need to decrease the volume. Not so much because of recovery issues (I have a full day of rest after my big workouts and have a pretty low stress life) but because of family obligations. I will see how long the workouts take and see if it is too long for me to do my proper part with the kids. Jayden will normally be in daycare on 3 of the4 training days, but we still have baby Madyson at home and my wife also wants to train. I might need to cut my workouts short to allow my wife to train or rest and take care of Mady.

P.S. To me, family always supersede any goal I have. Whether it’s a training or business goal. That’s how it should be for everyone with a family, except maybe pro athletes.

BONUS WORK: I also have an EMS session (electromyostimulation) for quads either at the end of the workout, or later in the afternoon.

Nutrition

I mentioned in the first instalment of this journal that I ultimately want my weight to be around 190-195lbs when I start sprinting in May.

I also know that restrictive dieting diminishes my performance, drive to train and well-being. I don’t want to be at a body weight/fat level that forces me to diet hard in April. This is one of the reasons why I want to avoid increasing my body weight too much.

But I also know that restricting food too much will hurt my strength gains (not as much an issue with power which is almost exclusively neurological, once the muscle is there).

What I find to be the smartest solution is to maintain or drop my weight slightly during the power blocks and eat more to maximize strength gains during the strength blocks, accepting that this will come with some weight gain.

Ideally in my strength blocks I want to minimize fat gain. Right off the bat I’ll likely add 2-3lbs from water and glycogen but in 3-4 weeks I wouldn’t want to see the scale go up by more than 5-6lbs (2-3lbs of water, 1lb of fat, 2lbs of muscle, 1-1.5lbs of it being actual muscle tissue).

Gaining size is not one of my goals. In fact, I want to avoid it if possible; I want to get the strongest engine possible without adding weight to the car.

As such I see my nutrition more in a way of giving my body to progress optimally on my lifts. But not to the point where body composition becomes an issue that will need to be delt with.

Last year, when my goal was to squat over 500lbs, I was on the “see food diet”: I see food, I eat it. To get as strong as possible (body fat can, in fact, help with demonstrating your strength on big basic lifts by improving leverage, reducing range of motion and ameliorating passive joint stability). But that approach will not suit my current long-term goal.

Not to mention that one of my beliefs is that an athlete should spend as much time as possible training at his “fighting weight” or close to it. Any drastic shifts in body weight can affect performance.

The good news is that I ended up my last power block at 198lbs (this morning) so I have some wiggle room as I want to avoid getting heavier than 205-206lbs.

I will stick to my same nutritional approach but add more carbs around my workouts (it was around 80g, I’ll go up to around 140g) and in the evening meal (it was around 60g, I’ll go up to around 120g). Mostly by eating more of the same foods.

I expect that I might need to increase my intake a bit more than that, as every time I dramatically change my training stimulus, I end up “burning” a lot more calories because I’m inefficient at the new training and because there is a greater need for adaptation, which by extension requires more energy to fuel the process.

A mistake I often see when people decide to either gain more muscle or strength is to green light anything they fancy eating. That rarely ends up well:

* It makes subsequent “leaning out” phases harder to adhere to

* It often leads to a dramatically higher caloric intake than planned/desired

* It’s not good for your health (which is kinda important to me as I approach 45)

Workout analysis

I’m not gonna lie, the volume kinda got to me. I don’t think it’s too much (for now) as I was able to perform well throughout, but I was drenched in sweat and was ravenous afterwards.

Overall, I’m happy with the workout. I was able to fix something in the power snatch that made the catch better.

I was always catching the bar forward, I figured that it was only a mobility issue, but it was a pulling one.

I began to focus on the cue of “explosively trying to pull the bar through my chest” and BAM, always in the proper spot.

The only modification I made was taking out the bench with eccentric overload which hurt my shoulder. I did regular 5/4/3 waves instead, two waves in the first “series” and one in the second.

Tuesday January 25^th

In the video entry I talk about why I feel like strength work causes more lingering fatigue issues than power work. I also discuss the impact of rest periods on the overall stress of the workout.

To recap, the three main causes of post-workout fatigue are:

1) Peripheral fatigue: when a muscle gets “injured” by training (as in stimulatory micro-trauma) there in an inflammatory response that negatively impact how easily the muscles can respond to the excitatory drive of the central nervous system. The less easily muscles respond, the harder the central nervous system has to work to make your muscles contract, even during daily tasks. Peripheral fatigue also includes stiffness and soreness which can make it harder to move and function.

2) Central fatigue: both the workout itself and the muscle damaged that stays during the post-workout recovery period can increase central nervous system fatigue. When that happens, the CNS cannot send an excitatory drive that is as strong. This will impact physical, intellectual and emotional responses.

3) Beta-adrenergic downregulation: by producing a lot of adrenaline in your workout (or throughout the day if you are in a stressful situation) you risk desensitizing/downregulating the receptors that interact with adrenaline. This can actually be done in as little as one workout! It affects the brain, the muscles, the heart and many other tissues. What we call “overtraining” is more often than not beta-adrenergic downregulation: it decreases strength, power, coordination, endurance, resistance, resiliency, motivation, reaction time and analytic skills.

And you have 6 main training factors that can increase adrenaline:

1) Volume

2) Intensiveness (how hard you are pushing each set)

3) Psychological stress (heavily correlated with how heavy the weights are, or how much the workout is gonna “hurt”)

4) Neurological demands (complexity of the exercises, level of mastery of an exercise, movement combinations, high-speed, high-force or high-coordination, number of different exercises in your session)

5) Density (rest intervals)

6) Competitiveness in training

By the way, that can be why Crossfit can be addictive: literally all the variables are high at the same time. This leads to a giant dose of adrenaline being released, while it happens you feel exhilarated, amped up, more confident, more driven and positive. It basically makes you feel like you are on a low dose of amphetamines. This can be addictive. But it also means that the potential for burning-out is very real.

But it becomes a vicious cycle: you feel run down and tired, then you get a jolt from your Crossfit WOD and it comes to a point where you think you need it to be energized and feel good, while too much of that training is actually what led to your problem in the first place.

Today’s plan

I’m obviously not lifting today. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t productively do it.

And remember, when training for performance, if you are not going to improve (or have a good chance of improving), don’t train.

I will continue working on my overhead mobility (I’m a weird animal, I have very good lower body mobility but horrible upper body one).

I also want to do some GOATA reprograming for my lower body during my off days.

I am aware of the almost cultish attitude that their specialists can have, and how it can turn people off. But they do have good material and I know that for maximizing sprinting speed I will need to have a more “posterior chain dominant posture”. I’ll also need to change my feet action when walking and sprinting as I have the opposite pattern of what is optimal: my feet are turned out/everted and turn out when I push and the optimal for speed is having the feet slightly turned in/inverted and accentuating that as you push.

I was able to be fast on short distance because of sheer power when I was younger, but I need to do everything I can to be in the best neuromechanical situation possible to run fast.

That’s why I want to reprogram my feet and lower body action and also why I will hire my friend Mathieu Boulé, likely the top performance posturologist in the world to help me fix my imbalances for good.

Wednesday January 26^th

Ok, today is my second workout of the strength block.

This block will be 3 or 4 weeks long depending on if I have schedule perturbations or not.

If I everything can be done according to my schedule (Mon/Wed/Fri/Sat) then it will last 3 weeks.

Essentially it is 12 workouts long. 9 pure strength workouts and 3 strength/power sessions.

Today’s plan is:

Workout 2

Series AA – 1

AA1. Power snatch blocks 3 x 1-3

2 minutes

AA2. KB swing 3 x 5-7

Series AB – 1

AB1. Top half squat (3 chains) from pins 3 x 3 reps

2 minutes

AB2. Hip thrust  3 x 5-7 reps

2 minutes

AB3. Reverse hyper (red band) 3 x 5-7 reps

Series AA – 2

AA1. Power snatch blocks 3 x 1-3

2 minutes

AA2. KB swing 3 x 5-7

Series AB – 2

AB1. Top half squat (3 chains) from pins 3 x 3 reps

2 minutes

AB2. Hip thrust  3 x 5-7 reps

2 minutes

AB3. Reverse hyper (red band) 3 x 5-7 reps

Series B

B1. Bench press (green + blue bands) 4 x 5 @ 0.5m/s

2 minutes

B2. Bench press (green + blue bands) 4 x 3 @ 0.75m/s

Workout recap

Again, it was a pretty hefty workload, but it felt good. My snatch was smooth but I’m not going super heavy yet.

Felt my left adductor a bit when squatting, but nothing too bad.

The only modification I made was taking out the reverse hyper from the AB series and doing it by itself for sets of 8-10 at the end of the workout.

Not because it doesn’t work, but because I forgot that I don’t have enough 45lbs plates to accommodate three exercises on which I need multiple 45lbs plates.

Probably ended up being better this way anyway, I always had problems focusing when I’m doing more than 2 exercises together, even if I have a rest period in between each of them.

I was supposed to do an EMS session for quads after the workout but my wife had appointments from 12 to 16 and I was on baby duty.

It’s now 5pm and I must find the motivation to do it (it’s not fun, it hurts like hell).

Nutrition note

I notice that I’m completely ravenous after these workouts. Like, I start eating and it is extremely hard to stop. I barely have any control. I’m good for the rest of the day, but that post workout period is something special. Didn’t even get that when I was prepping for my last photoshoot.

It’s either that those workouts are putting an enormous adaptative demand on my body or using up a lot of glycogen, it that because I’m now in a strength block (rather than a power/speed block) I subconsciously allow myself to want food more.

I don’t know what it is, but it’s shocking.

Thursday January 27^th

Quite frankly there isn’t much to write today. I’m a pretty boring person and on my “off” days I rarely have something worth mentioning happen to me. And there is a limit to how often I can mention that I did mobility work for my overhead position before you prefer to go watch paint dry.

Plus, my wife was sick, and we didn’t have daycare, so I spent the whole day with my two kids. Which is awesome but doesn’t lend itself to tons of training information to share!

I could tell you that Jayden (3 years old) has started training. It’s actually coming from him; I’m not one of those crazy parents who impose their own passion to their kids in hope of living through them.

But because both my wife and I train at home Jayden is in the gym with us pretty much every time we train (unless he is at daycare) and it’s been this way since he was a baby.

Here are a few videos of his training. Sorry for the vertical/portrait video format. I didn’t plan on using these in an article.

TIP: Portrait format is for Instagram, for everything else use the landscape/horizontal format.









For the parents reading this, here are a few recommendations when it comes to introducing young kids to training:

1. It must come from them (my wife and I show the example because Jay is always in the gym when we train) but we never said “let’s go train”
2. It must be fun. Either by being in the form of a game or using a theme (like tte fireman thing we are doing)
3. Keep it short. I feel like age x 3 in minutes is the limit
4. Use high success rate exercises. Start way too easy to build confidence and a positive mindset
5. Be enthusiastic! Have fun too!
6. From experience: objects lifting/carrying and natural movements work better than barbell exercises, at least until they understand the purpose of training and progressive overload. I think that these exercises better allow them to develop motor skills, coordination and how to use their bodies. I do give maybe ONE cue from time to time, but mostly I let him figure it out by himself after I do a demo.

And that’s pretty much everything remotely useful or interesting I have for today.

Friday January 28^th

I need to eat more on my off days. Here’s why:

As for my workout today, it is the most “normal” of all the sessions I’ve done since I started this mesocycle.

It’s simply doing 3/2/1 waves on:

* Power snatch from blocks

* Safety bar full squat with chains (72lbs of chains per side, 144lbs total)

* Bench press (with ½” and ¼” bands)

Depending on my energy levels, I might add 3 sets of 5-7 reps on:

* Snatch-grip Pendlay row

* Reverse hyper

“3/2/1 waves” is probably my favorite loading scheme to develop strength. The way it works is that you gradually increase the weight from set to set within a wave.

For example:

Wave 1

1 x 3 @ 200lbs

1 x 2 @ 210lbs

1 x 1 @ 220lbs

If you are successful with all the reps from all the sets you move on to a second wave. That new wave must be heavier than the preceding one. I personally like to use the weight from the second set of the previous wave as the starting point for the new wave.

For example:

Wave 2

1 x 3 @ 210lbs

1 x 2 @ 220lbs

1 x 1 @ 230lbs

But you can make smaller increases if you feel like you won’t be able to successfully start the wave with the new weight.

But the rule is that you must increase the weight in the new wave. If you feel like there is no way that you can do an heavier weight, or if you fail at completing a set, the exercise is done.

Normally 3 to 4 waves are done.

Wave 1: Conservative, all sets are about an RPE of 8. It is essentially a preparation wave

Wave 2: This is the first challenging wave. You should be able to complete it 8 or 9 times out of 10, only missing a rep if you are not properly recovered or lost focus. An RPE of around 8.5-9 for each set.

Wave 3: Very challenging weight. There should be a real risk that you will not be able to complete it. It normally leads to your equally your max (at that moment) on a lift.

Wave 4: This is essentially uncharted territory. Rarely should you be able to complete a fourth wave, if you constantly complete 4 waves, you likely were too conservative with the weights in your first wave. When you complete a 4^th wave, it should normally lead to a PR (for the moment).

And within a wave, each set has its own main purpose:

Sets of 3: These are the sets that build the most strength. Heavy enough to stimulate near maximal neurological adaptions and enough volume to stimulate some muscle growth.

Sets of 1: This gives the strongest neurological stimulus but has almost no impact on muscle growth. It also provides a significant psychological stress which increases your arousal for the next wave.

Sets of 2: This is essentially maximal work with a lesser psychological stress (subconsciously, you know that you will at least make the first rep and can always bail out if you don’t feel the second one, whereas with sets of 1 you have more uncertainty before the set). It allows you to do more volume of maximal work with less stress.

Workout recap

Ok, so this was the first bad workout in a while. Not because I wasn’t recovered or in good shape, I actually opened strong with a decent power snatch, but because I had to completely change my plan.

* Although I power snatched an easy 205, which is in-line with my expectations, I still had a suboptimal catch position. I was forced to catch the bar with almost no knee bend/squat under because I couldn’t get the bar back far enough while having my chest forward and my hips back. In a sense, that’s fine because it forced me to lift the bar higher which requires more power. And that’s fine for my speed goal. But the part of me who wants to go back to my old weightlifting form was pissed.

* Early in my first block I injured my left adductor when I slipped on an ice patch while shoveling snow. While I felt it a bit during my top half squats, today was my first full squatting session and I had to stop after one wave because It felt like it would get reinjured if I kept going.

* By that time, I was extremely disappointed. I also decided to drop the bench press until I regain full shoulder mobility for the snatch.

* I ended up by doing some snatch work:

1. Overhead squat iso holds, emphasizing that “torso forward, hips back” posture.
2. Behind the neck press with a snatch grip, focusing on pressing in a backward ark
3. Light full snatches.

* All and all, it was likely a productive session. It just makes me angry to have to work on technique and mobility when I should be devoting all my time to getting stronger.

* I might extend my strength block to 4 weeks and spend the next week focusing more on technique and mobility.

* The good news is that I’m training again tomorrow. I always hate to follow a disappointing workout with an off day.

Saturday January 29^th

My main focus today, besides working on my snatch mobility/technique, will be to discipline myself to respect the planned rest intervals. Resting longer between sets.

If you read the work of Verkhoshansky (who is one of my biggest influences) it is not unusual to see rest periods of 4-6 minutes between sets and as much as 8-10 minutes between series. Charlie Francis (another one of my greatest influences) would recommend even longer than that in some instances.

I tend to train too fast. That has always been my nemesis (listen to the video above). I will do my best to respect the proper rest periods for performance training, without getting bored or falling asleep during my session!

Today’s training

1. Snatch technique work
2. Power snatch from block doing fast sets of 1-3 reps. There is no real plan here, it is just doing work until my motivation, speed or technique feels like they are about to come down. I do not recommend programing like that if you are not extremely self-aware and disciplined enough to stop when it’s time to.

SERIES C1

CA1. Jump squat with trap bar (95lbs) x 6

4 minutes of rest

CB1. Jump squat with trap bar (115lbs) x 6

4 minutes of rest

CC1. Broad jump + box jump (one of each is 1 rep) x 4

8 minutes of rest – mobility work

SERIES C2

CA2. Jump squat with trap bar (95lbs) x 6

4 minutes of rest

CB2. Jump squat with trap bar (115lbs) x 6

4 minutes of rest

CC2. Broad jump + box jump (one of each is 1 rep) x 4

8 minutes of rest – mobility work

SERIES D1

DA1. Snatch grip behind the neck press x 6-8

3 minutes of rest

DB1. Snatch-grip Pendlay row x 5

3 minutes of rest

DC1. Snatch grip behind the neck press x 6-8

3 minutes of rest

DD1. Snatch-grip Pendlay row x 5

6 minutes of rest – mobility work

SERIES D2

DA2. Snatch grip behind the neck press x 6-8

3 minutes of rest

DB2. Snatch-grip Pendlay row x 5

3 minutes of rest

DC2. Snatch grip behind the neck press x 6-8

3 minutes of rest

DD2. Snatch-grip Pendlay row x 5

New warm-up routine

I used to be the guy who warmed-up simply by doing lighter (and progressively heavier) sets on the first lift that I was going to do.

This worked when I was young and mobile and even when I got older and focusing mostly on strength or hypertrophy.

But now that I’m back to doing explosive work and variations of the Olympic lifts, I find that I need a lot more flexibility as well as preparation work.

Here is the routine I designed. It is heavily influenced by the proposed warm-up from Matt Foreman’s book Olympic lifting for masters: training at 30, 40, 50 and beyond. To which I added stuff that I personally need.

Here is what it looks like. I’ll try to film it (or at least the less common movements) as the names might not all tell you something

DYNAMIC (x10 reps)

Standing hops

Jumping jacks

High knees

Butt kick

Horizontal arm swings

Arm circles

Locked hand press

Pvc/band shoulder dislocate

Torso twist

Wide groin shift

Leg swing

Behind the neck press snatch grip with PVC pipe/technique bar

Squat with PVC pipe/technique bar

Overhead squat PVC pipe or technique bar

STATIC (x15-20 sec)

Wrist stretch

0verhead locked hands

Kneeling clean stretch

Behind back front rack stretch

45lbs BAR (x5)

Behind the neck press snatch grip into overhead squat

Back squat

Military press

Front squat

Workout recap

You’ll see how my brain work in a few seconds.

First, I want to mention that either the new warm-up routine works or my mobility work is starting to pay off (likely both) because today I was able to do full snatches for the first time in 20 years.

Heck, just a week ago I was incapable of doing even a quarter overhead squat with the empty bar. I’d say that it’s a decent progression.

Which made we want to become good at the Olympic lifts again. A goal I had put to the side because I felt the wear and tear from years of heavy lifting would have made it impossible to come back to the required mobility.

Anyway, it is not going to hurt my goal as my best sprint performance occurred when I was training for weightlifting and I can’t do any sprinting work anyway (no access to a track and there are tons of snow outside, and it’s -20 celcius).

I might need to alter my periodization scheme to include technical development periods. Instead of the more traditional long blocks (3-6 weeks) I might use a model closer to the Issurin model of shock training cycles (6-9 weeks) with blocks lasting 2-3 weeks. Which would fit my personal preferences more anyway.

I’m have all of Sunday to think about it.