Application of pre-requisites and strength work

As we know, Coach has given us the full pre-req list for the FSP. I am still rehabbing my body but the soft tissue work has done wonders for everything and I have been able to be back in the swing of things. I would like to share what I am doing and what my results are. I think this might open some eyes as to how this should be applied, and it may also be unpopular, I don't know.

I have noticed, as a general trend, that daily multiple sets are nowhere near as effective for me as daily single sets. These single sets are not to failure and are not to failure of good technique. In fact, I stop while I am feeling my strongest. Now, once a week or slightly less often I WILL do some heavier volume, but in general I let other exercises handle strength and endurance accrual and I let the FSP progressions just be CNS stimulation.

I do have several warm ups, which I will be changing every few weeks, that will work on the small musculature of the joints to keep proprioception at maximum and to ensure joint integrity. Some basic Capoeira jinga and floreio work for the lower body alternating with lunge matrices and a combination matrix that I have come up with. For upper body I will be alternating the wrist and elbow series with some novel inventions of my own on a monthly basis as well. Shoulders I will be doing something similar as well, using TGU progressions and some old style lifts alternated with the different shoulder routines that we were shown. So far so good, it is almost time for my first rotation.

Currently that FSP warm up is 4 moderately slow body levers, 2 FL pulls, 2 Front Pulls, 4 pull ups, 3 flat tuck PL negative push ups on dip bars with a MU transition at the bottom and a 30-50s German hang. Keep in mind that everything FL is full lay and I can easily do 7-10 of the FL stuff and around 12 slow pull ups without experiencing a significant breakdown in form. I am now able to do the wide pull ups without shoulder issues so I switch each week between L pull ups, L chins, and wide pull ups. Those numbers are up from a few weeks ago when I started this idea. I was pushing harder before and saw less progress, but with these much smaller sets I am spending next to no time in my warm up and seeing very good progress. I am back to being able to do flat tuck PL push ups on rings, not that I am doing that on any kind of a regular basis, and a short full lay BL palms down, again just a single test. I will be starting negative tuck back lever pulls soon. Progress is starting to slow down, which tells me it is time to switch up my actual strength/conditioning work. Speaking of which...

For strength, I have devised something of a rotating exercises that fluctuate monthly between mostly BtGB work and mostly other work. I can only imagine that sounds somewhat strange to most, so let me explain a little. I follow the WOD matrix but I figure that since my body has gotten so used to those exercises it is time for me to switch to a stimulus that is foreign to me. I won't list specifics, but probably starting next week or perhaps the week after, depending on how everything feels, most of my work will switch over to variants that I am not using at all right now. I'll be working heavy weighted foot-supported row negatives instead of FL rows, for example, and probably a cable machine version of FL pulls for actual strength work, just as a small example. Fl and Front pulls will always be in the warm up, to keep the movement efficiency high and to be a gauge of progress.

This is not pure BtGB in the eyes of most, but I figure that I should expose my body to completely new stimuli for the purposes of strength development for a month so that I can stimulate maximum muscle with minimal CNS fatigue. The basic skills that I want to master will always be my FSP warm up, and will progress as I reach the benchmarks we have had laid out for us by Coach. As many different exercises as we have available to us just through BtGB I will be able to run at least 3 BtGB cycles without repeating, but since it is all bodyweight leverage work I figure my body will always be somewhat ready for it since that's what we do. I believe that the body needs to be exposed to a drastically different stimulus for the body to continue gaining strength the way it should be able to, meaning fairly rapidly and consistently. After a WOD cycle working the same basic movements with different stimuli I will return to a different, but similar, set of BtGB strength work. I have time for a few cycles before the May seminar so we should see some very interesting results.

All I can say for now is that it is working. We will see more meaningful results at the May seminar.

Any input on that? Thoughts, concerns, ideas, anything?

Josh, you've been working with your body for many years, i see no issues with what you propose to do.

I'm certain at some point i'll add a mass phase, i've been considering Dan John's new program Mass Made Simple. I know i need to use some weights, i do on the heavy leg days, its area i'm seriously lacking in, once i get to a certain baseline it may change.

My point being i don't think that there is meant to be a pure BtGB program after a point in time. Even with Coach's athletes there are variations. The test is always, does it work, what works for this individual. Its a fantastic program which i think via the type of adaptations you describe can be used as a basis of many years of training. Clearly that kind of longevity also requires a little intelligent use of the program.

You know what you are doing, i say go for it and let us know how its going.

I always took it that the main goal of the program is strength and health that's the main concern, of both mind and body. I'd say you are making great strides in both areas.

So basically you are doing simular movement with different exercise. Lately, I have been reading a lot about WSBB and it strikes me as something similar.

I didn't realize it, but it seems that every top program follows the same basic philosophy.

You hear this basic principle from Poliquin, WSBB and Eric Cressey. i didn't know that Cressey did similar things like this until yesterday. I ran into a guy who was asking me about what I was doing and so I directed him here, which happens all the time. As we were talking he mentioned Cressey's 16 week max strength program, and it turns out that program follows this principle as well.

As I've been reading about adaptation and efficiency, it occurred to me at some point that the only thing that should be staying the same in a program is your actual performance movements. Meaning that if you are a soccer player you practice your kicks, passes, dribbling, cuts and sprints. However, the soccer player's best gains will come from whatever is least similar to their current conditioning. The EFFECTS of the strength and conditioning work should show up in this sport specific practice, but using actual sports performance movements as conditioning is the least effective way to develop strength and endurance in them for reasons that I don't have time to get into at the moment.

This is stuff that I actually have come up with on my own for the most part and I am proud of that. I feel good about the fact that as I get deeper into the training methods of the current top names in the performance business I see many similarities with what I am discovering. This makes me feel like I am on the right track.

Blairbob said:

So basically you are doing simular movement with different exercise. Lately, I have been reading a lot about WSBB and it strikes me as something similar.

Yes, but sometimes I will be largely abandoning the similar movement for a month and really concentrating on something very different. I am still working out the details on that part, but a big part of my final training methods will be the integration of effective e-stim. I am working on a 6 month matrix that should take maximum advantage of the training effects of e-stim without taking a ton of time or interfering with event training. I believe this will eventually become the highest end training available. For all I know this is what Schroeder is doing, but I think he has a higher reliance on the e-stim for strength. I do not know how ideal that is.

well off hand, I can think of a few programs that integrate DE and ME and change volume or intensity.

GB

WSBB

Texas Method: Lon Kilgore and Mark Rippetoe

You could almost say CF does if it wasn't such a cluster**** typically.

What is DE and ME? That might be a stupid question but I don't know what those mean! :oops:

oh my bad

ME=MaxEffort (think the GB max strength days, 3 round WODS)

DE=Dynamic Effort (think the GB dynamic days, the 4 round WODS)

Crossfit and texas method don't fit in at the same level as WSBB in terms of proper integration or certainly in terms of exercise rotation. They both tend to hit the same strength work over and over with little or no variation in exercises used from month to month, and crossfit doesn't even seem to know how to do a proper strength workout at all. Part of the stagnation that occurs in both of these programs when done according to the canon is due to the body shifting to a reliance on efficiency versus tissue adaptation. Nothing is ever really detrained, which makes it very taxing to recruit maximum motor groups.

WSBB does a bit of rotation between exercises used for strength work from month to month. It's actually a good concept, the only thing that should really be added is specific activation work for the whole body in the warm up. WSBB is a powerlifting gym and so it uses the three big lifts for the sports performance goal, which I think confuses people into thinking that the WS lifting protocol HAS to be done with those lifts. WSBB does that, but the underlying method is completely separate from the exercises used. If you think about it, the GB WOD cycle is not all that different in principle. Coach even seems to be rotating the exercises around from month to month so that we are getting a different stimulus from month to month in the various planes GB works in! I don't know if it is intentional or not, but that is the way to get maximum results.

I do think that shifting strength work from closed chain to open chain and from single to double appendage on a 3-4 weekly basis is the best thing to do with strength work, simply because strength work is more about working the tissues. Since the tissues are controlled by the CNS and the CNS is going to learn to do the same or more work with less or the same amount of muscle (respectively) you have to make a substantial difference in the stimulus used. There's a much bigger neurological difference between PB planche push ups and dumbbell bench press than there is between PB planche push ups and PB weighted dips or bulgarian dips, for example. The rings give us another great novel stimulus as well due to the "frictionless" plane they create.

An example of this concept in action: Body levers no longer have the ability to make me sore, regardless of the tempo I use, unless my volume really goes through the roof. That would drain me, which means that body levers are becoming a bad choice for my strength work. I keep full lay FL pull and front pull in my warm up, but for the next 3-4 weeks my ab strength work will be switched to high decline sit ups. After that I will probably go back to body levers for 2-3 weeks and after that I will probably go do inverted sit ups. As I go through these different exercises my actual muscles will be constantly forced to work at maximum capacity because I will not be allowing efficiency to stay high. As a consequence, I will be sore as hell this week since it is the first week of new exercises. My efficiency during FL-type work will stay high as I will be doing it every day, but that requires very little work to maintain. one set of 2-3 FL pulls and front pulls is all it takes on a daily basis.

Trust me, if you're at the May seminar you'll see a pretty ridiculous difference in me and my abilities due to these factors.

Yeah, I intend to make this one, Sliz. Just remind me to not jump into the ring strength series gung-ho.

I actually messaged Coach S about similarities of the WSBB and GB WOD.

No idea what WSBB actually does for a WU, not from what I can find. Would be interesting.

TM would be a more simple strength program than WSBB. There is something to that.

CF Str development was merely a joke. heh.

True, and that's what makes Texas Method great for intermediate guys who haven't gotten to where they require a program that really gets the best out of their bodies. To me that always seems like an ass backwards explanation though, quite honestly. Why not just start out training with the most effective thing and stick with it?

I don't know what WSBB does for warm up either.

Hahaha, I'll try to hold you back!

I don't know Texas Method from Texas Hold 'em, but i imagine the answer is simple.

Not everyone has a coach or trainer to keep them on a rotation, and for many its just too much to think about all the programing, so something simple is preferred because otherwise its too confusing.

I get this all the time, its frustrating, but i can sympathize, most people have a lot more on their minds then how to create complex workout cycle, and just want to feel good about doing something, too much change makes them feel like they are being punished, they didn't do something right so now they have to do this instead...

Add to that all mass of confusing information out there, mostly from folks who are trying to sell you a water down version of something good and its no wonder there aren't many doing things this way.

I guess in a way one could say its almost a lifestyle. Maybe this is really not for everyone, and that's ok with me.

BTW another guy who seems to be implementing a good mix varied tempos with good results is Pendlay.

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/too_much_muscle_the_glenn_pendlay_secret

The biggest thing he's doing is bypassing eccentric damage. Eccentric loading places a large portion of the load directly on the deep fascia and titin proteins, both of which take something like 7 days to heal completely. That kind of damage WILL force your body to down-regulate your system if you do it too often with too much volume, just to make sure that you don't hurt yourself.

By working concentric-only movements the majority of the time he is causing damage that is healed in 2-3 hours instead of a week. That's the big secret to why O-lifters can work so much more frequently without being drugged. They cut eccentric work out of the majority of their workouts. Hence the ability to work 2x per day 7x per week without breaking down.

The second 'secret' is hidden in RFD. If you use force plates, and this has been done quite a number of times, to measure the maximum force during any kind of lower body explosive movement, well trained jumpers can produce more force in a bodyweight vertical jump than they can produce in a max weight squat, often by a pretty good margin. We're talking like 700 lbs of force at takeoff for some of these guys, when max squat is like 350-400 lbs. There is a complicated issue underneath this, but the basic idea is that force = mass x acceleration. If you can move your 170 lb body 4x faster than your max squat of 300 lbs, as a hypothetical example, then you are going to have produced 680 lbs of force in your bodyweight jump at peak force moment. You will not produce that in your max squat with 300 lbs (470 lbs total load, including BW) in all likelihood. It will be closer to 550-600 if you are strong and reasonably fast (2s concentric in the max from powerlifting depth). That's over a 10% increase in force production with bodyweight.

That's all I'm saying here, there is more but this isn't quite the right place for it.

Hey Guys,

Slizz, that is some great information. Could you post a list of texts you recommend reading to delve deeper into the programing? I mainly use Bompa's Periodization principles with my guys and it seems to be working. Its interesting about the nervous system because I have done qigong and taiji for a number of years now which claim to build more neurons. I can definitely feel that if I am over training my CNS gets fried. Once I went to a simpler schedule I saw that feeling diminish. Thanks again for all the tidbits.

Respectfully,

JP

Slizzardman,

I think I'm grasping what you've done with your workouts, but could you please put up a sample template just so I can see it in it's entirety?

BTW, I just mean a sample of one workout not the entire program.

Thanks,

Ed

JP:

The more different movements you perform the more connections your brain will make between neurons. Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) levels are also increased by increasingly complex 3d movements. By 3d movements I mean complicated locomotion patterns, so everything from tai chi forms to capoeira to breakdancing to salsa and so on... The more you move the better off your CNS will be.

An excellent an very readable book on how the brain maps the body is 'The Body has a Mind of Its Own' a fascinating subject.

One additional point the book brings out is the effectiveness of visualizing yourself doing movements, in fact movement and visualization together being the most potent.

nice food for thought guys!

Mr Brady said:

An excellent an very readable book on how the brain maps the body is 'The Body has a Mind of Its Own' a fascinating subject.

One additional point the book brings out is the effectiveness of visualizing yourself doing movements, in fact movement and visualization together being the most potent.

Yes! There are very interesting studies that were done with Olympic athletes showing that mental rehearsal let to the same performance increases as actual technique practice over a period of a few weeks, as the exact same nerve impulses are generated with visualization and actual performance.

slizzardman said:

Yes! There are very interesting studies that were done with Olympic athletes showing that mental rehearsal let to the same performance increases as actual technique practice over a period of a few weeks, as the exact same nerve impulses are generated with visualization and actual performance.

To build upon that, there is a degree of specificity to it that some sports psychology books miss. In related studies, visualizing oneself winning proved ineffective, as did imagining going through a perfect performance in order to win. It was only the mental rehearsal of technique of specific items on a typical training day that recruited the nerve impulses. Makes sense, of course...pretending to stand on a podium with a gold medal in hand doesn't in any way replicate training. So in the real world, visualizing oneself achieving a goal does little, whereas mentally going through the process that gets there works tremendously.

You guys are right about that, visualizing might not actually be the best word. You actually have to mentally feel yourself going through the movements.

It also won't help much with something you don't already know, the sensations have to already be in your system.

coreathlete said:

slizzardman said:

Yes! There are very interesting studies that were done with Olympic athletes showing that mental rehearsal let to the same performance increases as actual technique practice over a period of a few weeks, as the exact same nerve impulses are generated with visualization and actual performance.

To build upon that, there is a degree of specificity to it that some sports psychology books miss. In related studies, visualizing oneself winning proved ineffective, as did imagining going through a perfect performance in order to win. It was only the mental rehearsal of technique of specific items on a typical training day that recruited the nerve impulses. Makes sense, of course...pretending to stand on a podium with a gold medal in hand doesn't in any way replicate training. So in the real world, visualizing oneself achieving a goal does little, whereas mentally going through the process that gets there works tremendously.

Visualisation of perfect technique is what was implied by what I wrote, and if anyone somehow missed that I apologize... I figured that was really obvious.

You have to be visualizing yourself, looking through your eyes and not a 3rd person perspective, performing your event. That is visualization for the purpose of this thread.

Good point, Cory! It is the act of competition itself that matters.