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Page 22 “For performance gains, the nervous system is the key” Oftentimes the nervous system, not the muscular apparatus is the limiting factor in force production. Tsatsouline stated that “Your muscles already have the strength to lift a car, they just don’t know it yet” (Tsatsouline, 2000). I agree with that statement and feel that it’s a good image to help understand the potential improvement in force production by developing the nervous system. Let us use Tsatsouline’s example. Feats of strength by apparent weaklings are common. Just think of the frail middle-aged women who suddenly possess superhuman strength when her child gets trapped under an automobile or another heavy apparatus. There are many documented cases in which the woman was actually able to lift the car off the ground to free her child. A feat that she could not repeat in a million years under normal circumstances. Sure her strength was potentiated by adrenaline and other hormones, but the muscles that lifted the car were the same she already had, new muscles didn’t blossom out of nowhere to help her lift the car! The stress and extreme stimulation from the situation simply improved her capacity to produce force with the muscles she already had! Neurotransmission was improved, protective mechanisms were shutdown, sensory feedback was ignored … All of this made her able to work to her full potential, something that we don’t come remotely close to doing under regular circumstances. By now it should be clear to you that the limit in force production lies in the nervous system. The greater the proportion of his strength potential an athlete can use is, the better he’ll be. The difference between absolute strength (the full potential for strength production) and limit strength (the actual maximum strength that an individual can voluntarily produce) is termed the strength deficit.
Page 26 “Know thy athletes” If you want to design a training program that will give the best possible results, you must know the needs and capabilities of a client (or yourself). Ready-to-wear training programs can be a big problem for some individuals. While they can be good, (hey, even I will give you a few program samples in this book!) when it comes to peak performance you must tailor a program to the client (or yourself) perfectly. To accomplish this you must know his weaknesses, strengths, goals, and physiological makeup. Strengths and weaknesses Knowing an athlete’s relative strengths and weaknesses will allow you to choose the training methods best suited to his needs. For example, an individual with a less than efficient nervous system will benefit from training means that will increase his neural drive. Another athlete may have a very efficient nervous system, but a low amount of muscle mass. This athlete will benefit from an increase in the “size of his motor.” Furthermore, some individuals have what are called
“muscle imbalances.” If the agonist and antagonist muscles
of the same joint are way out of balance it can increase the risk
of injury. Knowing which muscles are too weak compared to their
antagonist will allow you to choose exercises that will not only
improve performance, but also reduce the risk of injury. Goals An individual who wants to gain a lot of muscle will not train the same way as a sprinter! It’s important to know the ultimate goal(s) of your athlete (or yourself) and plan the training program accordingly. A lot of peoples are seduced by the latest training “fad” and will jump from one such fad to the other, never really questioning whether this is adequate for their objectives or not. You improve in what you train for. Thus choose training methods that will give you the best results in your area of specialization.
Knowing an individual’s ratio of muscle fibers can help you design a more effective training program. Individuals who are slow-twitch dominant will benefit more from higher volumes of training, while fast-twitch dominant athletes will progress more on a lower volume, higher intensity and higher acceleration training program. An athlete’s posture is also important to analyze. Think of your posture as the wheels of a car; if one of your tires is slightly misaligned it will reduce the performance of your car as well as lead to some overuse. If you drive only 10-20 miles per day chances are that it will not be much of a problem, however if you drive 100-200 miles per day the problems will compound very quickly. The same goes for an athlete. The same misalignment in posture is compounded for an athlete because of the great demands he places on his body. While attaining the perfect posture is not always possible, reducing misalignment as much as possible will make for a longer, more productive career. For individuals only looking to have a beautiful body, a good posture really creates a positive effect on how you look. Sloppy posture can make you look like a doof even if your muscle mass is high and body fat is low.
It is impossible to know the exact ratio of muscle fibers within a muscle unless you use the very painful and intrusive muscle biopsy. However some tests can give us a good idea if an individual is slow-twitch dominant or fast-twitch dominant. While it will not tell us that somebody has 65.786% fast twitch fibers, it can give us a general perception of the makeup of the individual. And really, that’s all we need to design optimal training programs.
Page 45 
Page 80 “Training blocks: Periodization for Dummies” When the words “periodization
of training” are spoken, it’s likely that you’ll
end up with a room full of confused faces and blank stares. For
some odd reason, there’s this stigma of complexity that surrounds
periodization. Many western authors are to blame because they make
it look much harder than it actually is. Most of the time they will
do so because they want to showcase just how much they know, and
how much research they did. Great if you are lecturing to a room
full of Ph.Ds in exercise physiology, not so good if you are trying
to actually teach people how to train! “Periodization is simply dividing an athlete's training program into a number of periods of time, each with a specific training goal or goals. The heart of periodization is simple: make training an objective process” Nowhere is it stated that periodization must use a lot of complex graphs and statistical analysis. And nowhere is it stated that there is only one way to periodize a training program. People seem to think that the only form of periodization is linear, going from a period of low intensity/high volume to a period of high intensity/low volume. Well, this form of periodization, linear periodization, has been seen as old news by its own creators for over 30 years! Yet many western “experts” still follow the dogma blindly.
Instead of a linear progression I prefer to use blocks of training. A block of training is simply a certain period of training that uses the same exercises, the same training means, and that has similar training objectives. A training block should not be shorter than two weeks (or two microcycles of 5-10 days). A period shorter than that cannot lead to significant, chronic, positive adaptations. Generally a training block will either be 4 weeks in length or 8 weeks for a "double block". Each training block is its own functional unit, meaning that you plan each training block individually. Several blocks can be planned in advance, but when you do so you only plan the individual training sessions one block at a time. You may establish the goals of 4-6 blocks in advance, but the specific training to be used is planned 4 weeks, or 1 block, at a time. This will allow the coach to adjust the program according to how the athlete responds. During a block the loading schemes change every week. However the exercises stay the same for the whole block. You change exercises with the start of each new block. You have four different loading schemes possible in block training:
page 125 “We have a lift off : Blast your bench press into outer space” Hey man, how much do you bench? If you’ve spent any time at all in the gym and have a decent physique it’s likely that you’ve heard that one a million time already. It seems that sometime during the 70s or 80s it was decided that the bench press was going to be the reference in term of strength and manhood. As a guy who’s naturally much stronger in the lower part of my body I don’t necessarily like that bench press dogma. But a part of me just can resist having a big bench press … after all, we could all stand to be more manly couldn’t we? Christian, you’re an olympic
lifter, you might squat and clean a lot, but what do you know about
building a big bench? Well my friend, it’s when you suck at
something that you learn the most about it! Were I naturally gifted
for the bench press everything would have worked. But since I’m
not gifted, I had to experiment and find some special techniques
than can make a huge difference. The split The week is going to start and end with a bench press workout. The first workout of the week will be a high intensity session since your nervous system and muscles will be fresh from the weekend. The last workout of the week will be a high volume session to promote maximum supercompensation during the weekend. On the bench press day, the triceps, pectorals and shoulders will be worked. So that leaves either 1 or 2 workouts to do back, biceps, abs and lower body. The split might look like this:
Page 172 “A beginner’s Olympic lifting program” Learn the basic Olympic lifts in 12 weeks The various Olympic lifts have recently received a lot of praise from strength experts all over the world, and rightfully so; these exercises are a tremendous way of developing power, dynamic flexibility, and athletic ability. However, even if the Olympic lifts are used more and more by elite sport organizations, they still remain a relatively dark territory for the average trainee. The problem might come from the fact that these lifts can be hard to learn. Furthermore, the only available programs and videos on these lifts are designed with the competitive Olympic lifter in mind. There is nothing out there for the rank beginner who wants to learn the lifts and perform them in his training regimen. Oh, there are a few videos that teach technique out there. Most are very good. However, learning the lifts and designing an effective program are two different things! So when an individual wants to start using the lifts he’s faced with three problems:
The program detailed in this chapter is an introductory phase to the Olympic lifts. The main focus is to develop the adequate utilizable range of motion to perform the Olympic lifts while introducing you to the concept of explosion by using the simpler forms of the lifts. You will start with the easier forms of the Olympic lifts and the movements will get more complex at each new 4-week training phase The first phase of training will develop a lot of specific hypertrophy. By that I mean that you will gain lots of muscle mass and lots of strength in the muscles specific to Olympic lifting (traps, upper and lower back, quads, hamstrings, glutes, deltoids). I’ll first present the warm-up routine you are going to use at the beginning of all the training sessions of the three training phases. The warm-up doesn’t change during the course of the 12-week program.
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