Sadly I missed out on a great marketing opportunity by giving out eleven principles to respect while designing a training program. Had I chosen to give you 10 I could have called the list “The Ten Commandments of Training” and if I had set my mind on 12 I could have used some reference of donuts or the apostles (being able to put “donuts” and “apostles” in the same sentence is quite a feat in itself). But no, I had to settle for 11. Well, I’ve never been any at marketing anyways.
In the upcoming chapters I will describe the 11 guidelines to respect when designing your training program. Understand that all of these principles are geared towards one objective: to maximize the recruitment of the high-threshold motor units. These motor units are the ones with the greatest potential for muscle growth. They also have the highest force and power production, making them very important for most individuals training for strength, size or speed.
Sadly we are somewhat limited in the number of high-threshold motor units by our genetic makeup. YES it is possible to “convert” some muscle fibers from one type to another and somewhat bypass genetics. However this cannot be accomplished overnight and not to a significant extent either. However by utilizing training methods focusing on the high-threshold motor units, we can selectively develop them; so while their number won’t increase, their volume relative to the total muscle volume will increase (so they will comprise most of the muscle without increasing in number). Not to mention that training in a “fast-twitch way” will cause adaptations to all muscle fibers towards a “fast/high-threshold” profile. That means that even though the slow-twitch fibers will not become fast-twitch, their properties and characteristics while lean more towards the “fast” profile. Over time these kind of adaptation will drastically enhance your capacity to gain size, strength and speed.
With that having been said, here are the eleven principles of High-threshold muscle building:
1. Always try to generate as much force as possible 2. Take advantage of the eccentric portion of the movement 3. Precede the maximum concentric action by a prestretch of the muscle 4. Train to the muscle failure point 5. Include some plyometric work to train the nervous system 6. Include a significant amount of unilateral work 7. Include some unstable training to wake-up the nervous system 8. Optimize the work-to-rest ratio 9. Select the most effective exercises for each muscle group 10. When trying to lose fat, add high-speed metabolic work 11. Utilize eccentric loading and deceleration training for strength, power and size
PRINCIPLE 1 Always try to generate as much force as possible
Introduction to the first principle As we saw earlier, the key to stimulating maximum muscle growth is to not only recruit, but also to fatigue the high-threshold motor units (HTMU). HTMU are also known as type II motor units, fast motor units and glycolytic muscle fibers. There are several different terminologies to describe the different types of motor units/muscle fibers, so weeding through the literature can get confusing. Without going into the depths of theoretical physiology, It is important to have a better understanding of what exactly motor units are and how they are recruited. When we understand how to stimulate these fibers we will be better equipped to design optimal growth training protocols.
The motor unit The motor unit (MU) is the basic functional unit of the muscle. MU are composed of a set of alpha motor nerves and all the muscle fibers it innervates. All fibers within the same motor unit are of the same sub-type (we will see them more in depth later on). The motor nerve originates at the spinal cord and runs through the muscle where it is “responsible” for the activation of a certain number of muscle fibers. The larger a MU is (composed of more muscle fibers) the more force it can produce. When the nervous system sends an activation signal towards the motor unit, all the fibers innervated by the motor nerve will be recruited maximally; this is the all-or-none principle: basically all the muscle fibers innervated by a same motor nerve will be activated once the signal is sent.
I (fast). However that classification system has changed due to the discovery of several subtypes of muscle fibers. We have three types of “pure” muscle fibers: I (slow oxidative), IIA (fast oxidative and glycolytic) and IIB (fast glycolytic). There are also several subtypes of these pure fibers as shown with more precision in the following table:
The table presents the muscle fibers in order of force production capacity with the pure I fibers being the least and the pure IIB being the most forceful. Fibers I and IC are part of low-threshold MU, fibers IIC and IIAC are intermediate threshold MU, and fibers IIA, IIAB and IIB are part of high-threshold MU.
Force generation Your nervous system is responsible for modulating the amount of force produced by your muscles. It does so via:
1. The number of motor units recruited: The more motor units are brought into play, the more force you can generate. More force = more motor units (this is a key principle). Under most circumstances, muscle recruitment follows the size principle: the smaller motor units (low threshold) as the demand for force production increases intermediate MU will come into play and if the demand for force production is extremely high, the larger (high-threshold) MU will be recruited. So it should be clear that to recruit the high threshold motor units, the demand for force production must be very high and to accomplish this it is primordial for each repetition, you make a concentrated maximal voluntary effort.
2. The firing rate of the recruited motor units: We just saw that the nervous system can increase force production by recruiting more motor units. Force production can also be modified by varying the rate at which muscle fibers are fired. The more frequently a fiber twitches the more force it can generate. When a muscle fiber twitches at around 5060 impulses per second, it reaches a titanic contraction which can be up to 10-15 times more forceful than an low firing frequency.
3. The rate of force development: When a desired movement requires force to be developed at a very rapid rate, the nervous system can adjust its mode of recruitment by having the motor-units fire at a very high rate. Training that utilize explosive or ballistic concentric actions (or having the intent to accelerate as much as possible) can increase the capacity of the nervous system to utilize muscle fibers at a very high firing rate. We will address this specific point in more depth in the “principle 3” chapter.
The coordination factor: To be efficient at producing force in a movement, your nervous system must be good at coordinating the action of the various motor units within a target muscle. It must also coordinate the action of all the muscles involved in the movement. For that reason, the greatest strength gains from weight training exercises are seen in the movement patterns being trained, with some carryover to other related movements.
Maximum force for maximum stimulation To recruit the greatest amount of motor units possible, you must generate as much force as possible at any given moment of a set. Some people will be quick to mention that since force production is the key to motor unit recruitment, that we should always lift maximal weights (in the 90-100% range). This is not the case and it shows a lack of understanding of the definition of force. In biomechanics (and physics) force is defined at:
“F = ma” Force (F) equals mass (m) times acceleration (a). So an increase in the generation of force can be accomplished either by increasing the acceleration with a certain load, or by using more weight. Maximum recruitment is generated when the intended force production is its greatest. For that reason, we should try to reach maximum acceleration with any given weight and any given fatigue level. Obviously when the weight used is very heavy, or when we are tired at the end of a set, the actual movement of the bar to be lifted will be slow. However the actual intent to accelerate as much as possible has the same training effect on the nervous system (including MU recruitment, high firing rate, and rapid rate of force development) as if the bar was actually moving fast.
This is what led to the compensatory acceleration technique (CAT). CAT means that you compensate for a non-maximal weight by accelerating it as much as you can; a non maximal weight lifted without the intent to create as much acceleration as possible will not lead to the recruitment of the high threshold motor units until you reach a level of fatigue that requires your nervous system to finally tap into these strong fibers. So if you were using a moderate load, lifted without CAT you would only have the last 2-3 reps of a set that would actually recruit the HTMUs. And according to Dr. Vladimir Zatsiorsky, a motor unit that is not fatigued is not being trained. As a result, if you are not able to thoroughly fatigue those HTMUs with the last 2-3 reps of a set (if muscle failure occurs due to an accumulation of metabolites for example) that set was wasted, at least when it pertains to stimulating maximal muscle growth.
The fact that you can eventually tap into your HTMU pool as fatigue sets in has led to the saying, “those last few reps are the key” (the most effective for growth). While with regular bodybuilding training this is probably true, using CAT will make each single repetition effective at recruiting the HTMUs. So the HTMUs will get stimulated with 812 reps per set, instead of only 2-3. As a result, they are more likely to fatigue, and stimulate to growth. It seems that a large group of people are more interested in where to buy steroids online, when they should be learning these important concepts. Key points
1. High-threshold motor units have the greatest growth potential.
2. HTMUs are brought into play when the demand for force production is high.
3. HTMUs can also be brought into play when the fatigue in the intermediate threshold fibers leads to an insufficient force production. Then the HTMUs must be recruited.
4. You can “compensate” for the lack of fatigue in the first reps of a set by always trying to create as much acceleration as possible on each rep of every set.
5. The intent to (trying to) accelerate is responsible for the recruitment of the HTMUs. Even if the bar doesn’t move rapidly, if you are really trying to push it as hard as you can, it will have the same effect as actually lifting with great speed.
6. The key is to reach maximum acceleration at a given weight and fatigue level.