I want to give a brief explanation of the reasoning behind the workout paradigm I did a video of yesterday. Here’s the vid:

Now here’s the rationale.

There’s something called Henneman’s Size Principle (I know, right?). It says that motor units are recruited by the nervous system from smallest (slowest) to largest (fastest).

The small/slow muscles, because they are used all the time, are more fatigue-resistant. The bigger/faster units aren’t able to sustain contractions for very long, but when they do contract, it is very powerful.

The only way to recruit those large/fast/powerful motor units is through very intense (high-tension) work. Things like jumps, explosive/ballistic movements, and very heavy lifting will recruit more of these fibers.

Typically, those types of movements require greater stabilization assistance.

So, if you do endurance stuff before heavy lifting, 1., you won’t have any energy for it, and 2., you may be injured because your synergists (assistance-muscles) are too fatigued to help you maintain form/posture.

Therein lies the rationale for the sequence. Warmup (get things loose/fluid, neurologically prepared), Explosive or Ballistic movements (get those fast/large fibers, and the nervous system amped up) without weight, Max Effort (work up to a 3RM maybe), then Endurance or Hypertrophy work. If you want to do Isometrics, do them at the very beginning, in the warmup, at the very end, or at a different time.

That said, I only briefly mentioned the importance of good skeletal structure/alignment, and good movement patterns in the video. I’ll do another session about this topic later this week, but for now – make sure your posture is good, and you have good range of motion and control in your joints before doing any of this stuff!!!

Pay particular attention to the pelvic girdle, shoulder girdle, and neck…and then the peripheral joints (elbows/knees, wrists/ankles)…

more soon!