Nick Tumminello Practical Program Design

~1~

This is the transcript of Nick Tumminellos Practical Program Design audio lecture. If youve received this material, do not own the audio lecture and would like to learn about it, visit www.movementlectures.com.

For more from Nick, visit him at nicktumminello.com.

It seems no one really understands program design because its confusing. Its confusing because of conflicting opinions, conflicting information, confusing information that is very sciency, and things from the 1960s and 1970s out of Eastern Europe and Russia tend to be very difficult to translate.

Were also inundated with lots of new fun and cool exercises. Most trainers have become exercise encyclopedias, but exercises are just methods. Principles are what dictate how you should design a program. Just knowing a lot of exercises, but not knowing how to effectively put them together to create a safe, fun, effective and efficient workout doesnt necessarily make you a good trainer.

Imagine if you were a chef and you had all these wonderful, tasty ingredients, but you had no idea how to put the ingredients together to make a dish anybody would be willing to eat. Thats kind of the state of our industry. In this material, I want to cover whats cool versus whats effective.

Were going to talk about how to use cool exercises in an effective manner. Theres no reason you cant design an effective program thats cool and fun for your clients and athletes, and to understand that they cant really progress until they adapt.

All training is basically adaptation to an applied stress. Thats what strength is. Basically, your body is an adaptive mechanism. Whatever you put your body throughstrength training, speed training, power trainingyour body will adapt and become better at that as long as the program doesnt overwork the body and cause it to become over trained, and then end up with negative results well talk about.

The general goal here is to teach you how to make your clients better. Dont just make them tired and sweaty. Now, I tend to hang my hat when I teach these courses on getting people moving. I like the movement-type trainingthe active trainingwhere Im showing many exercises and talking about program design as we go.

I always try to make sure that anytime I put out a product or information source, its 100% usable. I promise to give you a lot of things that are simple and user-friendly, and that you could use immediately to improve your programs.

These are some of the objectives. Were going to talk about the difference between a fitness-training program and a performance-training program. Were going to understand the basic periodization concepts and how to use them to get the best results, and well discover the five main training cycles we use here at Performance University.

Were going to talk about what Ive found to be the best sets, reps and restbasic program design strategies, those acute variables for all major training goals, and what weve found to be the most effective whether youre trying to build muscle, get more powerful, build strength or metabolic power. Were going to talk about how to design a programthe sets, the reps, the rest intervals and all of the approaches we use.

Were also going to talk about the five stages of what I call perfect workoutsthe stages of a workout we would cover in each workout session regardless of the training phase. Whether youre trying to build muscle, build strength, build power or a little bit of everything, you want to make sure each workout covers these five stages. Then Im also going to provide you with a lot of great coaching tips from the trenches along the way.

The first step in designing a good program is to understand the person youre training. Im talking about a program thats personalized toward an individual or is geared toward a specific athlete. Whether its a MMA fighter, a football player or a tennis player, you still have to know who youre training.

In my mind, to keep things simple, there are two classifications. We have physique clients who are people who want to basically look great on the beachnon athletic-type people. Thats not to say

NICK TUMMINELLOPractical Program Design

~2~



that they dont play sports, but its not their primary objective nor is it their career. This is the Mens Health reader or the Womens Health reader.

Then we have the performance client. Thats your junior athlete, high school or college athlete, professional athlete or someone who tells you theyre extremely competitive and theyre coming to you because they want to perform better on the court, on the field or on the mat.

Heres a rundown of what I consider to be a physique clientthe specifics youll find with them, and they may or may not have previous exercise experience. They tend to have limited training time due to family, work and other responsibilities or things of that nature. Sometimes theyre not exactly sure what they want to achieve with training.

Everybody wants to look better, but sometimes you have to pull that out of a client. They just say, Oh, I heard you were great and you could keep me fit. They have a general idea of what is going to make them feel better or what is going to make their program feel successful.

When someone says, Hey, I dont feel like Im fit or I feel like Im weak, its a good idea to ask them, How would you know if this program is successful? Give me a real world example that you cant do now, but you might be able to do six or eight weeks from now or twelve weeks, a point when youd think, Wow, this program is working.

Maybe they feel really weak in their back when picking up a child. If they didnt feel weak picking up the child, theyd know theyre getting stronger. Maybe they get tired going up four flights of stairs and are trying to take the stairs at work. If they didnt get as tired going up those four flights of stairs, they would feel like theyre stronger and more cardiovascularly fit.

When you ask these things, it can help you better tell whether programming will create a better buy-in. Thats a little tip from the trenches there.

Heres more on physique clients. They may be prepping for a specific event, not necessarily a sporting event, but a wedding, high school or college

reunion when they want to look their best and really wow the people there.

They may not be very knowledgeable about training. Things can be very confusing with infomercials and all the different magazines available. Then of course, we have all the magic pills being advertised that add to that confusion.

They tend to judge their training success by the weight scalehow much they weigh or how they look in the mirror. They also tend to judge their workouts or the effectiveness of their workouts by what they feel, whether they feel muscle burn or fatigue. This is something thats important.

This is not to say your client is going to dictate everything you do in the gym, but its important to create that buy-in. If you know this client is judging success by the scale, how hard they work in the gym or how they look in the mirror, you need to tailor your program to at least give them some of that so that theyre feeling successful.

If theyre not feeling successful, theyre not going to train with you. If theyre not training with you, theyre probably going to go to someone else whos not as knowledgeable as you. You want to keep these people as your clients.

They may also have personal image issues. You have to be positive. When you meet physique clients, they may feel overweight. They may not like how they look in their clothes, how they feel in their clothes or how other people perceive them.

Therefore, its important to be positive to them especially on their first assessment. Dont tell them how bad their squat is or how tight their thoracic spine is and all of these different things. Be positive because theyre already coming to you as a stranger. Theyre already putting their bodies in your hands. You want to help uplift them and make it a pleasurable experiencenot add to their image issues.

Now, lets talk about performance clients. These are those athletes who tend to possess previous exercise experience, whereas some fitness clients may not. They tend to have more time to devote to

~3~



training, because they understand the importance of strength and conditioning. They have a clear-cut goal to achieve with training whether they want to get bigger or stronger. Maybe they have an upcoming boxing match, a mixed martial arts match or a figure or physique showthey tend to have a specific goal with a date in mind.

They may or may not be knowledgeable about training, even though they tend to have experience. Some people have been coached a lot, but some coaches really dont get the athletes involved. They just tell them what to do. They also judge their own training success by weight on the bar, how strong theyre getting, how fast theyre running or jump heightmore performance-related goals. Theyre comfortable with being coached and pushed with intense motivation.

With some of these athletes, you may not have to always be positive. You can push them a little. That doesnt mean you have to be an a-hole and be very aggressive, but you have to find how these people best respond. A lot of these athletes arent necessarily coming in for image-related issues so you dont always have to work around those. The important thing is to understand the communication. Who youre working with determines how youre going to communicate.

Lets talk about this concept of movements not muscles, because its related to the training goals or the training goal differences between a physique client and a performance client. You hear training movements, not muscles. From a functional perspective, thats pretty good. For a performance athlete, what theyre telling you is they want to move better. Theyre not telling you they want to look great naked. They want to move better. They want to run faster and jump higher.

Were going to give them more movement-related training to help them move better, so were going to do more total-body work, rotary work, power work and things of that naturethings that reflect more athletic development exercises.

But lets talk about this physique clientthis fitness clientwhos not necessarily a competitive

athlete. These clients mainly want to look better, so when you train movements with them, you might not necessarily get them looking better because they need to be training muscles. The best-looking people out there are models and physique competitors.

Physique competitors have to do some isolation work. They need to train muscles, because their goal is to look better. You want to understand to keep the goal the goal. Theres no reason why you cant do both.

Its not trained movements, not musclesits trained movements and muscles. Its what you prioritize. For a physique clientsomeone who wants to look better at the beachyou want to prioritize the muscle training. Those are the traditional bodybuilding-type exercises. Youll add in some movementsome sports-related athletic development exercisesso they dont become less mobile and less agile. Keep the goal the goal. Their goal primarily is to look better, and you need to understand that the bodybuilding component needs to be a bigger component than the athletic component.

On the flip side, for a performance client you definitely want to train movements first. Youre looking at speed and total body movements, whether it is Olympic lifts, sprint drills or all of the above, but you also need to hit the muscles as well, because there are only two ways to get stronger.

Theres the neurological way and the physiological way. The neurological way is to teach the brain how to bring more muscle into the game and become more coordinated. The physiological way is training hardwaremuscles, ligaments, tendons, connective tissues and bone density.

Doing bodybuilding can also help with sports performance indirectly. If you improve the cross-sectional area of a musclethe size of a musclenot only does that muscle create more body armor to better deal with impact, it also dissipates force better. And it gives more horsepower for the brain to then understand how to coordinate. Again, do both. Its just what you prioritize.

~4~



Lets talk more about movement exercises versus muscle exercises. Heres an interesting study done by my friend and original mentor, Coach Juan Carlos Santana of IHP in Florida, as well as Dr. Stuart McGill, who is best known for his research on the spine and low back.

They did a research study in 2007 that was published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. It compared muscle activation and the force production patterns of the bench press and the standing one-arm split-stance press. The bench press was performed as a traditional bench press, supine on the bench with two arms, and they had a standing one-arm press.

From a muscle activation standpoint, what they found in the bench press was the muscles that really activated the most through EMG were the chest, triceps and shoulders, as well as the lumbar spine to create that arch. Thats pretty much a no-brainer. Interestingly though, when they stood up and did the one-arm press, the oblique abdominals primarily lit up the most and the latissimus were very, very high. It was those anti-rotary muscles that were the limiting factor.

What this shows is that muscle activation patterns in the force production patterns when youre standing doing something in a sport-related movement (and most sports are played standing, not lying supine) are very different than in a bench press.

Im not saying the bench press is a waste of time and that all we should do are one-arm presses. What I am saying is you need to understand that power production and force production are not only angular-specific but also movement-specific. Theres something to be said about doing functional exercises that look a little like the movements for which youre training. They dont have to be identical, but they have to resemble the force production patterns.

If Im looking at an athlete, one-arm presses are going to be a priority if Im dealing with someone who is pushing from a standing position. If Im prioritizing bench press, its going to be more for a

bodybuilder type. Im still going to bench with both my physique clients and my athletes. Im still going to do one-arm presses and one-arm push-ups with my physique and performance athletes, but its what I prioritize.

With my performance athlete, Im prioritizing more standing pressing movements if its a pressing daythings like one-arm push-ups that are not standing, but are very limited through the core. Most people are not too weak in their upper body to do one-arm push-ups. Theyre limited through their torso. Im going to have bench press as a secondary and not a primary movement, simply because the body position doesnt resemble what theyre doing in a sport.

Thats a little different than what people may have heard because the bench press is considered to be one of the three big lifts. The bench squat and deadlift here at Performance University are big lifts. We do one-arm push-ups instead of bench pressthe bench press isnt a big lift for us.

To continue talking about this study, I will read this quote, Pushing forces from a standing position under ideal mechanical conditions are limited to 40.8% of the subjects body weight. Now this is interesting. What this is basically saying is if Im a football coach and Im setting up my line, I would much rather have the 400-pound slob who can only bench press 200 pounds than I would the 200pound ripped guy who can bench press 400 pounds because of how much weight you can press from your feet.

A lot of it has to do with how much you weighhow much mass is actually being anchored into the ground. Thus, 40.8% of 400 pounds is a lot more weight for my opponents team to push over than 40.8% of 200 pounds, even though the guys are ripped.

Its physics here. Just because youre a huge bencher doesnt mean you can apply all of that force from a standing position. It really has to do with body weight. With that being said, the higher you can increase your body weightmeaning the more muscle you can put on through exercises that are

~5~



very bodybuilding oriented since those are the ones that build hypertrophythe more it is going to have a sports carryover indirectly because now you have more mass being put into the ground.

Again, you want to train movements and train muscles. Its not an isolated thing. You want to do both. All were really doing with training is trying to do three things and they all have to do with force. Were trying to help our muscles better produce force, reduce force and control force, otherwise known as to stabilize.

Some people say the core transfers force. Thats technically not true, but is beyond this discussion. When youre bringing in multiple joints, youre actually summating force. Saying the core only transfers force is basically saying that the core muscles have no role in force production or reduction. It just says they take one thing and bring it to the other. Thats not true. They actually add to the game, so they either dissipate forcewhich is reduce forceor they produce force.

When youre moving, obviously your local muscles have to control. When we talk about muscle exercises, thats what were doing. Were helping each muscle produce, reduce and control force. These are segmental joint actions. These are good types of exercises to bring up weak areas, great for building size (hypertrophy), better bone density, tendon health and so on. There are lots of benefits there.

For movement exercises, you could also call these more functional exercises, although everything is functional. These help the CNS, the central nervous system, to better understand how to summate force across the entire body vertically, horizontally and diagonally. It teaches the body how to be more coordinated.

These are multi-segmental joint actions. Theyre good for improving timing and rhythm of movement. Theyre great for improving synergistic coordinated actions. They also tend to have a higher metabolic cost because youre using total bodymore muscles work, more calories burned. They tend to be a little more joint sparing because there is a load share. Instead of isolating one joint to move

and all resistance load going through one joint, its multi-joint. Youre distributing the load across multiple joints, so no one joint is ever getting beat up more than the other. On the flip side, sometimes you have to isolate to force a muscle to grow and become bigger. Again, you dont want to do too much of each.

Now, heres a little sample. Its a mini-workout scenario for a physique client. These are just general guidelines. Please dont copy these exact workouts. Im just going to verbally go over two. Im going to superset dumbbell bench with a barbell bentover row. Well superset that a few sets. Well talk about sets and reps later. The second superset will be chin-up and dumbbell uppercuts. Uppercuts are a little movement work. The third superset will be biceps curls and push-up with a T-rolla push-up and then a roll to a side plank actionIm sure you have seen that before. The push-up with a T-roll is a little of a movement exercise.

The bench press, bentover row, chin-up and biceps curls are all what I call traditional bodybuilding-type movements. The dumbbell uppercuts and the push-up with the T-roll are more movement-oriented, more functional-type exercises. Again, everything is functional, but for the sake of teaching this, Im classifying traditional and functional, so please dont get too caught up in the terminologies. Just understand Im only using those terminologies to help you better understand my classifications. Were getting some movement and were getting some muscle-related work, but primarily well do muscle-related work for the physique client.

For the performance client, heres a sample of an upper body mini-workout and how it would look. Well start off with hang cleans or something like a powerful medicine ball throw or a box jump. It just depends on whether or not you know how to do Olympic lifts. Youre getting some movement work and some muscle work with the hang cleans. The second superset will be a medicine ball step and overhead throw. Thats like a forward lunge and soccer throw against a wall or maybe to a partner.

~6~



Well superset that with a one-arm push-up. The third superset will be chin-ups, and superset that with dumbbell uppercuts.

You have cleans, which are movement-related. You have the medicine ball throw and one-arm push-up that are movement-related. The dumbbell uppercuts are movement-related. From just a pure muscle standpoint, you have chin-ups and push-ups. Both of these are very functional exercises too, but they have a little of a traditional component as well. Again, we have prioritizing movement, but secondary muscle.

In a lower-body scenario for the general fitness client, well do back squats and walking lunges. Well do the same leg each rep before switching legs. Well do the barbell hip thrust that was invented by my friend Bret Contreras, and then single-leg squats.

For a performance client, a lower-body workout would look like this. We have 20-yard sprints, high box jumps, RDLs (Romanian deadlifts) or trap bar deadliftsboth are greatand single-leg squats. You can see the contrast between the physique client and the performance client.

Lets talk about periodization made simple. I have J. C. Santana really clarifying this for me, and now Im going to share it with you because this is a tough subject. I dont know why no one has really tried to simplify it before because most of us are confused. Anybody who says theyre not confused about this is probably lying to you, because Ill be the first one to admit some of the things still confuse me today.

Check out J.C.s book, The Essence of Program Design. In my mind, its still the most comprehensive user-friendly program-design book available to date. Im currently working on a program-design book myself that will take some of the things he brought up to speed and then add our Performance University concepts to it as well. Keep an eye out for that in the future. Its still in the early stagesits a work in progress.

Lets simplify periodization here. First is the history. It started in Eastern Europe in Russia to organize Olympic athletes exercises into specific

preparatory training phases. A little-known fact is that periodization has its roots in steroid use. I know that doesnt sound too fun, but its true. Many of the Eastern block and Russian athletes were cycling steroids or cycling different performance-enhancing drugs. They were cycling their workouts based on their drug cycles, so periodization does have its roots in that. This is a little tidbit of sports history there.

Basically, periodization is a training plan. Its like a progression of how were going to get from A to B. Its like a business plan. If youre going to have a good program, you have to have some sort of plan. It doesnt necessarily mean all of these different phases. It just means you have a plan: Here is where were starting, here is where we want to end and heres what were going to do to progress to take ourselves from the start to the end in a realistic manner.

The basic science behind periodization is that its based on human ability to adapt to an applied stress.. When it comes down to it, in my mind, the SAID principle is the best principle to followSpecific Adaptations to Imposed Demands. Basically if you want to get good at running, you have to run a lot. If you want to get good at cycling, you have to cycle a lot. If you want to get good at boxing, you have to box all of the time. Thats the best way to get good at these.

With a strength and conditioning plan, we try to help your body become more capable of performing the boxing task, the biking or the runningthe sport-specific task. We actually do try to match force production patterns of specific sports. To me, thats functional or sport-specific training.

We may differ here at Performance University with a lot of other strength coaches who are just of the get strong mentality. One of the things we say here is, Im not trying to make my athletes the best at exercising. Im trying to make them the best athletes. This principle rule is basically the way we train here at Performance University. It really comes down to common sense.

~7~



The great Hans Selye described the adaptation process, the bodys adaptation to applied stress as GASGeneral Adaptation Syndrome. Some people call it the GAS Principle. Here are the three stages of the GAS principle. First, you have alarm. Some people call this the shock stage, which is the initial shock of a new stimulus on the bodys system. This is when you tend to get sore or a little tired. It causes you to really think a lot, because youre not used to something. Thats the shock stage.

The second stage is the resistance stage. This is the adaptation where a body adapts to the stimulus to the bodys system. Next you have exhaustion, which is the third stage. This is when you get fatigued. Some people call this the accommodation stage. This is the stage where the body is no longer able to repair itself and cannot further adapt. This results in a decrease in function of the body system.

The goal of a good program is to alarm or shock the body in a way thats going to force it to adapt. You want to make sure it adapts, but prevent it from entering the fatigue stage. You dont want to overwork it and you dont want to underwork it. You want to create stress without distress, as Hans Selye said.

This is where common sense comes in. This is where listening to your client and communicating with your client comes in, because everybodys level of stress and distress, or too much, is different. This is something I cant teach in any workshop. No one can teach you that. You really have to go client by client.

The goals of periodization are as follows. 1) To create a training plan that will transfer

into a real-life ability or goal. To me, thats what functional training is, because were looking at training that will transfer into something real-life. The gym is artificial, unless youre a powerlifter, and then the gym is your sport.

2) To improve the capacity of the body and make sure the bodys capacity exceeds the demands of the sport being played. Whatever your body is going to go through in that specific life task, sport performance or what youre training for, were

going to make sure your body is capable of doing even more than that. Basically, we want to train hard so competition is easy. We also want to prevent overtraining by avoiding exhaustion through the proper program management. You want to make sure youre always in the stress phase without creating distress.

3) To help our athletes and clients peak when necessary for a specific competition or event. Youre going to try to help a bride look her absolute best on her wedding day. Youre going to help your mixed martial arts fighter perform his absolute best come fight night.

Lets talk about the components of periodization. Im sure youve heard the terms, microcycle, mesocycle and macrocycle. I dont know about you, but these terms confuse the heck out of me. Ive been training since I was 17, so going on 15 years, and I still dont really fully understand these concepts.

This is how we look at microcycles, mesocycles and macrocycles. I basically stole this directly from Juan Carlos Santanas book so Im not going to take credit. Heres a simpler way to look at these and heres how we use the terms.

A training session is a training session. Its a group of exercises in a workout. You also have a training day. Thats one or more training sessions. Some people do two a day. A microcycle is what we just call a training week. Its one week of training.

A mesocycle is what we just call a training cycle. These are multiple training weeks. What you might know as a macrocycle, well call a training block. Its basically multiple training cycles. Its several groups of weeks together. A macrocycle can also be referred to as a training year, which is one years worth of training.

Again, we dont use macrocycle, mesocycle and microcycle. To me, these are confusing. We just have a training day, a training week, a training cycle, a training block and a training year.

Lets talk about specific cycles next. There are five basic cycles. What we call cycles is going to change based on who we are communicating with. As I said many times before and will keep saying,

~8~



creating client buy-in is terribly important. If your clients dont understand what youre going for, dont buy into your program and what youre trying to provide for them, theyre not going to like the program. Theyre probably not going to stay around. If they do stay around, theyre probably not going to put in the effort needed to be successful with the program.

Dont get so caught up in using these really hot, hip and scientific trainer terminologies that we love to use, because other trainers arent paying your bills. Your clients are paying your bills. Communicate with them in a way they can relate to and thats going to get them to go, Okay, I get that and I want to do that.

Here are the names of the five cycles we use for a performance client. This is your high-end athlete or someone who wants to be a high-end athlete. The first stage were going to call intramuscular coordination. We can also call it base conditioning. General physical preparation (GPP) is another cool term you can use.

Hypertrophy is building muscle. This is the second stage. These are in no particular order, by the way. They dont have to be, but I will talk about later.

We then have the strength phase. We have the power and explosive training phase. We have the power and endurance phase.

Here are these same five phases given to you in the same order and how we communicate it for more of a fitness client. Thats the physique person. The first stage is base conditioning or base fitnessmuscle size and tone. If Im talking to a man, I might say, This is where were going to put on size. If Im talking to a woman, Im going to say, This is where were going to work on your body tone, the shape of your body.

The next phase is strength. I think everybody can relate to strength. Strength is considered strength across the board whether its a performance or fitness client.

When we get to the power phase for a man, we might say, Its your power phase. Even the average

gentleman whos a non-athlete can relate to that. For a woman, we might say its shaping, because its a little less intense. Do we really know its not shaping? No, but it does help them understand the difference. A female might say, Power, I dont want power. That sounds very manly. Youre still going to do the same exercises with them.

If you can come up with a better term than shaping for power, please e-mail me or hit me up on my website or Facebook page. Let me know because Im always looking for better ways to communicate with my clients.

By no means do you have to stick with the terms Im giving you here. These are just what we found to be effective with our clients. Instead of calling it a power endurance phase for the fitness clients, we call it metabolic acceleration. Basically, this is where we speed up your metabolism to really burn lots of calories and fat both during and after the workout through the EPOC. Its all the same trainingjust named differently to create understanding and buy-in.

Now lets talk about each of the specific phases. Lets talk about base conditioning, otherwise known as GPPgeneral physical preparation. The scientific term you may have read in some of the books is the Anatomical Adaptation Phase.

In this phase, were going to increase ones overall functional capacity and body awareness. Were going to use simple fundamental exercisesbasic pushing-pulling movements, things like squatting, rowing and push-ups, but nothing crazy. Were not going to bring on too many fancy toys and things of that nature. We want to get them comfortable with the body.

Well use things like bodyweight training. And circuits are a great thing to use in this phase because the intensity is not very high, and were really just trying to get body awareness. Were going to take exercises that are low level and give them a little higher rep range so they can really learn the movement, minimize muscle fatigue and maximize good form.

~9~



This is also a great time to deal with any specific injuries, aches or movement limitations. This is where your assessment is really the most important. To us at Performance University, were not necessarily looking at correcting all of these dysfunctions, because we feel thats the job of the physical therapist. What were looking at is how a client moves. Based on what they can and cant do, were going to find the exercises they can do successfully and build off of those.

The whole concept of assessment and dysfunction is beyond the scope of this presentation. For now, were talking about what they can do successfully in good form. Were also going to use this time to educate our clients. Build a good relationship with them and again, as I keep saying, create a buy-in to your services because this is the base. This is the foundation youre laying and its not only physical. Its that emotional and verbal relationship youre building with clients, so be a great coach at this time.

Who are we using this with? Ive already alluded to thisbeginners or anyone learning new movement patterns. Not all beginners have to do base conditioning. Lets say Im working with athletes or fitness clients whom Ive worked with for three years, but I only see them during the summer because theyre in school. If theyre just starting with my program, with the exercises Im choosing and the way I coach them, I still need to create a base before I can just put them under heavy loads and make them move fast.

We still need to make sure motor learning is taking place, and this is not just for beginners. Its what you use at the beginning of any new program. The adaptation were looking for is high neuromuscular, low cellular. Basically what were talking about here is really stimulating the software. Were really trying to minimize the stress on the hardwarethe muscular system. The duration is two to eight weeks, depending on the individual. Normally, its about two to three weeks for most people. If a person is a slow learner and tends to have a little tough time with coordination, were going to extend that time a little.

The approach is that were going to use total body circuits of two or three exercises done for time and were going to keep the movements simple. For instance, I may pick a pushing movement, a pulling movement and a lower-body exercise. Ill pick a general rep range of 12-15 reps that gives them higher reps to learn from and say, Okay, I want two or three rounds done at your pace in as little time as possible. Make sure your form is always perfect on every rep, and manage your fatigue.

I dont want them really crazy huffing and puffing. In that way, they can work at their own pace. The reason Im not making them think too much about reps and tend to like the timed approach is because I want them thinking about one thing: good form. A lot of times, I will count the reps and Ill just let them go.

We also like to do exercises just for time where I say, Okay, do 30 seconds apiece, 20 seconds for the tougher exercises and maybe 30-40 seconds of the easier exercises. For the training frequency, were going to do three or four times per week. Well do total body workouts in each workout. The reps per exercise are 12-20 reps or 30 seconds to one minute per exercise.

This all depends on the client level. Sets per exercise are one to three sets. Were going to rest as needed. Normally what we tell our client is, Rest as much as you need and as little as you have to. The intensity is low and the volume is high. Keep in mind that were trying to practice movements here, so the more you practice, the better you get at things. Were looking at low-intensity reps, but a lot of low-intensity reps.

Once we build a foundation, were going to move to hypertrophy training. Basically, this phase is to get big. Thats what Im going to tell my guys. For women, its to get toned. Were going to add muscle tissue, lean body mass and body armor. If youre in an impact sport, adding hypertrophyeven though thats thought of as a bodybuilder concept from a physics perspectiveis a good thing.

As I talked about earlier with the Juan Carlos Santana and Stuart McGill study, the more you can

~10~



increase body weight, the more mass you have into the ground, the more force you can produce and the harder it is to push you over. This is very good for a sport like football or rugby. Also the bigger a muscle is, the better you dissipate force. Being a bigger individual means you dissipate forces away from your joints better. Thats just physics.

There are a couple of indirect sport-specific applications to just getting bigger. Thats why I say you have to do some of that muscle training even in a sports-oriented or movement-oriented program. Were going to build muscle density and tendon strength. Thats important for the heavier loads to follow when we get to the strength phase. Its also a good time to build up weaker, less-developed areas.

Im a good example here. Ive always been a very glute-dominant athlete. I dont really have much calves, and calves are very important because thats what really helps with ankle strength, pushing off the ground and exploding. I always have to up the calf work to help bring them up to speed with the power I have in my glutes.

Well use more traditional old-school training methodsbarbells, dumbbells and even machinesbecause machines are not limited by stability. You need it with free weights to really force the muscles to get as strong as possible. You also want to teach some of that stabilization-limited training with dumbbells and barbells.

Were going to minimize momentum, so were going to try to take all of the momentum out of the movements. Were going to emphasize a slow eccentric tempotwo to three-second eccentric lowering. We dont do any slow concentrics, however. Were going to add some movement training at the beginning to stay athletic. Maybe well run some sprints and do some jumps to make sure they dont become too much like bodybuilders. The problem with bodybuilding is bodybuilders become non-athletic because all they do is isolation training. They are non-athletic because they dont do athletic movements as well as isolation training. You can still do some bodybuilding hypertrophy-type work and not lose your athleticism as long as

you do athletic movements along with your muscle-building activity.

A good example in the late 1980s or early 1990s was Evander Holyfield when he was training for his fight against Mike Tyson. He went from 208 pounds to 218 pounds absolutely shredded. He worked with Lee Haney in the evenings and worked with a famous track coach in the morning. He did two a day. He did all of his speed work, plyometric work and track drills in the morning. That was his functional movement training and then he did pure bodybuilding at night.

He became an apex predator and that sky-rocketed his career. He gained a ton of muscle and lost body fat. He went from an average heavy weight boxer to a hall-of-famer and just walked through Mike Tyson like nobody had before.

Blending these training concepts together does work, and this stuff has been happening since the 1990s. Evander Holyfield was one of the first popularized cases of true cross training where bodybuilding and sports performance functional training were blended together to create a really comprehensive program.

With the hypertrophy training programs, were going to add some cardio or conditioning at the end just to make sure you dont become all muscle and no hustle, and that you still have some conditioning there. The adaptation is high cellular-low neuromuscular, so were really looking at the physiological aspect of the body and not the neurological aspect. Were really training the hardware here, if I can use computer analogy. Duration is four to eight weeks, depending on the individual.

With some people, the goal is just to get as huge as possible. Thus, we might stay in a hypertrophy phase for months, months and months until theyre as big as they would like to get. You just have to keep changing the program every three or four weeks. That way, youre always adapting. Youre creating that shock and then youre adapting, but youre never accommodating. You are never overtraining.

~11~



The approach we use is normally single or superset exercises. Were going for that pump. There is research showing that going for the pump does help to create hypertrophy. Well focus more on bodypart splits, because again were trying to increase hypertrophy in specific muscles. Training frequency is three to five times per week. Well train weaker muscle groupsthe ones we need to bring uptwice a week. Once a week well train the muscles we feel dont need to come up as much as fast.

These programs look very much like bodybuilding workouts. We have pushing, pulling, arms, shoulders and things of that nature. Our reps per exercise are normally around 8 to 12 repetitions. That said, this is a general rule. We will use rep undulation because the research shows this helps build muscle a little faster. Sometimes well go a little higher in repetition and sometimes well go a little lower in repetition, but for the most part, were staying in that 8 to 12 zone.

We also like to use rep pyramids, mid-range reps and other bodybuilding intensity methods such as rest pauses, very traditional bodybuilding-type concepts. With sets per exercise, were looking at three or four sets per exercise. The rest is 30-60 seconds in between sets. The intensity is medium. The volume is high. High-volume work in research has been shown to stimulate that growth hormone response.

Now with strength, this is where were going to get strong. Basically, were looking at how much weight you can liftmotor unit recruitment. This is great, not only for every individual and athlete, but its great for weight-class athletes who want to get stronger without gaining mass. If youre a boxer, a MMA fighter or a horse jockeyand I happen to train a lot of all three, which shows the importance of strength trainingthis is great because its more about teaching the brain how to bring more muscle into the game than it is about adding more muscle mass.

Basically, this is more about your software and less about your hardware. Were going to increase motor unit recruitment, which in turn creates more

force output. You only want to use strength with individuals who already possess a solid training base. I dont recommend going right into strength work unless someone has already been training with weights for a while or youve already brought them up from base conditioning and the hypertrophy phase.

This is where were going to use a little less isolation work and use more bigger compound lifts like deadlifts, one-leg squats, chin-ups, one-arm push-ups and things of that nature. Were going to emphasize a fast concentric action, so were looking at two things here.

Were either going to lift a heavy weight or were going to lift a medium-resistance weight fast, because those are the two ways to recruit maximal motor units. I dont like using lifting percentages, but lets say something around a 75% one RM. Were going to say, Rip that weight off the ground if youre doing a deadlift. Even though the weight is heavy enough that you cant lift it fast, in your brain youre thinking about lifting fast. Or, were just going to give you a really heavy weight and have you lift that, which forces you to maximize your motor units.

During strength training, were going to sprinkle in some speed drills. First, are these are RM movement drills. We might do a change of direction drillsanything that is a three-dimensional movement just to make sure theyre not just getting great at the gym and not understanding how to run, cut, turn and things of that nature. Were also going to finish with some fun functional movement circuits with some of the trendy things in fitness and some cardio conditioning to keep those bases, because big strength movements tend to be sagittal-plane dominant.

We want to make sure we dont forget about rotary training and lateral movement as well. If youre looking at some of the other funmore 3-D movement stuffa good time to throw that in is at the end after youve done all of your strength movements just to make sure you havent lost those abilities to move in three planes of motion.

~12~



For strength training, the adaptation is very high neuromuscular-medium cellular. Youre getting a little hardware and software, but were primarily targeting the software, which is your brain. Duration again is two to eight weeks, depending on the individual. As I said with hypertrophy, if someones primary goal is just to get as strong as possible, were going to stay in this phase for as long as it takes for that person to be satisfied theyre at the strength they want to achieve before we move on.

Because we have to extend the rest intervals, the approach here is that were going to use paired sets, bi-sets and tri-sets. Well make performance exercise, rest for 60 seconds, then perform different exercise, rest for 60 seconds and then go back to the first exercise or we can do that with three different exercises: Exercise 1: Rest 60 seconds. Exercise 2: Rest 60 seconds. Exercise 3: Rest 60 seconds and then repeat back to Exercise 1. Training frequency is three or four times per week.

We still like to use some sort of split. Its more of a movement-related split and not a body part-related split. One day well emphasize a pushing movement, another day a pulling movement and another day a lower body oriented-movement. The reps per exercise will range from anywhere to three to six reps, but primarily in the four to six rep range. The sets per exercise are four to six sets per exercise. Were resting about 90 seconds to three or maybe even four minutes between sets of one particular exercise. The intensity for each set is high. The volume is low to medium.

Now, powerlifting programs are different than strength programs. I dont work with powerlifters, so Im not the guy to talk to about powerlifting.

When I talk about a strength program, I dont necessarily mean getting great at the squat, bench and deadlift. All I care about is that whatever movements we pick as our primary lifts, thats where I want you getting stronger. If Im talking about an athlete, I want to make sure this is translating into the actual sport and not just into the gym. If youre an individual whos not training for a sport and you just want to see the results improve, were going to

find an exercise you really enjoy and that you really want to get stronger. Were going to make sure you get stronger at it in this phase, so its not necessarily a powerlifting program.

Power trainingnow were trying to get explosive. Were going to use this phase to develop strength with speed. Basically power is strength times speed, so we want to teach that force production to happen very fast now. Were going to enhance coordination of multiple body segments and concentrate on the rate of force productionpower and speed. Every rep must be high effort.

A lot of times when were doing these exercises we tell the athlete if were doing 3 reps to make them three separate reps so its three single efforts. They might explode into the weight, put it down, reset, think about it, maximal effort, go, explode into the weight, put it down and then repeat.

Were going to use less weight resistance than in the strength cycle. Were going to lift as fast as possible. Were going to emphasize exercises like sprints, heel sprints, box jumps, long jumps, Olympic lifts if they have an Olympic-lifting background, medicine ball throws, clapping push-ups and things of that nature. Its also great to use band-resistance exercises with speed. Some people call that accommodating resistance, but the nice thing about bands is that they dont accumulate momentum. Thus if you explode into a band, that band is always pulling you back, whereas if you exploded into a bar or dumbbell, the bar or dumbbell might continue with its own momentum in the direction youre pushing it, so you cant really go as fast as you would like. With a band, you can go as fast as you want and it is always right there with you.

Power training is only for advanced athletes who have a solid training base. You cant really be powerful unless you have a base of strength and strength times speed, so we like to follow our strength phase with a power phase. I know this sounds very linear, but well talk about linear and conjugate methodologies. At the end of a power-training program, you might add some bodybuilding to maintain muscle mass as well.

~13~



I alluded to linear versus conjugate programming. If youve noticed, what Ive talked about is when youre emphasizing one stagewhether its strength or powerI talk about still sprinkling in elements from other stages. Youll notice that I stated in the power stage to add in some bodybuilding movements. In the strength phase, I add in some three-dimensional conditioning movementbasic athletic movement.

Were not ever doing multiple aspects of training. These stages are just what were emphasizing in each training phase. Just because Im doing power training doesnt mean that every exercise I do has to be explosive. Ill still throw in some bodybuilding work. Ill still throw in some strength work. However, most of the exercises, the largest percentage of the exercises, are going to be power-related. Thats how you can do a linear periodization model with a conjugate feel. In that way, you dont lose the elements of the other phases for which you work so hard.

Heres more on power training. The adaptation is very neuromuscular, low physiological. Duration here, because its very high neuromuscular, is two to four weeks. Again, it all depends on the individuals needs and abilities.

The approach is tri-sets and quad-sets. With this, we like to do contrast training where you do a strength exercise and immediately follow it with an unloaded equivalent of a deadlift, followed by a long jump or a bench press, followed by a clapping push-up. Then what well do is follow it up with a few other exercises that dont interfere with the recovery.

Lets say its a pushing day and we did bench and clapping push-ups. I might do something for the lower body thats really a low-level exercise, resting two to four minutes by the time we get back to the pushing movement. The tri-sets and quad-sets are not all intense movements. Well pick one power movement, intense movement, and the other movements dont hit those same muscle groups or movement patterns.

Theyre definitely not as intense as the primary movement. The training frequency is two to four times per week. Were looking at movement-related splitsagain a lower-body day, an upper-body pushing day and an upper-body pulling day. Thats a sample here. Reps per exercise are two to five reps, or 8 to 12 seconds as fast as possible. So, if were using a free weight, kettlebell, dumbbell or barbell, were going to stick in a two to five rep range. If were using something thats band resisted or maybe its a band wrapped around a barbell, were going to do as many reps as possible in 8 to 12 seconds. Sets per exercise are four to six.

We will again rest two to four minutes between sets of a particular exercise. The intensity is extremely highas high as possibleand the volume is low.

Next is the power endurance phase. This is where were going to try to outlast a competition. This is metabolic endurance. Some people call it metabolic training. Its basically building up work capacity. This is also great for fat loss. If youre in the athletic population, need to lose weight and youre a performance athlete, this is a great way to not lose your strength and power, especially your power, and still lose some body fat. If youre a fitness client, youre really going to like this, because its a great way to ramp up your metabolism.

The goal with power endurance is just what the name implies. Youre going to now be able to transfer that speed and power throughout the duration of a game or competition, because most of the power training is a very short duration in the previous stage. But when you play a game or youre in competition, you have to explode throughout the entire duration. This is truly where sports performance and conditioning come into play. Its not who is the most powerful. Its who can stay the most powerful the longest. Thats why this stage is so important.

Were going to make you fatigue resistant. The way we do this is to give you intense circuits of four to eight exercises performed for a given number of reps or a specific timeframe per exercise. It can be general or specific in nature. What I mean by

~14~



this is that for a general fitness client who doesnt play a specific sport, we may give them a pushing movement, a pulling movement and a lower-body movement. If its a specific athlete lets say a MMA fighterI may give a movement that resembles grappling on the ground, one that resembles throwing kicks and one that resembles take-down defense. Its a little more specific in nature. The specific exercises I would use is beyond the scope here, but I do have other workshops that talk about that.

This is great pre-season prep for athletes who are getting ready to go into practice. Lets say you have a NFL player or even a high-school football player. This is to make sure that when they get into practice, theyre already ready for all the things the coach is going to bring upon them. They can focus on the tactical and technical aspects of their football game and not use practices to get in shape. Coaches will really notice that stuff, and the kids will stand out when theyve come into the season practice in shape.

This also builds mental toughness. I know a lot of other coaches say, You shouldnt use exercise to build mental toughness. Its not just to make the exercise hard, but also to toughen up people. However, it does give clients, especially athletes, confidence when theyre pushed to fatigue levels similar to what theyre pushed at in competition. It gives them the confidence that theyre not going to get beat on fatigue. Theyre only going to get beat if theyre outclassed, because theyve now been there and done that. Theyve become comfortable with how they function and how they perform when theyre tired.

Maybe its not necessarily mental toughness. Its mental familiarity and confidence that, Hey, I know what I can do when Im tired, because Ive been here before, and I dont need to worry about what Ill do if I get tired in competition because it has already happened in training. Were not beating up people just to say, Hey, it makes you tougher, but theres a confidence factor to that.

During the power endurance circuits, were going to use exercises that are familiarexercises

weve already used in base training, the power or the strength phase. Now the intensity is up and the fatigue level is a little higher, so the last thing you want to give somebody when theyre a little tired and a little fatigued is something to think about that theyve never done before. If theyve never done the exercises before, the chance of great form goes way down. If form is bad, the chance of injury goes up.

This is a bad trend in some of the circuits these days. Form is still key no matter what phase youre training. Ive already spent eight weeks teaching a movement pattern to somebody. Now all I want to do is throw them in the circuit. They can hit that same exercise with their eyes closed because theyve done it so many times before. It becomes engrainedit becomes automatic. Were going to use any and all equipmentwhatever we feel is necessary.

Power endurance training can either be total body workouts, movement or muscle specifics. For instance, we have leg complexes where well perform a bunch of squats, then lunges, then squat jumps and then lunge jumps back to back to back to really build leg power endurance in the lower body for a soccer player or someone whos getting ready to climb a mountain. We can also do total body circuits for someone like an MMA fighter whos really using the entire body.

The adaptation here with power endurance is very low neuromuscular. Were not really looking at the nervous system anymore. Its all about looking at the hardware. Weve already taught the brain how to do these movements effectively with a lot of power and a lot of speed. Now we just have to teach the work capacity on top of that to give the ability to do what you do best and do it for a long period of time.

A lot of athletes are very skilled, but if they havent conditioned, its not that they lost their skill, they just dont have the capacity to maintain that high level of fitness it takes to keep performing the skill. This phase is going to give the opportunity to do what you do best, and do it for a longer period of time. The duration were going to do these training phases is two or three weeks.

~15~



For the most part, total body circuits are general or specific exercises. Training frequency is one or two times per week. Reps per exercise are 15-30 reps or 30 seconds to one minute per exercise within a given circuit or sequence. Sets per exercise are one to five rounds on a circuit. Concerning rest, were going to go little-to-no rest between exercises and then two to five minutes of rest between circuits unless we need to make the rests shorter.

Lets say its an MMA fighter who is fighting with a one-minute rest between five-minute rounds. For the last week of his power endurance training, hes going to be doing five-minute circuits with one-minute rests between those circuit sequences. The intensity is super high and the volume is high. Because the intensity is high and the volume is high, were only going to keep the duration pretty short at two or three weeks.

Now, here are a few tips on these cycles. Its okay to skip cycles depending on the strengths and weaknesses of who youre training. For instance if youre working with someone who has a heavy bodybuilding background and has already been doing lots of hypertrophy training, you can start off with base conditioning to teach new movements the person might not have done before. Then jump right into the strength work because you dont need to build any more hypertrophy. Thats already been done.

If youre working with somebody who has really been doing lots of metabolic conditioning and maybe has been caught up in this big circuit trend lately, the movement patterns are really off of not being coached on good form. That circuit may have been all about exercising until you feel like youre going to throw up. We all know what that mentality is these days.

What youre going to do is give them some base conditioning to re-teach good form. Then youre going to try to build into some hypertrophy and some strength because they more than likely have great endurance, but probably dont have a lot of strength or muscle to go behind that. This is really common sense, but you dont have to follow those

orders. You can also use the conjugate methodusing cycles together.

This is what I personally prefer because in research, using multiple aspects of training together have been shown to get better results over a longer period of time than just using one phase or another phase or another phase. For instance, you can combine hypertrophy training with power training, or you can combine strength training with metabolic power training, or power endurance.

For example, if Im doing a three times per week workout, week number one may be hypertrophy-related work. Week number two might be power-related rep ranges, sets, rests and work. Then Ill just go back and forth. Week number one is hypertrophy. Week number two is power. Week number three is hypertrophy. Week number four is power. I could do that for six weeks plus.

Lets say that Im doing a four-time-per-week split. I could do two days of strength work, two days of metabolic endurance work and then continue with that for a few weeks. There really is no right or wrong way to do that. Some cycles go better with others.

What we find, for example, is strength and hypertrophy are really close, but you tend to lose the ability to move fast, so we like to do hypertrophy and power together. They have a nice complement together, but its really up to you. Just make sure you have a good training base of one phase before you throw in that next phase. If needed, you can stay in one cycle for as long as you need until the goal is achieved. Just keep changing the exercises, but keep the rep ranges very similar to fit whatever phase you are in.

Unless youre in a power endurance phase, dont try to make it the everything workout. With power endurance, youre trying to throw everything at them because its a circuit-related concept. Youre taking everything youve taught them before and bringing it together in a fatigued state with incomplete rest.

For the most part, find your goal for that day and stick with that. Whether its hypertrophy, strength

~16~



or power, stick with that. Dont try to just throw everything but the kitchen sink out. Dont forget that rest is important. Youre not growing during the workout. Youre getting stronger during the rest from the workout. Give active recovery during the week. Give rest days during the week. Also give de-load weeks every three to six weeks, depending on the individual.

When youre figuring out a program, you want to start with their final goal and work backward from there. If I have a 35-year-old mother whos getting ready for marriage and wants to look great for her wedding day, Im going to start with the day of her wedding. Lets say its in 16 weeks. Im going to write that on the calendar. Then Im going to work backward from there and figure out what I need to have her doing in week 16 so she can look her best, then week 15 so she is prepped for week 16 and then week 14 so shes prepped for week 15, so on and so forth.

The best way is to start with the goal and work backward from there. Each week, make the workout a bit more difficult. Thats just the principle of progressive overload. I think a lot of folks have just forgotten that principle, but you have to have progressive overload. Make sure youre doing a little more the next week than youre doing this week.

Lets talk about organizing the workout. This is how to organize each training session for maximal density and best results. This is the performance you approach. What Ive found through teaching trainers all over the world, writing lots of articles and working in video, is that most clients training programs arent really personalized. Theyre really based on the trainers personal bias.

For instance, if youre a Pilates instructor, youre really not giving personal training. Youre giving private Pilates lessons. If youre a powerlifter, youre really not giving personal training. Youre probably just giving private powerlifting lessons. Theres nothing wrong with that. Just make sure whatever it is that youre doing with your client best fits their goals and not your personal bias.

If someone says, Hey, I really want to work on my mobility and I want to work on my speed and

youre a powerlifter, a powerlifting approach might not be the best option for this client if the primary objective is to run faster and work on mobility. It could be a component, but it might not be all of the things you need to do.

We need to stop training toward our bias and focus on the principles to best achieve our clients goals and not just what we found useful for us. See the strength and weaknesses in each type of training from bodybuilding to Pilates to yoga. Try to use the best of everything. Again, theres no reason why we have to have this all-or-nothing approach. Hey, Im a bodybuilder. Im a Pilates instructor. Im a track coach.

Everything works. Thats why it exists. Thats why youve found people in every aspect of fitness who have gotten great results, but it hasnt worked so great for the next person. The best way is to create a comprehensive approach to training and try to use the best of everything.

Keep in mind that its not what you can do for a good training concept. Its what that training concept can do for you. For example with the kettlebell community, a lot of people think tall you need is a kettlebell and youll become a superhuman or some sort of superhero. Well, its not what you can do for the kettlebell. Its what the kettlebell can do for you. Dont use it just to say, Hey, I did this. Kettlebells are an inanimate object. You need to see what it can best do for you to help you achieve your goal. Try to use it all.

Thats our approach here at Performance University. We call that hybrid training. Try not to specialize in any one training style. Specialize in a type of client. As soon as you say that youre a Pilates specialist or a kettlebell specialist, thats great, but everything has its limitations.

We want to be the MMA fighter of the training world. We want to be good at grappling and good at kicking, punching, boxing, submissions and all of those things. We want to be good at mobility, power, stability, bodybuilding. You can specialize in a piece of equipment, but just understand that there are other aspects of training that you need to be well versed in as well.

~17~



Here is the Performance University five-stage workout method. No matter what phase of training youre inhypertrophy, strength, power, power endurance base or whateverevery workout we deliver is going to have these five stages. Its going to go in this order.

Stage one is the warm-up. I know a lot of fancy terminologies are floating around theremovement prep and all of these different thingsbut its the warm-up.

Stage two is nervous system development. All were doing is more athletic-type movements that Ill talk about in a second.

Stage three is muscular system development. Stage four is energy system developmentI

stole the name from Athletes Performance. Stage five is cool down and recovery. Certain training concepts and techniques tend

to go best in specific stages. A lot of people get confused, because were throwing in all of these exercise applications, but we dont know where to best fit them in a program. Im going to help you figure that out right now.

In the warm-up phase, what were trying to do is prepare the body for more intense activity than youve been doing in your regular everyday life, which is probably sitting at a desk. In this phase, were going to use mobility drills, dynamic stretching, three-dimensional matrix-type things from Gary Gray, muscle activation drills and maybe corrective exercises if we learn those from a physical therapist or have been recommended by a physical therapist.

Old-school callisthenic moves are great. Bodyweight exercises. Yoga exercises. I say yoga in fast forwardbasically just do them a little faster because most yoga exercises are more static and we want to keep them dynamic. Weve been known to use Pilates moves in our warm-up phases because theyre great for that.

With nervous system development, this is speed, skill, power and movement-related work. In this phase, were going to use plyometrics, explosive

bodyweight exercises, the speed ladder, mini-hurdles, medicine ball throws, Olympic lifts if you already have an Olympic background, 10 to 40-yard sprints (short quick sprints), heel sprints, change of direction drills, kettlebell swings with a really aggressive hip-hop and speed-related exercises with bands.

In the muscular system development section, were going to make sure were looking at strength, size and stability of the muscles. Thats where we might use powerlifting exercisessquat, deadlift and bench, bodyweight strength exercises, TRX exercises and unilateral strength exercises. We use unilateral and bilateral exercises because they both work, and bodybuilding exercises that include machines. Yes, we do use machines. Swiss ball exercises normally without external load. With band and cable exercises, this is where we bring in some Pilates exercises and more core and torso exercises. We cover everything.

The energy-system category is great for fat loss, work capacity, power endurance and endurance. This is toward the end of a session. We use interval training and circuit training. Nowadays people think everything that looks like a circuit is Cross-fit, but people were doing Cross-fit before Cross-fit was invented. However, that type of training would go in the energy system development category. Just make sure you use good form.

Aerodyne bike intervals, boxing training, weight sled training, strong man training, kettlebell complexes, barbell complexes, dumbbell complexes, battling ropes, Power Max 360, which we use a lot here at Performance University, and then some of the functional fun circuit stuff that you see folks like Gary Gray using and that of my friend, Bill Sonnemaker. These are all wonderful to use. We like to use those more at the end as part of circuits.

Then finally the fifth stage is cool-down. Some people call it recovery region, but to us, its just cool-down. I like simple terminologies, but whatever you call it, this is what were going to dostatic stretching, yoga, maybe more corrective exercise-type work, meditation drills, foam roll drills and

~18~



things of that nature. If were going to use unstable surface training, well use it here. Where a warm-up is building you up to the workout, this is bringing you back out of the workout to normal levels of function.

Some final coaching tips: Spend the most time in the workout stage your client needs the most or wants to achieve relative to the goal. For instance, if youre trying to become more powerful and faster, you are still going to do a warm-up, but then youre going to spend most of your time in the central nervous system development section of the workout. Then youre going to do a little muscular development, a little energy system development and a cool-down. But youre going to spend the most time developing that nervous system, because thats what you need to make you move faster and more explosively.

If your goal is to get really big, like hypertrophy and strength, youre still going to do the warm-up. Youre still going to do the nervous system development. Youre just not going to spend a lot of time there. Youre going to spend the predominant amount of your time doing things to get bigger and stronger. In that muscular system development category, youre going to do some energy-system work just to make sure youre not all show and no go. Youre still going to do a cool-down to make sure you dont lose mobility.

Everything is a conjugate aspect. Youre always training multiple aspects together, but youre still using a certain phase and structure to know where youre going and what you want to get. If youre always training everything together equally, its pretty tough to have a goal and logistically keep track of that goal.

Again, use a linear model with a conjugate field. Using these five stages is the way we bring things together. Keep the stages in order. Theyre in order from high central nervous system demand to the lowest central nervous system demand. Thats important.

With specific sporting demands of an athlete, were going to definitely prioritize those first. For instance, if an athlete is looking at pushing somebody over, were going to do movements that resemble those force production patterns. Were not just going to give them general exercises because thats we believe is right. Were going to try to tailor these to their sport-movement patterns. We dont necessarily have to mimic the movement patterns, but were trying to match the force-production patterns of the movements they experience in their sports.

Now, pick the stage you need to train the most before you pick the exercise. Dont just say, Okay, I love kettlebells, and Ive already deemed that Im going to use kettlebells with this person. Thats not fair to your client. Theyre not paying you just to give them random exercises. Theyre paying you to invent a program thats the most optimal for them to get them the results they desire.

Once you figure out what they desireto get bigger, get stronger, get more powerful or a little of eachyou need to pick the stages in which you need to spend the most time, whether that be energy-system development, muscular-system development or nervous-system development.

Once youve established what phases you need to train the most, the methods, the reps, the sets and the rest range have all been taken care of because you already know what stage of the workout youre in. We already dictated what rest ranges, set ranges and rep ranges are optimal for getting specific results.

I really appreciate your interest in my work. I invite you to keep in touch with me on my website, nicktumminello.com. Im always updating it with new exercise videos, concepts and things were using here at Performance University. Good luck and I look forward to seeing you sometime in the future.

Nick Tumminello Practical Program Design

Documents

Transcript of Nick Tumminello Practical Program Design