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Mountain Dog training- Elitefts LTT5 Wrap up.
First off I would like to thank John Meadows for giving me the opportunity to share what I learned from his lecture this Friday at the Elitefts learn to train seminar. I was lucky enough to get to travel to London, Ohio and rub elbows with some of the strongest and smartest people on the planet. If you ever get the opportunity to see people of this caliber speak, and or corner them in a room somewhere and force them to converse with you, I highly suggest you do it. So without any further ado, here is some awesome information on training (and a little on nutrition).
Opening notes: Nutrition needs to match training, not a one dimensional thing. John did a quick rehash over his presentation at the last seminar around periworkout nutrition. John believes this is 80% of the battle nutritionally speaking, and again nutrition must match training style. They can’t be looked at two different variables.
We are in a war of muscular protein breakdown vs. Muscle protein synthesis.
-Supporting muscle protein synthesis creates more muscle, and more muscle = a leaner physique.
-We can prime the effect by minimizing muscle protein breakdown DURING training.
Pre-training nutrition- 30-60 minutes pre training: Some protein, moderate carbs, and a little fat to slow the release of the carbs so there is no issues with hypoglycemia.
Intra-workout nutrition: High molecular weight low osmalality carbs/protein hydrolysates.
Start sipping10-15 minutes before workout, then continue through workout.
Begin lecture on training: So four basic steps occur in the execution of a mountain dog workout. These steps have a side benefit of keeping you in one piece, so you also can do what you love (assuming you love to train) for a long time.
Step 1: Pump nutrient loaded blood into pre-activated muscle.
Usually done with dumbells or some type of machine.. This exercise should not be hard on the joints at all, but does not have to be isolation work either. It’s not pure pre-exhaustion. It’s starting the delivery of those nutrients in the intra drink to muscle, and also filling the muscle full of blood so muscle are primed for the next phase.
Funny note – he had a picture of Galactus representing this step.
Step 2: Activate/stimulate fast twitch fibers while in reactive pump state.
This step involves using a moderately heavy weight in an explosive concentric manner. The heavy weight and acceleration are there to activate as much tissue as possible.
Rep range here usually falls in the 5-6 range. The more force you can generate, the more you can engage high threshold motor units. Using accommodating resistance, especially chains, seem to prime this affect.
He had a picture of Colossus representing this step.
Step 3: Induce supra-maximal pump volume- Think fire, skin splitting, throbbing, cant put your limbs in any type of normal position type feeling.
A good way to do this is by slowing down the eccentric tempo.
John went through explanation of myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy here, explaining that one is not better than other, both fully maxed are the best. This step probably develops muscles though creating more volumous cells (sarcoplasmic hypertrophy), not necessarily by adding sarcomeres in a fiber (myofibrillar hypertrophy, which is what the heavier weight will do on Step 2).
He had a picture of the human torch representing this step. Burn baby burn.
Step 4: Load and stretch a pumped muscle.
Increased recovery is one benefit of this type of loaded stretching at the end of the workout. Whether hyperplasia occurs is very debatable, despite the bird hanging upside down study done years back.
He had a picture of Mr Fantastic to represent this step.
John’s programming uses many different approaches to make a muscle fiber grow. In his words “logical progression” and “layered training” is how he has incorporated these different techniques in an intelligent program.
So to recap... Training is set up using 4 big idea’s. In this layer approach exercise sequence makes a big difference, so follow the steps in order.
Remember to drive nutrients into the muscle. Next, get wild add some weight, and make sure to drive the concentric hard. Get your crazy pump on till you can’t hardly move, and then stretch the blood filled muscle using some resistance.
Some last quick comments were made on other key concepts.
Deloading: This should be done instinctively. No manual or book knows better than you when your body needs a break. John believes that volume should be dropped considerably but intensity should stay high.
Frequency of training: Use nutrition as the enabler to get recovery to a level, so you can train with more frequency.
Arms: With arms use pumping techniques (tempo)/supersets, etc.
Puking: Puking is not anabolic, and is not the call sign of a good workout, but hey if it happens…so be it.
To wrap up, John explained that the most important training variable is your level of PASSION. If you are passionate, you will push yourself hard, and always learn and get better. If you don’t have this passion, you will never come close to reaching your true potential. In my opinion these simple words need to be repeated so the meaning is not accidentally lost due to lack of sexiness...
I hope I was able to convey this in a way so that others can understand and maybe take advantage of this type of training. Thanks again John.
-Brad
First off I would like to thank John Meadows for giving me the opportunity to share what I learned from his lecture this Friday at the Elitefts learn to train seminar. I was lucky enough to get to travel to London, Ohio and rub elbows with some of the strongest and smartest people on the planet. If you ever get the opportunity to see people of this caliber speak, and or corner them in a room somewhere and force them to converse with you, I highly suggest you do it. So without any further ado, here is some awesome information on training (and a little on nutrition).
Opening notes: Nutrition needs to match training, not a one dimensional thing. John did a quick rehash over his presentation at the last seminar around periworkout nutrition. John believes this is 80% of the battle nutritionally speaking, and again nutrition must match training style. They can’t be looked at two different variables.
We are in a war of muscular protein breakdown vs. Muscle protein synthesis.
-Supporting muscle protein synthesis creates more muscle, and more muscle = a leaner physique.
-We can prime the effect by minimizing muscle protein breakdown DURING training.
Pre-training nutrition- 30-60 minutes pre training: Some protein, moderate carbs, and a little fat to slow the release of the carbs so there is no issues with hypoglycemia.
Intra-workout nutrition: High molecular weight low osmalality carbs/protein hydrolysates.
Start sipping10-15 minutes before workout, then continue through workout.
Begin lecture on training: So four basic steps occur in the execution of a mountain dog workout. These steps have a side benefit of keeping you in one piece, so you also can do what you love (assuming you love to train) for a long time.
Step 1: Pump nutrient loaded blood into pre-activated muscle.
Usually done with dumbells or some type of machine.. This exercise should not be hard on the joints at all, but does not have to be isolation work either. It’s not pure pre-exhaustion. It’s starting the delivery of those nutrients in the intra drink to muscle, and also filling the muscle full of blood so muscle are primed for the next phase.
Funny note – he had a picture of Galactus representing this step.
Step 2: Activate/stimulate fast twitch fibers while in reactive pump state.
This step involves using a moderately heavy weight in an explosive concentric manner. The heavy weight and acceleration are there to activate as much tissue as possible.
Rep range here usually falls in the 5-6 range. The more force you can generate, the more you can engage high threshold motor units. Using accommodating resistance, especially chains, seem to prime this affect.
He had a picture of Colossus representing this step.
Step 3: Induce supra-maximal pump volume- Think fire, skin splitting, throbbing, cant put your limbs in any type of normal position type feeling.
A good way to do this is by slowing down the eccentric tempo.
John went through explanation of myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy here, explaining that one is not better than other, both fully maxed are the best. This step probably develops muscles though creating more volumous cells (sarcoplasmic hypertrophy), not necessarily by adding sarcomeres in a fiber (myofibrillar hypertrophy, which is what the heavier weight will do on Step 2).
He had a picture of the human torch representing this step. Burn baby burn.
Step 4: Load and stretch a pumped muscle.
Increased recovery is one benefit of this type of loaded stretching at the end of the workout. Whether hyperplasia occurs is very debatable, despite the bird hanging upside down study done years back.
He had a picture of Mr Fantastic to represent this step.
John’s programming uses many different approaches to make a muscle fiber grow. In his words “logical progression” and “layered training” is how he has incorporated these different techniques in an intelligent program.
So to recap... Training is set up using 4 big idea’s. In this layer approach exercise sequence makes a big difference, so follow the steps in order.
Remember to drive nutrients into the muscle. Next, get wild add some weight, and make sure to drive the concentric hard. Get your crazy pump on till you can’t hardly move, and then stretch the blood filled muscle using some resistance.
Some last quick comments were made on other key concepts.
Deloading: This should be done instinctively. No manual or book knows better than you when your body needs a break. John believes that volume should be dropped considerably but intensity should stay high.
Frequency of training: Use nutrition as the enabler to get recovery to a level, so you can train with more frequency.
Arms: With arms use pumping techniques (tempo)/supersets, etc.
Puking: Puking is not anabolic, and is not the call sign of a good workout, but hey if it happens…so be it.
To wrap up, John explained that the most important training variable is your level of PASSION. If you are passionate, you will push yourself hard, and always learn and get better. If you don’t have this passion, you will never come close to reaching your true potential. In my opinion these simple words need to be repeated so the meaning is not accidentally lost due to lack of sexiness...
I hope I was able to convey this in a way so that others can understand and maybe take advantage of this type of training. Thanks again John.
-Brad
