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Upon reading the material contained in this new book some peoples might believe that I’ve finally come full circle. I originally started out exclusively as a performance coach, making my mark by introducing several innovative training methods to the strength-training world then switched to more of a bodybuilding focus; writing a book and some articles on that aspect of the iron game and training several athletes for physique contests. Those of you who are aware of my athletic training material will recognize several principles from this book and will quickly assume that I’m back to my roots. While this isn’t entirely false, it isn’t completely true either. Yes I’m back to a more “athletic” training optic, but I’m not back to where I started from; rather I’m still evolving as a coach and came to the realization that several principles that are applicable to athletic training can also be used to spark new muscle growth. The best way to describe this book would then to call it the “interracial” couple of aesthetics and athletics.

Everybody can take something out of this book: athletes will find new ways to improve their strength, power and metabolic efficiency. They will also learn how to build muscle that will be “usable” in their athletic endeavours. Bodybuilders will find out which are the best exercises for each muscle groups and will learn to apply athletic training principles to better be able to target the high-threshold motor units (HTMUs) which are the key to maximum muscle growth. Finally, the average trainee who wants to look good, lean and muscular but who also wants to be functional, healthy and fit will be able to apply the principles described to reach these objectives too. I’m not saying that everybody should train the same way. However I believe that there is some common ground to all forms of training, something rooted in science that can be applied by all to foster maximum growth and improvement regardless of the end objective. Athletes and Bodybuilders both have some things right!

If you are reading this book chances are that:

a) You’re looking for ways to improve your muscularity
b) You’re looking for ways of losing body fat through training
c) You’re looking for ways to become a more explosive athlete
d) You’re looking for ways to get stronger
e) You’re looking for sexy pictures of big bald Canadian coaches!

In fact a combination of all of these (except “e” I hope) objectives is probably what you’re after. This is the mindset I was in when I sat down to write this book. If you apply the principles described in the following chapters you will gain muscle, lose fat, and become stronger, more explosive and more metabolically efficient. It’s not the Holy Grail, but it is science properly applied to stimulate maximum body adaptation.

I said that some would think that I’ve gone full circle with this book. This might be true. Over the past decade or so I’ve been on both sides of the fence: I’ve trained and coached for strength and athleticism and for body transformation/bodybuilding too. At first I separated both approaches. Bodybuilding methods were in one drawer and strength/power methods in another one. When I worked with athletes I opened the “strength/power”drawer and took out what I needed; I did the same thing when designing bodybuilding workouts. Never had it crossed my mind that there might be something useful for bodybuilding development stored in the “strength/power” drawer and vice-versa. I’ve now learned to use stuff from both drawers. A training method or principle shouldn’t be classified as a strength/power or bodybuilding method; you should keep an eye open to everything that might lead to the kind of gains you’re looking for.

After all both athletes and bodybuilders give use clues: a lot of athletes have great bodies (muscular and lean) and a lot of bodybuilders are strong and powerful; yet both train radically different. This tells me that there is more than one way to skin a cat. Not only that, it also tells me that if we can combine the best principles of both worlds, we’ll achieve the ideal body transformation methodology possible.

This is my objective with this book and hopefully I’ll come somewhat close to that, you’ll be the judge!

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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

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PRINCIPLE 3
Precede the maximum concentric action by a prestretch of the muscle

Introduction

The advantages of performing a high velocity prestretch before an explosive concentric action is well known in the world of sports. This type of movement, known as the stretch-shorten cycle (SSC) is the natural way our muscles work in most tasks requiring a high force production of a ballistic nature (throwing, jumping, etc.) as well as in locomotion tasks (walking, running, hopping, etc.). In muscle contractions preceding the concentric phase (the lifting portion in our case) by a short and forceful stretch can significantly increase the amount of force produced. This is due to:

1. The potentiating effect of the myotatic stretch-reflex: When a musculotendinous structure (a muscle and its tendons) is forcefully stretched, there is the onset of a “stretch reflex” governed by the activation of the muscle spindles. Muscle spindles are small fibers that run parallel to your muscle fibers and when they are stretched beyond a certain point they initiate the myotatic stretch reflex that helps the body to shorten. This is a protective mechanism designed to protect the musculotendinous structures against tears caused by excessive stretching.

2. The elastic component of the musculotendinous structure: The muscles, fascias and tendons are elastic by nature (more or less depending on the structure) and just like a rubber band; if they are stretched they will tend to shorten powerfully in return. This characteristic of the musculotendinous structures can also contribute to an increase in force production.

3. The increase in motor-units activation: Walshe et al. (1998) have stated that prestretching a muscle prior to a concentric phase promotes a higher active muscle state. They also found that stretch-induced movements the forceful stretch could potentiate the capacity of the contractile elements of the muscle.

4. The evolution toward a fast-twitch muscle fiber dominance over the long run: Paddon-Jones et al. (2001) have demonstrated that rapid eccentric actions (the forceful and rapid stretch at the end of the eccentric phase represent a rapid eccentric action) lead to an increase in fast-twitch fibers/motor-units over the long run (using a 10 week protocol in the study). Fast eccentric movements decreased type I fibers from an average of 53.8% to an average of 39.1% while type IIb fiber percentage increased from an average of 5.8% to an average of 12.9% (thus, there must have been a significant increase in IIa fibers too, but was not measured). In the long term, this type of training effect could greatly improve an individual’s capacity to stimulate hypertrophy as well as strength and power gains.

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To stimulate a maximum amount of growth in your muscles you should select the best exercises for each targeted muscle group. While this may seem obvious, there is actually very little information regarding what are the best exercises. And when we finally find such information it’s often based on the personal preferences of the author/coach. Just because a supposed training “authority” advocate a certain lift, doesn’t automatically make that exercise effective. To make a good exercise selection we must understand what principles govern muscle recruitment; we must also consider the objective of the exercise. When it comes to building muscle mass we have three categories of movements:

1. Activation exercises: movements aimed at increasing neural activation, making the nervous system more efficient at recruiting the targeted muscle group. The activation exercise itself won’t stimulate a lot (if any) muscle growth, but it will make all the subsequent movements more effective. These movements are basically used to “wake-up” the nervous system. Unstable exercises fall into that category.

2. Potentiation exercises: Potentiation means “to make more potent”. These exercises are similar in objective to the activation ones in that they increase neural efficiency. However it does so specifically by targeting the fast-twitch fibers (HTMUs) and improving your CNS’ capacity to recruit them. Explosive lifts and plyometric drills are the main exercises in that category. Once again, these lifts are not prime muscle-builders (although they are more effective in that regard than activation exercises) but they will increase the efficacy of any subsequent training.

3. Stimulation exercises: These are our bread and butter lifts! The movements that will stimulate the most muscle growth. To be effective, a stimulation exercise must revolve around the target muscle’s function; it must make biomechanical sense. It should also include a loaded stretch for the targeted muscle group: a stretched muscle during the eccentric phase is an activated muscle during the concentric phase. An exercise in which the targeted muscle is not put under stretch will not stimulate maximum muscle growth.

Exercise selection

In this section I will present the most effective activation, potentiation and stimulation movements for each muscle group. Proper exercise selection is the first step towards building an effective training program. Then the application of the principles already described so far in this book to each of the selected exercises will make sure that you are doing an optimal job at stimulating muscle growth. So without further adieu, here are the top exercises for each muscle group.

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Muscle gain templates

For muscle growth purposes you should start training each muscle group at a twice-per-week frequency (shoulders and arms can be trained only once since they receive a lot of indirect stimulation from the other training days). Depending on your recovery capacity, work schedule and nutritional intake you’ll have to split this weekly volume into 3 to 6 sessions. This is the template for each muscle group. If you train two muscle groups per session you use the template for both muscles; if you train three muscle groups you use the template for all three of these trained muscle groups, etc. Obviously these are just sample templates, feel free to utilize the information provided as you see fit.

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