The biggest truth is that now we have ATG we can actually experiment with other methods because we have this huge foundation of ability to recover tissues and build connective tissue.
I can now do all the crazy stuff that I wanted to do.
I wanted to use this method from Dietrich Buchenholz, the inno sport kind of idea.
I wanted to use it back in the early 2000s but I really wasn't ready for it in terms of training age, training knowledge and I was just fragile basically so I couldn't get it done but now I can because with ATG I understand how to prepare and repair connective tissues.
I still have the ability to flare up and bother tendons but I also have the ability to fix them.
I did a little bit before I switched the camera on but basically, now I feel I’m pretty much ready to go into these sorts of reps.
I want to fall as fast as I can, I want to squeeze at the top and then relax, turn the muscles off and then turn back on again quickly.
The biggest difference that Russian sports scientists found between poor athletes and great athletes was the ability to switch muscles on and off and that's part of the reason why bodybuilders don't tend to do well in sports is because they often lack that ability to turn muscles on and off.
I think a lot of sports actually teach people how to do this anyway so do we need it within our strength training?
I don't know. I don't think athletes who have great abilities in these areas necessarily do need it and I think Charles Poliquin's record stands for itself with that.
He had a very linear, very structured approach, everything was kind of straight up and down it wasn't about patterns, it wasn't about spirals and all sorts of neurological things that we see going on in modern trends.
I think there are a lot of distractions, to be honest, in the performance world the very linear approach can certainly work.
Then if we have that as a foundation though and if I’m actually not going out and playing a lot of sport, I’m 38, the older I am and still being able to do these sorts of movements, it really says more for my youth and health than just being able to do heavy reps and my daughter's dead lifting the bar there as well with the judo belt that she wrapped around it.
The judo belt I bought to do arm wrestling kind of drills but that's probably for another video.
I think like the ability to do these drop catch reps to switch the nervous system on and off for the connective tissues to be able to handle this sort of work just from a pure standpoint of physics, there's an instant there where this is a really high force exercise and I could do this with extra weight but you can see that in that instant where I’m stopping with that heavy load, I’m probably dealing with more weight than I even do when I go to a maximal single rep chin up.
You'll see my daughter's gonna deadlift here again.
I’m basically assisting myself with this bottom hand so I get a little bit more range of motion on these single arm scap pulls.
I was gonna do weighted scap pulls and I thought like why am I gonna load up to 150% of body weight on two arms when I can just do one arm but if I do one arm unassisted then I can't really get the range of motion that I wanted.
I don't want to be tiny range of motion, single arm scap pulls for me, I’m not pulling a long way.
In some of the super-advanced calisthenics guys can get some range of motion on that but it's not happening for me.
This is a great assistance exercise for the front lever as well for those who are interested in the front lever.
I have had full front lever a number of times.
Really looking for that transition on the bar, making it feel kind of easy.
They're not super draining on the nervous system and I wasn't feeling the tendons on them today.
If you do have fragile tenons and you don't have a big base of kind of weighted chin-ups or speed work then it's probably not a good idea.
I think some of the big numbers that you see going up in calisthenics, it's partly because of the explosive work that they're doing.
They're going across the force-velocity curve and we tend not to do that very much in upper body training.
It does exist out there, any number of systems in the world of strength at the moment but if you go to the gym and even if you go and visit most sporting teams, you're not going to see these repetition types.
They have been around the Dietrich Buchenholz stuff is as I said like the early 2000s and all sorts of people done all sorts of things in the time in between that.
I really enjoyed the sensation of this movement.
I’m going to catch release and catch there, so slightly lower finish on the top to show that I’m going to get to that top position but my guess is with the extreme tension in these movements, my guess is that I’m going to beat my old personal best of 60 kilos, like I think it will help my top end strength and some of you might disagree with that and it's fine, feel free to drop your thoughts, comments, experiences.
It's not about that necessarily, it's not about me only being right, it's also not about that this is the only solution even if I don't get any better at maximal strength.
I’m going to get better at switching the nervous system on and off and producing a lot of force quickly and that's what I want.
That's what I’m doing.
I would call most of these like drop catch repetitions.
I thought I may as well play around with doing these on with bands rather than holding on to the pipe.
I’m probably not too far off having a decent one-arm eccentric.
I did one maybe two or three weeks ago.
I haven't been working on the one arm but it's probably not too bad just based on my two arm numbers and body composition stuff at the moment.
My squats aren't amazing at the moment so that usually helps as well but I have been working on my squats and my legs have gained some size since I was just training up in the office.
One or two kilos makes a big difference when you're talking about the one arm chin up.
I really like this catch release, there's a bigger skill component obviously there's more risk to it.
Don't try this at home if you think you're gonna break yourself or you're scared of things or want to hold me responsible for your training.
That's not what this is about, I’m just showing sharing with you what I’m doing, why I’m doing it.
I did 20 sets and I kind of like the idea of doing 20 sets.
Some days I’ll do 10 sets, some days I’ll do five sets but with this sort of work, 20 sets is nice.
You can see the work period is usually, we've got about four seconds, five seconds on this arm, five seconds in the other arm, so about 10 seconds on 50 seconds off.
That allows for quite high quality.
I’m really focusing on just pulling the scalp down.
Building that that big foundation of scapular control and strength to be able to get out of the bottom.
Same kind of idea is what I was working on with the push, if you watch my push video, working on getting out the bottom at different weights.
This one I went for the heavyweight every set so it'd be like if I was doing on the pushing exercise, if I was doing say 90 kilos for the little push to the chin or 80 kilos for the push to the chin, in between every set of doing maybe 50 kilos on like the push press, standing press variation.
Just a different way to go at it.
I think you will get a similar result.
People talk about, don't use different nervous system stimulus, you don't get as big a result if you train slow and fast in the same workout, etc.
They may be right but they may not be as well.
I think Westside Barbell, you see those guys are crazy strong and fast and they mix the stimulus and I’m not necessarily going to go break any world records.
Would I experiment with just giving one type of neurological stimulus?
The DB hammer system is if you work maximum strength like slow strength, I think he calls it, I’ve forgotten what he calls it, forced magnitude, I don't know.
If you work maximum strength then you can also work power.
If you work slow strength and you can also work power in the same workout but you wouldn't work speed or if you work speed then you can work power but you wouldn't work maximal strength. That's kind of the way they did it but I think if they're relatively new to you and you're not necessarily fine-tuned in either of them, then you're going to get a lot of benefits out of both.
Like if you play some slow piano and you play some fast piano, you're still practicing a lot of piano and your piano is going to get better.
I’m not saying they're wrong, I’m just saying that from where I’m at at the moment.
I don't think it matters and I’m probably more interested in being like a hybrid athlete, like a rugby player, they're gonna have slow stimulus when they're in the tackle and they have to keep pushing wrestling, etc. where it's longer, the extreme slow example would be like scrums and things like that where it's a long isometric and then there's explosive stuff as well, accelerations and near top speed running.
This is basically how the workout went.
I went up to 60 kilos on partial reps last week trying to really switch on hard so a different sort of approach, the dead start repetitions switching on, a little bit of easy hang, finishing up.
I did kind of get bored towards the end of these I’m not gonna lie.
I sort of just a little bit tired, just a little bit, like I don't really need more sets and so I went to the single arm hang and the kids had a lot of fun in front of me with their games.
I’ll show you, you see, really trying to switch on hard.
This is 60 kilos. It's kind of easier because it's less range of motion but it's also kind of harder because if I can go fast out of the bottom then I’m losing some of the momentum that I would have had from getting really quick strength out of the bottom and it wasn't a strong lock off at the top but I did definitely get chin over the bar by those standards but generally I’ve been getting to sort of here.
I went for a 45-kilo rep to there, I think I’ve done 50 to strong contact since I’ve had the gym again but 55, 60 is kind of getting to my best so close to those best sort of numbers but that ability to really switch on fast, again is an athletic ability and something that's quite important and I do think these will help me to blast a new chin up best that's probably it in some ways as well.
I hope you enjoyed this video.
If you did get something out of it, if you've got some ideas, some tips, if you do test and try some of these ideas, let me know how it goes.
If you're not prepared for it, don't do it.
I won't be held responsible for your training but I would love to see you progress and experiment and learn and test ideas, the DB hammer stuff is difficult to find but I guess Cal Dietz is probably the guy that's gone furthest into the DB hammer stuff being a friend of Chris Korfist and Chris Korfist was a student of DB hammer.
Some of the work around those guys is really really interesting and I think there will be more of it come into the ATG system potentially after that first few months.
Structural balance is still the key building tissue health and integrity.
You can see that you need to have that to be able to do these sorts of repetitions, you need that foundation of tissue health and integrity and so that's what is always going to come first and that was the foundation of the Poliquin system and Charles was right but there may be something else that comes next after that.
I hope you enjoyed this video and I look forward to chatting with you soon.
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