Not sure if your training is working?

Not sure if your training is working? Why aren’t you getting faster feet? To know if your training is good, we need to talk a little science first! 

Let's learn some important words:

• Intensity means how hard you're working compared to your best. To make something more intense, you have to go faster, push harder, or do both.

• A motor unit is like a team of muscle fibers and a special nerve cell. There are different kinds of motor units, each with its own job.

• You might have heard about fast and slow muscles. Type I (small) and Type II (large). Type I are not very powerful, but don’t fatigue easy. Type II are super powerful but fatigue very easily.

Our muscles are made up of motor units and muscle fibres of varying sizes, strengths and fibre type compositions. When we try to produce force, say to lift a barbell or spur a horse, our muscles and nervous system will activate motor units in a predictable progressive fashion. Starting with the smallest and building to the largest as we require more and more force. 

WHY? 

Saves energy AND prevents Injury. Keeps you from producing force your tendons and ligaments your body can’t handle. 

The size principle is highly trainable and we can improve the rate and degree of how much force you produce meaning you CAN become more explosive! 

The WORST way to become more explosive: Training to failure. You’ve prob heard of Low weights, High Reps to get “toned.” This just leads to TYPE I Muscle growth and again, those muscles are not powerful! 

Her’s two ways you CAN be more powerful: 

1: Train Heavy with Progressive Overload. As you train with progressively heavier and heavier weights, not only do you increase muscle mass, improve lifting technique, increase neural output and potentially shift your muscle fibre composition toward type II motor units (many motor units are highly adaptable), your brain and nervous system also learns to unlock and recruit more of your biggest type II motor units more efficiently to lift the heavier and heavier weights.

2.) Move heavy things FAST. Beyond lifting heavy, lifting fast(er) can significantly impact the recruitment rate of Type II motor units. Olympic lifts, loaded jumps, plyometrics, banded exercises etc all boost the activation of our biggest type II units — which are also the quickest fibres to generate force — helping us generate high amounts of force, quickly.

The weight room can be a confusing place. Trying to keep track of books opening and closing, travel arrangements, stock stats AND the size principle can be overwhelming. Shoot me a DM and let’s chat about moving your performance forward!