Ajay: So I nominate Brad for the Lightboard challenge, how’s it going brad?
Brad: Not too bad, you?
Ajay: Pretty good, what are you going to teach us today?
Brad: Well, you guys talked about muscle activation, and how muscle contracts, right? So, today,
why don’t talk about how we train, to make adaptation.
Ajay: Sure, sure.
Brad: So, realistically, as we go, we’re going to look at, muscle adaptation. Okay,
and in reality, we’re trying to increase our performance.
Ajay: I get it.
Brad: Okay, and there’s a number of different planes we can do this, right. First, we have
to determine what you’re capable of doing.
Ajay: Okay.
Brad: So, some sort of initial assessment, right? So, let’s say, being the phenominal
athlete that you are…
Ajay: Oh, stop!
Brad: … you can lift 100 lbs, for 10 repetitions.
Ajay: Okay.
Brad: And if we put this into our equation, to estimate what you’re 1 rep max. (1RM) – how much
weight could you push one time, right?
Okay, we’re going to look at you’re weight, times one, plus the number of repetitions
divided by 30.
Ajay: Okay, that’s math!
Brad: It is math, but to eliminate the math, we’re just going to look at your 1RM, is
roughly equal to 133 lbs.
Ajay: Oh, that makes sense, okay.
Brad: So if you can push 100 lbs 10 times, you can roughly push 133 lbs one time.
So how do we now start to evolve it, and train from this different perspective, right? We
have to look at what our goal is. Okay, we know different ways to train to achieve a
certain performance goal. We also have to prescribe the number of repetitions, we also
have to prescribe our specific number of sets, and then we’ll also talk about rest and
load as well.
Did you change your shirt?
Ajay: Did you change the board?
Brad: Well yeah, we’re going to talk about exercise, so I guess it’s only fitting that
you’re now ready to go, right?
Ajay: Well that’s why I changed.
Brad: Good. So, we talked about our goals, right, and how we can improve our muscular
endurance, and to do that, we need to work within a prescribed rep range.
So, if we talk about endurance, we’re talking about performing action for a prolonged period
of time.
Alright, so if I’m going to get someone to work to increase that, they’re going
to do anywhere between 10-25 repetitions of a particular exercise.
Ajay: That seems like a lot.
Brad: That is a lot, because remember, we’re talking about work for a prolonged period
of time, more than 2 seconds kind of thing, right? We’re also going to have them perform
one to three, maybe more sets. Rest in between is going to be about 30 seconds.
Ajay: Oh, that seems short.
Brad: Very short, cause remember, we’re talking about work overtime, we don’t want
to give them a lot of time to recover. And we’re also going to work at a load, less
than 75% of that 1RM, right, when we talked about you being able to lift 133 lbs.
Ajay: … so I’ll be less than 75 lbs, or 75 lbs or less?
Brad: No, 75% of your 1RM… So that 133 number.
Ajay: Oh, I got you!
Brad: So this is where we’re going to stand
if we wan to improve our muscular endurance. If we’re looking at hypertrophy, we’re
going to work between 6 and 12 repetitions, okay?
Ajay: What’s hypertrophy?
Brad: Hypertrophy is muscle growth, so that’s when we go from, this guy, to… (give me a flex)
... to, this guy.
Hypertrophy is muscle growth, so this is how we need to train where we want to work within,
so we can elicit that muscular growth. Again, we’re still going to have between 1 and
3 sets. Our rest is going to change a little bit, it’s going to go between 30 to 90 seconds.
We’re doing less reps, but we need longer rest, and that’s because we’re gonna work
at a higher intensity.
Ajay: … I understand.
Brad: So we’re lifting more weight, because we’re lifting more… [laughter]
Because we’re lifting more weight we need to give our body more time to recover.
So now, if we want to work on strength, and strength is you going from you being able
to lift this dumbbell.
Okay, hold it up a little higher.
To this dumbbell, right? And being able to control it, we have to change things even
more. We’re going to work at a maximum of six repetitions, less than 6 reps, realistically.
Again, that one to three number of sets, but my rest is significantly going to change and
go to anywhere form 2 to 5 minutes.
Ajay: That seems a lot longer.
Brad: It is a lot longer because we’re lifting, we’re going to be lifting
a lot more load. We’re doing less reps, but because my range is going to be greater
than 80% of my max, my body’s going to require that amount of time to recover so that I’m
able to do it again the second, and possibly the third set.
Ajay: As fresh as possible from the beginning.
Brad: Exactly. And then as we move into power, power and strength sort of work hand in hand,
but the difference is power is about moving that load as quickly as you possibly can.
Okay, so we’re going to see things change just a little bit. We’re going to do between
1 and 6 repetitions. Right, so this is when your 1 rep max (1RM) can really come into
play, and really help to develop this area, and we’re going to do potentially more sets
the fewer number of reps we’re going to do, we can do more sets in there with our
training volume. Our rest period is going to be, again, 2 to 5 minutes. But, we’re
going to work anywhere between 30 to 70% of our max. Now, the number drops.
Ajay: Why?
Brad: I understand that, because with our power, it’s about speed. Okay, the speed
of movement is what allows us to generate and develop more power.
Ajay: That’s pretty tiring.
Brad: It can be very tiring.
Ajay: I feel it.
Brad: So now that we know how muscle changes, and how muscle contracts, we can look at how
we train to create these different training adaptations so we can work towards our goals.
Does that clear it up?
Ajay: That does clear it up.
Brad: Is there anything we need to add?
Ajay: What happens when you get forearms? We’re all good, I understand.
Brad: Excellent. And, Ashwin, you’re up bud!