Central Nervous System Training

I see it all the time, three guys in the 198lb weight class. One deadlifts 315, one 450, and one 650. All have similar BF%, similar body types. Both feel as though they are lifting at their capacity. How does one explain the fact that for the same muscle density and body physiology one lifter is twice as strong as the next?

"Although the maximal force which a muscle can exert is directly related to its cross-sectional area, there is a poor correlation between increases in strength and muscle size."

Enoka R. Sports Med6:146-168, 1988.

What? Hot damn, that just about throws a big monkey wrench into this whole idea of get bigger to get stronger.

The answer I hear time and again cites the central nervous system. If I remember correctly, the relative strength of a muscle group is due to three factors: muscle density, insertion points, and connection to the central nervous system. Trying to remain in the 198-lb weight class, increasing muscle density stops at a certain point once one maximizes strength at current BF%. Insertion points of the muscle can have a huge difference in the relative strengths of different athletes, but it is something one cannot train to get better at, it is fixed from birth. That leaves the neuro-muscular connection, when the brain or spinal chord fires its commands to the muscle to illicit a response. Supposedly, this is the final frontier of muscular development.

The weightlifting world seems chock full of suggestions to improve neuro-muscular response. All seem to revolve around training for explosive concentric and eccentric to spur this brain-movement relationship that equates moving fast with lifting.

Training routines such as westside-barbell training dedicate half their workouts to training in the low-rep, high-set range with 50% 1RM, essentially conducting the concentric and eccentric as fast as possible. I am currently employing this program, since the efficacy is justified by most of its members recording a combined of 2000 and above. It will be interesting to see if this approach to neuro-muscular development works.


For further research, this is a very interesting read on the effect of the brain on muscular development.

Have fun out there.

The Making of the Strong Fat Man, Part One

Part One: Diet

Big guys are at a tremendous advantage when they decide they want to become a monster at iron moving. Pencil necks have a problem because they need to gain mass, and they have all the vagaries associated with eating a shit ton for the first time, eating the right type of shit ton, and working from square one with muscles that are unused to moving anything other than their piddly 140lb frame.

Great website, by the way.

Fat guys on the other hand, already consume lots of calories. So the ingredients to build muscle are already part of their daily regimen. Also, since they are big their muscles are already preconditioned to larger amounts of strain from moving them around doing fun fat guy things like drinking way more beer than me and embarrassing me with insane choke holds.

Points for?

Lots of calories already present in diet
Already has strong tendons, bones, musculature

Points against?

Need to change where they are getting their calories
Need to combat crushing I'll just sit on the couch syndrome

The first key here is to change the diet by moving away from empty calories and carbohydrates in mass quantities. The good thing is here is the fat man doesn't need to eat less, he just needs to eat different. This is good news to the fat man because, like all men he enjoys to eat. Empty calories and sugar needs to be almost completely eliminated and instead substituted with an absolutely insane quantity of protein. Zoidberg suggests at the beginning of the week, the fat man bake himself 4 or 5 lbs of chicken breasts, cover them with some sort of low-cal sauce (mustards, lemon-pepper, etc.) and stick it in the fridge.

Every time the fat man feels his stomach a-growling, rather than eating chips, pretzels, sweets or other carb-heavy stuff he simply grabs a hunk of chicken and eat it. It is much better for you, and it feeds your muscles. Plus, you'll be eating more animals, something I heartily endorse. You can achieve the same goal by baking/grilling a mass quantity of turkey burgers and lean beef or pork.

The key here is to have these meats available. Notice how I am not condoning the fat man stop eating, or eat less. Just eat different. This is far easier, much more fun (the animals thing), and in the long run healthier. You'll find yourself losing weight from the sheer benefit of the fact that you'll be consuming far more of your calories through protein, rather than fat and carbs.

Also, follow this general rule:

Fats and Proteins = yes!
Protein and Carbs = yes!
Carbs and Fats = no!


So let me summarize Part One, Mission Powerlifting Fat Man of Strength - The diet.

1) Cut out carbs as best you can. No pretzels, chips, breads, white pasta (whole wheat if you can), white rice.

2) No fucking sugar other than booze. Yeah yeah booze has 7 calories per gram, but I am trying to meet people half-way here. A life without beer is not a fun life. But you can definitely cut out sugar as a compromise. Drink Diet soda, the aspartame scare is a goddamn lie.

3) Make a shit ton of meat and keep it in your fridge. Eat that stuff whenever you get hungry rather than resulting to the typical snack. Meat, meat, meat! I recommend a Costco Membership and a big oven. It helps if you aren't a vegetarian. But if you are, you don't belong on my blog.


Coming Soon: Part Two - The Workout of Undeniable Awesomeness.

Stupid Traineo Retard Wednesdays

From the depths of the fitness abyss comes the first installment of the sham that is traineo. Zoidberg has hinted at past rants about this cesspool of self congratulatory circle-jerkers, but without evidence to back up the negative adjectives I so willingly thrust upon you, I am no better than them. Suffice it to say, most of my rants about the ineffectiveness of certain exercise regimens, diet fads, and neurological foibles stem 100% from the idiots that cavort about traineo. They lay heaps of praise on those who manage to run a mile in 14 minutes, or bench 85 lbs.

This excerpt is only a minor mistake, but it hints at two things that bother me on a core level.

1) The use of science as a metaphor. Science is not a metaphor, it is objective fact based on observation, theory, and proof.

2) The attack on my wondersubstance, caffeine.
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HOW TO AVOID THE 10 WORD ENERGY ZAPPERS



I'll summarize what that woman said:
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3. Caffeine. I'm sorry, but caffeine is the big lie. Don't hate me. It's simply the laws of physics. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Caffeine follows this law. Initially you will see a kick of energy from caffeine, but everyone pays the price later in terms of tiredness, insomnia, or irritability. This is obviously a personal choice, but there are many, including myself, who have improved their life by eliminating or decreasing their caffeine intake. Here is an article with both pros and cons to help you decide if you want to kick the caffiene habit.

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I always love it when stupid stupid people try and apply scientific theory to very specific, and completely unrelated circumstances. What this waste of life is trying to do is compare the consumption of caffeine to Newton's third law, which states:

"If a body impinge upon another, and by its force change the motion of the other, that body also (because of the equality of the mutual pressure) will undergo an equal change, in its own motion, toward the contrary part" (thanks wiki)

Now, besides the fact that Newtons 3rd law has been disproven, this comparison doesn't make any sense the way she uses it. The correct interpretation of this law with regards to caffeine statement would be, "energy provided to your body from the chemical absportion and utilization of caffeine is then used by your body to reconsitute and form molecules of caffeine."

In short, you are fucking wrong you lump of congealed grease.

What this female Hulkster meant to say was that caffeine follows the first law of thermodynamics, which states:

"for a thermodynamic cycle the sum of net heat supplied to the system and the net work done by the system is equal to zero. Or, energy cannot be created or destroyed; rather, the amount of energy lost in a steady state process cannot be greater than the amount of energy gained." (again, thanks wiki)

So this would mean that caffeine provides chemical energy to your body, but such energy is not created, merely exchanged through a variety of other biological processes and sooner or later this net expenditure of energy will require more energy uptake in order to balance the equation (like food). So, caffeine will spike your energy level but will require you to consume more energy in order to pay for this increase.

She is once again wrong in assuming that this will immediately manifest itself in the form of tiredness, insomnia, and irritability. These characteristics will only appear if you fail to ingest more energy to account for the fact that your body is running at a deficit (maybe). So as long as you drink a moderate amount of coffee, and eat well, nothing bad will every fucking happen.