Question of Strength - April

A Question of Strength
by Charles Poliquin
4/10/07

http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1525300

I liked this column a bit more than some of the previous ones.

One question I have is what do you do once you have been discovered to have something like plastics in your system? How would you detoxify?

Major props to the rabid wolverine and his jackedness!

Charles do you think athletes need to train their hammies as flexors? You mentioned Lapointe doing the curls and it made me wonder why.

this might be a silly question, but in case there is anyone else wondering, what are some guidlines for establishing what kind of muscle fiber you predominatly are? thanks.

What do you recomend your atheletes drink out of?

Also is there a good way to judge your muscle fiber make-up without expensive testing?

I have got to say that I measure time now by these Polliquin articles. Did anybody ever tell this guy that if he ever gets sick of being a great trainer he can get a gig as a comic. Like these gems:

“Alligators…hung like a light switch”

and this one about salt (actually, I think I’ve seen this product in Whole Foods):

?It should also be affordable. It doesn’t need to come from Tibet, harvested by a blood type AB Buddhist monk who engages his pelvic floor before bending over, tenth out of fourteen children born during a full moon, etc. Good salt is readily available at any health food store. "

I liked the idea of training a bodypart into a completely over-trained state and then recovering for five days to bust past a plateau. I am thinking about trying that in the near future.

D

Charles,

What do you recommend in lieu of the Bradford press?

S

[quote]Dedicated wrote:
I liked the idea of training a bodypart into a completely over-trained state and then recovering for five days to bust past a plateau. I am thinking about trying that in the near future.

D[/quote]

Same here, my chest needs some help.

I liked this article, and CT’s Toolbox article. Definitely implementing some of this stuff soon.

[quote]noquarter1 wrote:
this might be a silly question, but in case there is anyone else wondering, what are some guidlines for establishing what kind of muscle fiber you predominatly are? thanks.[/quote]

x2 on this question.

Poliquin’s “Question of Strength” articles are always full of good info and tips.

I’d like to know more about detoxifying myself of plastics as well!

Regarding your BCAA recommendations, at the dosages you are talking about, a bottle of Biotest BCAA would last me about six workouts. That seems a tad on the spendy side for my budget.

Do you have any recommendations for someone with not quite so much money to spend?

[quote]kkeane wrote:
noquarter1 wrote:
this might be a silly question, but in case there is anyone else wondering, what are some guidlines for establishing what kind of muscle fiber you predominatly are? thanks.

x2 on this question.

[/quote]

Work your 1RM for the Bench Press and then wait 10minutes and perform as many reps as you can at 85% of your 1RM

i.e. 100kgs 1RM

85% = 85kgs

1-3 Reps: Predominantly Fast Twitch
4-6 Reps: Mix
7-10 Reps: Predominantly Slow Twitch
11+ Reps: Extremely Slow Twitch…

As the body has different fiber make ups you have to do this test on more than just the bench (Squats, Curls etc… for example)But you’d probably have to do this on differnt days…

That test is great aswell because it can give you and indication as to what one of poliquins 5 elements you fall within

[quote]S-Lifter wrote:
Charles,

What do you recommend in lieu of the Bradford press?

S[/quote]

Funny thing is, I learned about Brafford Presses years ago from a workout Poliquin had put together in an old MM2K.

Charles Poliquin wrote:

One of my old mentors used to say to me, “If you’re not making progress, overtrain until you’re depressed, then take five days off. Then you’ll grow.”

This is dead on advice. In fact, I just did that a few weeks ago. I got depressed for no reason, skipped a day, set 3 PRs the next. Go figure.

I’ve also done the 10-12 singles for strength he mentions a couple paragraphs farther down (or a modified version of it). He’s right, it takes a cajones the size of texas to do that, but it works. I trained into oblivion for two weeks straight (legs 5x week), and took a week off afterwards. It worked. I probably would have been better off training only the 1st week like that, as the next monday I tripled what had been my rev. band DL max, and it went rapidly downhill all that week. Regardless, that’s cool advice

On Salt–well, ultimately he’s right, sea salt w/ minerals or kosher salt tend to be better than table salt, but his science is off a bit.

Chef Lisa Marie went into detail on the differences between salt types on her “recipes with photos” thread. There’s really no appreciable difference between table salt and kosher salt or sea salt except the addition of minerals.

They are all still NaCl crystals. The different cultivation/processsing makes the crystals smaller in ordinary table salt, but not a whole lot else. Or I could be wrong.

Anyone else have thoughts on the article?

[quote]kkeane wrote:
noquarter1 wrote:
this might be a silly question, but in case there is anyone else wondering, what are some guidlines for establishing what kind of muscle fiber you predominatly are? thanks.

x2 on this question.

[/quote]

Take 85% of your 1RM and determine how many reps you can do with it.
1-5: predominantly fast twitch
6-7: good mix of both
7+: leaning towards slow twitch.

Remember a)this is not super accurate but many coaches, including Charles have used this, or a version of it.
and b)it means predominantly a certain type so use both rep ranges. Just use more of one then the other depending on the results youget.

Also, your chest and biceps might be fast twitch dominant but your quads might not so experiment.

By the way, other coaches consider 1-7 reps fast twitch and 12+ slow twitch dominant but personally I would take the above suggestions.

Hope that helps,

marc

[quote]IamMarqaos wrote:
kkeane wrote:
noquarter1 wrote:
this might be a silly question, but in case there is anyone else wondering, what are some guidlines for establishing what kind of muscle fiber you predominatly are? thanks.

x2 on this question.

Take 85% of your 1RM and determine how many reps you can do with it.
1-5: predominantly fast twitch
6-7: good mix of both
7+: leaning towards slow twitch.

Remember a)this is not super accurate but many coaches, including Charles have used this, or a version of it.
and b)it means predominantly a certain type so use both rep ranges. Just use more of one then the other depending on the results youget.

Also, your chest and biceps might be fast twitch dominant but your quads might not so experiment.

By the way, other coaches consider 1-7 reps fast twitch and 12+ slow twitch dominant but personally I would take the above suggestions.

Hope that helps,

marc[/quote]

But how do you differientiate between IIa and IIb

ha!
Funny. OK, I’ll bite:

Type IIa fibres are very infrequently found in humans so no need to worry.

Marc

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

On Salt–well, ultimately he’s right, sea salt w/ minerals or kosher salt tend to be better than table salt, but his science is off a bit.

Chef Lisa Marie went into detail on the differences between salt types on her “recipes with photos” thread. There’s really no appreciable difference between table salt and kosher salt or sea salt except the addition of minerals.

They are all still NaCl crystals. The different cultivation/processsing makes the crystals smaller in ordinary table salt, but not a whole lot else. Or I could be wrong.[/quote]

I would say that those minerals make a huge difference, wouldn’t you?

“If you’re not making progress, overtrain until you’re depressed, then take five days off. Then you’ll grow.”

That is quite possibly one of the most awesome quotes ever uttered.

I like the piece about salt. Truthfully, I never think too much about salt but, because of this article, it got me questioning my salt to protein intake. What about regards to hypertension, as we hear so readily in the modern media? I smell a topic discussion about salt brewing in my head.

Always a pleasure to read Charles’ stuff. I always learn or question something new. Thanks dude!

I have not understood the rule of 20%
What does it means?
If I have a lagging part I should train it for days in a row until my performance drop of 20%, then rest 5 days?

I could echo a lot of the comments above, but the one thing I found to be a nice trick is the curling of your toes on “off” leg when doing step-ups.

I just did some yesterday and was trying to figure out a better way to force myself to use my working leg and not the “off” one.

I will give it a try and next time and see what kind of results I get.