March Newsletter (2025)

Posted

Happy fool’s Spring to all those who celebrate!

In This Newsletter

Fill the Sleeves

Current Training Phase

Housekeeping

Fill The Sleeves

For the month of February, we brought back the Fill the Sleeves Campaign, benefiting the Best Friends Animal Society. We always have a great time watching everyone work on their consistency with Steve’s fun(crazy?) arm finishers. 

Friendly reminder to start bringing in your cash or check donations – please make checks out to Best Friends Animal Society. If you wish to donate by card, there will be a small service fee of $1.25. 

 All donations due by March 20th. 

Current Training Phase

Every year we like to regress to progress. We’re halfway through our winter program which is one of the most important times of year for training. As we’ve done for the last 3 years, the winter program is written to re-build the foundations of the upper body, lean body mass, range of motion, movement patterns, and work capacity. 

Working this foundational programming builds more muscle mass with more range of motion or flexibility. It also re-creates neurological adaptations, leading to stronger currents from the brain to the muscle, giving us a higher muscle activation (17,18,19). Additionally, producing faster currents from the brain to the muscles gives us faster and more reactive movement patterns (17,18,19). While improvement in muscle mass and activation is important, it’s also key to re-learn movement patterns and practice them to enhance growth for the remainder of the year. If we don’t use it, we lose it, and it can be easy to stay focused solely on the movements we’re good at. By using regressive loading schemes, we can add more force to the movement and maintain activation for a period of time (17,18). Then we can progress each movement with better form, better activation, and less risk for injury. Most of you have experienced this firsthand and this is the main reason you were so sore at the beginning of the block.  

Block I
  • More reps – Hypertrophy 
  • Basic loading schemes – Added muscle activation and force output 
  • Heavy posterior chain activation – Eccentric Nordics & heavy glute bridges  
  • Heavy upper body posterior – Heavy pull ups & chin ups (less reps) 
  • Refining in lifting technique – Injury prevention & mitigation  
  • Focusing on simple movements with more engagement from the mind to the muscle – Higher muscle activation and coordination 
Periodization Scheme 
  • Linear
  • Undulating
  • Tier System
Block II

Building off the foundations of Block I, we’re now focusing on velocity, moving weight fast with great form. Velocity based training has been shown to be one of the most effective periodization schemes to enhance performance outside the gym (4,12,16). For example, when you’re skiing or cycling. We are also focusing on the intent of the lifts, not just lifting for the sake of it. If we’re moving our weight percentages, with intention, at a quicker pace through the dictated range of motion, we will inherently activate muscles at a higher rate (4,16). This develops muscle power faster and burns more calories (4,16). Think of it like driving a car 100 mph vs 40 mph. You’re going to burn more gas going 100 mph.  

Our accessory work, during this block, will be in an auto regulation phase. This means you can take some of these lifts closer to failure, in a very safe way, and progress week by week.  

What to expect: 
  • Squats – Front or back squats with velocity (speed and intent) 
  • Bench Press – Barbell or dumbbell with tempo (slow on the way down) 
  • Deadlift – Velocity (speed and Intent) 
  • Accessory lifts – Last set to failure on some movements 
Periodization Scheme
  • Undulating
  • Conjugate
  • Autoregulation
  • Tier System
  • Triphasic

This phase will lead us into a max week around mid-March

References

1-Rebelo, A., Pereira, J. R., & Valente-dos-Santos, J. (2023). Effects of a preseason triphasic resistance training program on athletic performance in elite volleyball players—an observational study. German Journal of Exercise and Sport Research, 53(2), 163-170. 

2-Appleby, B. B., Cormack, S. J., & Newton, R. U. (2019). Specificity and transfer of lower-body strength: influence of bilateral or unilateral lower-body resistance training. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 33(2), 318-326. 

3-Cook, C. J., Beaven, C. M., & Kilduff, L. P. (2013). Three weeks of eccentric training combined with overspeed exercises enhances power and running speed performance gains in trained athletes. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 27(5), 1280-1286. 

4-Pagaduan, J., Schoenfeld, B. J., & Pojskic, H. (2019). Systematic review and meta-analysis on the effect of contrast training on vertical jump performance. Strength & Conditioning Journal, 41(3), 63-78. 

5-Drinkwater, E. J., Moore, N. R., & Bird, S. P. (2012). Effects of changing from full range of motion to partial range of motion on squat kinetics. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 26(4), 890-896. 

6-Oue, A., Saito, M., & Iimura, Y. (2019). Effect of short‐term endurance training on venous compliance in the calf and forearm differs between continuous and interval exercise in humans. Physiological reports, 7(17), e14211. 

7-Losnegard, T., Mikkelsen, K., Rønnestad, B. R., Hallén, J., Rud, B., & Raastad, T. (2011). The effect of heavy strength training on muscle mass and physical performance in elite cross-country skiers. Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports, 21(3), 389-401. 

8-Hoff, J., Helgerud, J., & Wisloeff, U. L. R. I. K. (1999). Maximal strength training improves work economy in trained female cross-country skiers. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 31, 870-877. 

9-Stöggl, T., & Holmberg, H. C. (2022). A systematic review of the effects of strength and power training on performance in cross-country skiers. Journal of Sports Science & Medicine, 21(4), 555. 

10-Beattie, K., Kenny, I. C., Lyons, M., & Carson, B. P. (2014). The effect of strength training on performance in endurance athletes. Sports Medicine, 44, 845-865. 

11-Hughes, D. C., Ellefsen, S., & Baar, K. (2018). Adaptations to endurance and strength training. Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in medicine, 8(6), a029769. 

12- McGuigan, M. R., Wright, G. A., & Fleck, S. J. (2012). Strength training for athletes: does it really help sports performance?. International journal of sports physiology and performance, 7(1), 2-5. 

13- Yang, J., Christophi, C. A., Farioli, A., Baur, D. M., Moffatt, S., Zollinger, T. W., & Kales, S. N. (2019). Association between push-up exercise capacity and future cardiovascular events among active adult men. JAMA network open, 2(2), e188341-e188341. 

14- Carbone, S., Kirkman, D. L., Garten, R. S., Rodriguez-Miguelez, P., Artero, E. G., Lee, D. C., & Lavie, C. J. (2020). Muscular strength and cardiovascular disease: an updated state-of-the-art narrative review. Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention, 40(5), 302-309. 

15- Ripley, N. J., Comfort, P., & McMahon, J. J. (2022). Relationships Between Modifiable Risk Factors of Hamstring Strain Injury. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 10-1519. 

16- Zhang, X., Feng, S., Peng, R., & Li, H. (2022). The role of velocity-based training (VBT) in enhancing athletic performance in trained individuals: A meta-analysis of controlled trials. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(15), 9252 

17-Škarabot, J., Brownstein, C. G., Casolo, A., Del Vecchio, A., & Ansdell, P. (2021). The knowns and unknowns of neural adaptations to resistance training. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 121, 675-685.

18-Afsharipour B, Manzur N, Duchcherer J et al (2020) Estimation of self-sustained activity produced by persistent inward currents using firing rate profiles of multiple motor units in humans. J Neurophysiol124:63–85. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00194.2020 

19-Del Vecchio A, Casolo A, Negro F et al (2019) The increase in muscle force after 4 weeks of strength training is mediated by adaptations in motor unit recruitment and rate coding. J Physiol 597:1873–1887. https://doi.org/10.1113/JP277250 

Housekeeping

We are heading into cold and flu season and with that comes sniffles, sneezes, and coughs. As a general reminder, if you are symptomatic with any cold or flu like symptoms, regardless of COVID 19 potential and bearing in mind all other potential viruses, please stay home and focus your energies toward getting better. Along these lines, please also be mindful that we provide training services to a diverse population and with that we have several members that have known underlying, non-contagious, conditions that may cause coughing or other symptoms that may mimic aspects of infection. Our team is generally aware of these individual’s circumstances and want to ensure they have the same access to maintain and improve their health and fitness. This note will continue to be in our newsletters during cold and flu season, as a general reminder