Top 5 Weight Exercises for Disc Golfers | How I Went From 500ft to 700ft Pt.1

[timothy42b]

I'm hoping to make a video on the mobility side of things as a part of this series before too long generally, some good starting points for dynamic stretches/exercises are anything that improves hip internal rotation, trunk rotation, dorsiflexion, and general shoulder mobility (off the top of my head).

Any mobility recommendations would be worthwhile, especially for older folk like me. I've been watching some of Steph Rose's stuff on instagram, and kneesovertoes has some interesting youtube videos.

 

[Nick481]

Any mobility recommendations would be worthwhile, especially for older folk like me. I've been watching some of Steph Rose's stuff on instagram, and kneesovertoes has some interesting youtube videos.

Noted, thank you for the feedback! It is starting to sound like a lot of people want a video on that and I'd be remiss not to make it a video in this series.

 

[HyzerRoc]

I'm hoping to make a video on the mobility side of things as a part of this series before too long generally, some good starting points for dynamic stretches/exercises are anything that improves hip internal rotation, trunk rotation, dorsiflexion, and general shoulder mobility (off the top of my head).

Please do, there are a lot of videos about mobility out there but only very few specific to discgolf

I would not have thought that the bendability of my foot was something I was ever gonna try and improve but apparently thats a thing thanks

 

[Nick481]

Please do, there are a lot of videos about mobility out there but only very few specific to discgolf

I would not have thought that the bendability of my foot was something I was ever gonna try and improve but apparently thats a thing thanks

You're welcome! Foot strength and ankle mobility are so valuable, your time investment will go to good use

 

[Tinkles]

Great video. A few things I would add/emphasize for the audience are:

1)
The barriers to entry are much lower than you may think. It doesn't take much. There have been some meta analysis that have come out recently on MEV (minimum effective volume) defined by minimum workouts to achieve "meaningful" gains, and it is surprisingly low. Even trained athletes make meaningful gains on as little as 3 sets a week for a given body part. For someone new that can mean just 2 sets will get you meaningful gains. Now I think these are mostly focused on hypertrophy, but strength is correlated significantly.

Using compound exercises (ones that work multiple muscle groups at once) can really make this simple. 2 sets of a squat exercise (squats, lunges, etc..), 2 sets of a hinge exercise (deadlift variations), 2 sets of a push exercise (bench press, pushups, etc..), 2 sets of a pull exercise (row variations, or pullups), and some core work is effectively all you need. That is a total 8 sets a week which can be done in 20 minutes to achieve meaningful gains. That can be 4 days of 5 minutes of work each.

If you are antisocial like me, all of this can be done with a bench and a set of adjustable dumbbells. That's it. And you can find a million sets of those used locally.

2)
He covers some form stuff well, but watch a video from a reputable source about whatever specific variation you are using to make sure you understand the lift and are executing it safely and correctly to avoid injury.

3)
If lifting is new to you, start out with higher reps. We want lower explosive reps for speed/strength, but before you get there, start at 12-20 reps for the first month or two. It takes your neuromuscular system time to figure this out and be able to do the lifts with good form. While your body is figuring that out, start light.

4)
RIR (reps in reserve) is a difficult concept to get right. Most of the science I've read uses timers as the best way to be able to estimate this, which is a huge PITA for an individual. Once you are feeling comfortable, I would try to go to failure. Most likely, your failure will really equal 2 RIR or more. Especially on leg exercises where really going to failure makes you want to pass out and never do another set of squats again. Again start slower with lower weight but as you get comfortable, push a little there.

5)
I personally also started to eat more protein. It is satiating, has a small thermogenic effect, and is needed to maximize muscle growth. If you are standard size, that might be .5g-1g/lb of bodyweight. If you have a high bf%, I have seen recommendations around 1g/cm of height. I have read studies of people dieting and exercising (like 2 sets of leg extensions a week) and with protein supplementation they lost 20 lbs while adding 5lbs of muscle. THat study was on obese folks, but the gains are still insane. An easy way to supplement your protein is to simply add a scoop of casein protein once or twice a day. I tend to not eat breakfast and so have one in the morning to keep protein synthesis up. If you elect to do some resistance training, also have a scoop of whey protein post workout. Casein lasts in your system about 6 hours, so keeps your available amino acids high for a long period of time. Whey protein is a much shorter spike that is useful to maximize protein synthesis post workout.

If you take one of the new weight loss drugs like ozempic, this is especially important. People on these are not hungry and often end up eating what they can stomach, which may be a bag of doritos. This means the weight you are losing is as much muscle as it is fat which is no good. A simple scoop of casein can really help there.

If you want to nerd out on the science, the Stronger By Science podcast is great.

 

[RowingBoats]

Great video. A few things I would add/emphasize for the audience are:

1)
The barriers to entry are much lower than you may think. It doesn't take much. There have been some meta analysis that have come out recently on MEV (minimum effective volume) defined by minimum workouts to achieve "meaningful" gains, and it is surprisingly low. Even trained athletes make meaningful gains on as little as 3 sets a week for a given body part. For someone new that can mean just 2 sets will get you meaningful gains. Now I think these are mostly focused on hypertrophy, but strength is correlated significantly.

Using compound exercises (ones that work multiple muscle groups at once) can really make this simple. 2 sets of a squat exercise (squats, lunges, etc..), 2 sets of a hinge exercise (deadlift variations), 2 sets of a push exercise (bench press, pushups, etc..), 2 sets of a pull exercise (row variations, or pullups), and some core work is effectively all you need. That is a total 8 sets a week which can be done in 20 minutes to achieve meaningful gains. That can be 4 days of 5 minutes of work each.

If you are antisocial like me, all of this can be done with a bench and a set of adjustable dumbbells. That's it. And you can find a million sets of those used locally.

2)
He covers some form stuff well, but watch a video from a reputable source about whatever specific variation you are using to make sure you understand the lift and are executing it safely and correctly to avoid injury.

3)
If lifting is new to you, start out with higher reps. We want lower explosive reps for speed/strength, but before you get there, start at 12-20 reps for the first month or two. It takes your neuromuscular system time to figure this out and be able to do the lifts with good form. While your body is figuring that out, start light.

4)
RIR (reps in reserve) is a difficult concept to get right. Most of the science I've read uses timers as the best way to be able to estimate this, which is a huge PITA for an individual. Once you are feeling comfortable, I would try to go to failure. Most likely, your failure will really equal 2 RIR or more. Especially on leg exercises where really going to failure makes you want to pass out and never do another set of squats again. Again start slower with lower weight but as you get comfortable, push a little there.

5)
I personally also started to eat more protein. It is satiating, has a small thermogenic effect, and is needed to maximize muscle growth. If you are standard size, that might be .5g-1g/lb of bodyweight. If you have a high bf%, I have seen recommendations around 1g/cm of height. I have read studies of people dieting and exercising (like 2 sets of leg extensions a week) and with protein supplementation they lost 20 lbs while adding 5lbs of muscle. THat study was on obese folks, but the gains are still insane. An easy way to supplement your protein is to simply add a scoop of casein protein once or twice a day. I tend to not eat breakfast and so have one in the morning to keep protein synthesis up. If you elect to do some resistance training, also have a scoop of whey protein post workout. Casein lasts in your system about 6 hours, so keeps your available amino acids high for a long period of time. Whey protein is a much shorter spike that is useful to maximize protein synthesis post workout.

If you take one of the new weight loss drugs like ozempic, this is especially important. People on these are not hungry and often end up eating what they can stomach, which may be a bag of doritos. This means the weight you are losing is as much muscle as it is fat which is no good. A simple scoop of casein can really help there.

If you want to nerd out on the science, the Stronger By Science podcast is great.

It cannot be overstated how much better spending a little bit of time staying in shape is compared to literally spending no time on it ever. And you are correct, body weight exercise is all anyone needs in order to see tremendous benefits.

Watching that video that got posted in the other thread was legitimately shocking to me. Watching healthy adult men struggle to do 5 pushups?! Mind blowing. I would bet money that my wife can do 30 full blown well formed push ups, and all she ever does is at home youtube video workouts (to be fair, she watches Heather Robertson, and that lady kicks my butt when I join her). There is absolutely no way Simon and Eagle would not benefit from a very rudimentary routine like you are describing (not sure if they are still that bad, that looks like they were pretty young...which makes it even weirder).

Wherever your physical fitness level is at now, even if you feel that you are at a point where you cannot do a single push up, just start! Start with a variation that eases the load, and start as small as you want. But for real, start something, and stick with it, and I promise it will help your game.

 

[Nick481]

Great video. A few things I would add/emphasize for the audience are:

1)
The barriers to entry are much lower than you may think. It doesn't take much. There have been some meta analysis that have come out recently on MEV (minimum effective volume) defined by minimum workouts to achieve "meaningful" gains, and it is surprisingly low. Even trained athletes make meaningful gains on as little as 3 sets a week for a given body part. For someone new that can mean just 2 sets will get you meaningful gains. Now I think these are mostly focused on hypertrophy, but strength is correlated significantly.

Using compound exercises (ones that work multiple muscle groups at once) can really make this simple. 2 sets of a squat exercise (squats, lunges, etc..), 2 sets of a hinge exercise (deadlift variations), 2 sets of a push exercise (bench press, pushups, etc..), 2 sets of a pull exercise (row variations, or pullups), and some core work is effectively all you need. That is a total 8 sets a week which can be done in 20 minutes to achieve meaningful gains. That can be 4 days of 5 minutes of work each.

If you are antisocial like me, all of this can be done with a bench and a set of adjustable dumbbells. That's it. And you can find a million sets of those used locally.

2)
He covers some form stuff well, but watch a video from a reputable source about whatever specific variation you are using to make sure you understand the lift and are executing it safely and correctly to avoid injury.

3)
If lifting is new to you, start out with higher reps. We want lower explosive reps for speed/strength, but before you get there, start at 12-20 reps for the first month or two. It takes your neuromuscular system time to figure this out and be able to do the lifts with good form. While your body is figuring that out, start light.

4)
RIR (reps in reserve) is a difficult concept to get right. Most of the science I've read uses timers as the best way to be able to estimate this, which is a huge PITA for an individual. Once you are feeling comfortable, I would try to go to failure. Most likely, your failure will really equal 2 RIR or more. Especially on leg exercises where really going to failure makes you want to pass out and never do another set of squats again. Again start slower with lower weight but as you get comfortable, push a little there.

5)
I personally also started to eat more protein. It is satiating, has a small thermogenic effect, and is needed to maximize muscle growth. If you are standard size, that might be .5g-1g/lb of bodyweight. If you have a high bf%, I have seen recommendations around 1g/cm of height. I have read studies of people dieting and exercising (like 2 sets of leg extensions a week) and with protein supplementation they lost 20 lbs while adding 5lbs of muscle. THat study was on obese folks, but the gains are still insane. An easy way to supplement your protein is to simply add a scoop of casein protein once or twice a day. I tend to not eat breakfast and so have one in the morning to keep protein synthesis up. If you elect to do some resistance training, also have a scoop of whey protein post workout. Casein lasts in your system about 6 hours, so keeps your available amino acids high for a long period of time. Whey protein is a much shorter spike that is useful to maximize protein synthesis post workout.

If you take one of the new weight loss drugs like ozempic, this is especially important. People on these are not hungry and often end up eating what they can stomach, which may be a bag of doritos. This means the weight you are losing is as much muscle as it is fat which is no good. A simple scoop of casein can really help there.

If you want to nerd out on the science, the Stronger By Science podcast is great.

I agree with you on those points and thank you for providing some extra info for people interacting with the content and this thread! I have a supplementary document linked in the video's description that helps with some extra programming info as well.

I'm hoping to make more videos in the future to allow for time to cover some of the things you bring up here since they are all really useful for people trying to be healthy and also perform well

 

[Nick481]

It cannot be overstated how much better spending a little bit of time staying in shape is compared to literally spending no time on it ever. And you are correct, body weight exercise is all anyone needs in order to see tremendous benefits.

Watching that video that got posted in the other thread was legitimately shocking to me. Watching healthy adult men struggle to do 5 pushups?! Mind blowing. I would bet money that my wife can do 30 full blown well formed push ups, and all she ever does is at home youtube video workouts (to be fair, she watches Heather Robertson, and that lady kicks my butt when I join her). There is absolutely no way Simon and Eagle would not benefit from a very rudimentary routine like you are describing (not sure if they are still that bad, that looks like they were pretty young...which makes it even weirder).

Wherever your physical fitness level is at now, even if you feel that you are at a point where you cannot do a single push up, just start! Start with a variation that eases the load, and start as small as you want. But for real, start something, and stick with it, and I promise it will help your game.

Couldn't agree more! It can be so much harder to get back into fitness and sports when we fall out of practice for a long time - I experienced this in the worst way with my downward injury spiral from 8th grade through college and it's taken me until age 26+ to get back on the track I want to be on.

Even just a microdose of good healthy exercise and strength work is so much better than nothing.

 

[HyzerRoc]

Kuoksa approves your workout

 

[Nick481]

Kuoksa approves your workout

Haha that's awesome to see him doing the high bar speed pulls.

Looks like a big strong athletic dude, no wonder he throws so far.

 

[axion]

Thanks for the video. Great distance and its great you are training etc.

I would have to disagree with most of the video though.

The exercise selections and rep ranges are, not great.

Rep Ranges:

For the untrained, or minimally trained person, size + strength are the same thing. You may as well keep them in a lower intensity, higher volume situation. a Linear progression of 5x10, increasing weight each week for weeks or months would make them stronger, larger and be done quicker than playing around at a low rep range.

Exercise Selection:

A unilateral movement, will require more stabilization and result in less force production. Just put the bar on your back and squat. A unilateral squat pattern is a great supplemental movement, but not something to base anything around. A Trap bar deadlift is a waste of time. Just deadlift, its an easy pattern to learn, its loading potentially is high, its stability is high, and it will train your posterior chain better than a trap bar, and the squat is already training your quads better than a trap bar. Dip. Good movement, no complaints. I would say, i feel a bench press is an easier movement to progress on, but I understand most people have 0 idea how to bench press. DB row. Again, this is a really good supplemental movement, but a proper pend-lay row would allow increased loads, less time requirements and since its fully controlled its easier to understand your progressing, not just cheating the movement more than the week before. I would also just tell people to spam pullups until they may die, then do it again.


If I was to give everyone in this forum a training plan it would be eat better, sleep more and just show up M/W/F, and do 5x10 Squat/bench/deadlift, adding 5lbs each session until you cant, then I would tell you to just do it again but add 5lbs each week, and when that stopped working, you now have some training and we can talk about proper periodization.

Sorry if any of that sounds rude or anything I do not mean it to be, and I really enjoyed your content.

 

[Nick481]

Thanks for the video. Great distance and its great you are training etc.

I would have to disagree with most of the video though.

The exercise selections and rep ranges are, not great.

Rep Ranges:

For the untrained, or minimally trained person, size + strength are the same thing. You may as well keep them in a lower intensity, higher volume situation. a Linear progression of 5x10, increasing weight each week for weeks or months would make them stronger, larger and be done quicker than playing around at a low rep range.

Exercise Selection:

A unilateral movement, will require more stabilization and result in less force production. Just put the bar on your back and squat. A unilateral squat pattern is a great supplemental movement, but not something to base anything around. A Trap bar deadlift is a waste of time. Just deadlift, its an easy pattern to learn, its loading potentially is high, its stability is high, and it will train your posterior chain better than a trap bar, and the squat is already training your quads better than a trap bar. Dip. Good movement, no complaints. I would say, i feel a bench press is an easier movement to progress on, but I understand most people have 0 idea how to bench press. DB row. Again, this is a really good supplemental movement, but a proper pend-lay row would allow increased loads, less time requirements and since its fully controlled its easier to understand your progressing, not just cheating the movement more than the week before. I would also just tell people to spam pullups until they may die, then do it again.


If I was to give everyone in this forum a training plan it would be eat better, sleep more and just show up M/W/F, and do 5x10 Squat/bench/deadlift, adding 5lbs each session until you cant, then I would tell you to just do it again but add 5lbs each week, and when that stopped working, you now have some training and we can talk about proper periodization.

Sorry if any of that sounds rude or anything I do not mean it to be, and I really enjoyed your content.

You're welcome! And no worries I think it's good we have the ability to have dialogue about training methodologies, etc.

It's probably something we will never fundamentally agree on, since most of the training corrections you outlined ignores or contradicts many of the explanations I give during the video for why the movements are selected and why the set and rep ranges were selected. So, I'm not sure if you watched the whole video or read the supplemental programming/progressive overload document that is linked in the video and description.

Beginners will certainly benefit from a basic slow twitch biased hypertrophy 5x10 program with bilateral compounds, but people trying to maximize results are the commentors who asked me to make the video, so I gave them an outline of the meat and potatoes of my weight training that got me to 700ft (plus a sub 11 100m, 4.39 40 yard dash, 40" vert, etc).

A conventional deadlift has a higher technical barrier to entry than a trap bar. And, foot strength, glute med strength, and balance skills go a long way for throwing backhands and are not well trained in a bilateral deadlift or squat. So, combining the single leg squat with a higher hip start biased/posterior chain dominant trap bar dead is a nice combo to get all of those performance vectors. If hinging the hips correctly, the trap bar does not go into the anterior chain much more than a barbell deadlift.

The increased loading on the spine and CNS is why I avoided a bilateral row, as well as losing out on some natural trunk rotation and scapula retraction/protraction. Anytime we can avoid loading the entire body and spine with massive loads because a bilateral demands it (without making huge sacrifices in overall force production), I like to mix it into a program. We don't have unlimited CNS capital to work with.

I usually don't bother with rebuttals on forums when it comes to S&C methodology, but felt it was necessary because of how dogmatic and powerlifting biased your answer was.

 

[Brychanus]

Kuoksa approves your workout

This video was awesome. I appreciated how he also explicitly talked about a base of peak strength & its relationship to explosiveness & how he tapers from max strength work to emphasize speed as the season nears.

I'm very curious about the dynamic/fast twitch resistive component of Kuoksa's routine, especially the loaded deadlift jumps. To get that vertical with that kind of load barefoot for consecutive reps is a serious athletic feat.

For context, I was mostly a "slow twitch" lifter and responded much faster to bench presses than other exercises (body type was likely a factor there). Tinkles' summary above seems about right, and just a couple sessions per week went a long way for me. I spent the last few months regaining my old leg (thought mostly slow twitchy) strength with a much bigger emphasis on one-legged moves that recruited core mobility, which was worth it for disc golf and daily life. That is building some of the "base" Kuoksa talked about.

In the last couple weeks I learned about tapering toward the speed end of the spectrum as I get back to throwing. I already started noticing a difference between throwing after a week involving any kind of heaving lifting vs. lower weight/more functional/"explosive" moves.

For people who had more explosive/fast twitch components of your training in other athletics (especially people who were competitive in e.g. college sports), how much/often did you work on it in your 20s? If you've kept up with it into middle age or later, what did you modify in terms of frequency/intensity/recovery? Do you spend much time on strength during the season, or just work on maintenance and maintaining mobility, form, and speed?

From what I've researched on my own, it seems like the "something is better than nothing" advice still works here, but I'm just enjoying learning from people about this who started with far more athletic backgrounds and maximizing what time I have to work on it.

Had thoughts/Qs on Axion vs. Nick here but I'll wait 'til their exchange is over.

 

[axion]

You're welcome! And no worries I think it's good we have the ability to have dialogue about training methodologies, etc.

Lol, it's all good. I get you with the not posting on forums thing, I tend to keep my lifting opinions to myself since its going to hard to sway my education, training history and training experience. Id like to now rant about talking about CNS, in an untrained population but ill acquiesce.

and

 

[Nick481]

This video was awesome. I appreciated how he also explicitly talked about a base of peak strength & its relationship to explosiveness & how he tapers from max strength work to emphasize speed as the season nears.

I'm very curious about the dynamic/fast twitch resistive component of Kuoksa's routine, especially the loaded deadlift jumps. To get that vertical with that kind of load barefoot for consecutive reps is a serious athletic feat.

For context, I was mostly a "slow twitch" lifter and responded much faster to bench presses than other exercises (body type was likely a factor there). Tinkles' summary above seems about right, and just a couple sessions per week went a long way for me. I spent the last few months regaining my old leg (thought mostly slow twitchy) strength with a much bigger emphasis on one-legged moves that recruited core mobility, which was worth it for disc golf and daily life. That is building some of the "base" Kuoksa talked about.

In the last couple weeks I learned about tapering toward the speed end of the spectrum as I get back to throwing. I already started noticing a difference between throwing after a week involving any kind of heaving lifting vs. lower weight/more functional/"explosive" moves.

For people who had more explosive/fast twitch components of your training in other athletics (especially people who were competitive in e.g. college sports), how much/often did you work on it in your 20s? If you've kept up with it into middle age or later, what did you modify in terms of frequency/intensity/recovery? Do you spend much time on strength during the season, or just work on maintenance and maintaining mobility, form, and speed?

From what I've researched on my own, it seems like the "something is better than nothing" advice still works here, but I'm just enjoying learning from people about this who started with far more athletic backgrounds and maximizing what time I have to work on it.

Had thoughts/Qs on Axion vs. Nick here but I'll wait 'til their exchange is over.

What Kuoksa and you mentioned is really solid, it sounds like he is using block periodization to some extent where he builds a foundation in the offseason and then reduces loads and increases velocity as he gets closer. Many football and track athletes use a similar concept.

In the case of track, the weightlifting doesn't usually change a ton from offseason to in season, but the volume drastically reduces especially towards championship season (to a minimum maintenance dose and sometimes even below minimum maintenance). This allows for super compensation where the body overshoots beyond its previous performance level due to not being in a chronic recovery deficit anymore.

I hate to give an overly generic answer, but to your question about how much to do of everything - the simplest way is to use somewhat static/linear periodization where you do a little bit of everything every week. Maybe some prehab, some bodybuilding, some strength, and some power work all micro dosed throughout the week. I actually did this all the way through my 2022 track season after hearing about some coaches doing it, and ran freaky times in practice (sub 15 flying 150m) while staying healthy (I did pull back volume for 3-4 days to super compensate for races).

But, many ways to get it done! I think super long term block periodization where we go away from base work for half a year or so is a bit counterproductive for anyone but the most specialized speed athletes, since we can start to lose some of the performance vectors that keep us well rounded and healthy.

 

[Nick481]

Id like to now rant about talking about CNS, in an untrained population but ill acquiesce.

and

Managing CNS recovery is also important for gen pop and beginners just like for advanced athletes. Anyone in high school 7 hours a day, doing college workloads, or doing a 9-5 job has a ton of mental stress and fatigue that uses a lot of the same elements from the CNS.

This is why we are always stronger on a non work day than we are after a hard stressful day of work. If someone has to be a parent, it becomes even more paramount. All of these things pull water from a similar bucket and if we let that go dry, it really hampers performance and progress.

Sure advanced lifters can extract a bit more from their CNS than beginners, but it's not a good reason to give beginners unoptimized programming and make their lives harder.

 

[axion]

> Managing CNS recovery is also important for gen pop and beginners just like for advanced athletes.

When you say stuff like this, its really hard to have a serious discussion. I would urge you to talk in terms of 'cumulative fatigue' . Your ability to discern CNS fatigue from PNS fatigue from micro-trauma, from the hormonol response of ATP depletion to plain old im not eating and sleeping enough is impossible. I have no evidence that a novice lifter has the ability to sustain enough volume to ever worry about CNS fatigue. If we were talking about running marathons, sure.

> it's not a good reason to give beginners unoptimized programming and make their lives harder.

I agree.

But Ill do my post to stop posting because im distracting away from your video, which was a really well done video.

 

[Brychanus]

What Kuoksa and you mentioned is really solid, it sounds like he is using block periodization to some extent where he builds a foundation in the offseason and then reduces loads and increases velocity as he gets closer. Many football and track athletes use a similar concept.

In the case of track, the weightlifting doesn't usually change a ton from offseason to in season, but the volume drastically reduces especially towards championship season (to a minimum maintenance dose and sometimes even below minimum maintenance). This allows for super compensation where the body overshoots beyond its previous performance level due to not being in a chronic recovery deficit anymore.

I hate to give an overly generic answer, but to your question about how much to do of everything - the simplest way is to use somewhat static/linear periodization where you do a little bit of everything every week. Maybe some prehab, some bodybuilding, some strength, and some power work all micro dosed throughout the week. I actually did this all the way through my 2022 track season after hearing about some coaches doing it, and ran freaky times in practice (sub 15 flying 150m) while staying healthy (I did pull back volume for 3-4 days to super compensate for races).

But, many ways to get it done! I think super long term block periodization where we go away from base work for half a year or so is a bit counterproductive for anyone but the most specialized speed athletes, since we can start to lose some of the performance vectors that keep us well rounded and healthy.

Thanks for this - I can take some of my specific case offline, but maybe this works (?) as a rough example for the "weekend warrior" hobbyist or tournament player who also wants to remain well-rounded:

Offseason:
-Form (form, and more form)
-Peak strength & volume training, shore up relevant & weak areas as needed
-Resistive "fast twitch" and functional movement training

"Preseason" (~2-4 weeks)
-Shift to form maintenance and minor adjustments to address specific problems
-Tapering from strength & volume toward strength maintenance
-Emphasize fast twitch and functional movement training & preserve form

Onseason*:
-Mon/Tues: Sustain reduced volume but still emphasize new strength & strength maintenance. Continue to emphasize any areas of weakness. Allow sufficient recovery for compensation/performance overshoots.
-Weds/Thurs: Mobility, rhythm, quickness, power, some throwing & form work/maintenance.
-Friday: Recovery, visualization, low impact repetitions.
-Weekend: Game time

Managing CNS recovery is also important for gen pop and beginners just like for advanced athletes. Anyone in high school 7 hours a day, doing college workloads, or doing a 9-5 job has a ton of mental stress and fatigue that uses a lot of the same elements from the CNS.

This is why we are always stronger on a non work day than we are after a hard stressful day of work. If someone has to be a parent, it becomes even more paramount. All of these things pull water from a similar bucket and if we let that go dry, it really hampers performance and progress.

This is an ok general takeaway. Though I will admit my initial reaction is similar to Axion where I hesitate whenever I hear people talk about the CNS or CNS recovery. I'm a neuroscientist by day trade. Here, it does depend on what we're talking about. My main area of specialization is in brain circuits that manage cognitive load and difficult tasks during decision making in healthy and clinical samples, which got me interested in fatigue.

Incidentally, one of my students is about to graduate with her Clinical PhD studying cognitive vs. physical fatigue, so I'm sure there are things we could discuss more deeply to avoid bunk concepts on that topic in particular. There are many, and it is still incredibly contentious even among the people taking your NIH dollars to study it very seriously. Physicians, cognitive neuroscientists, bioengineers, and physical trainers all take very different approaches to the problem.

 

[Nick481]

> Managing CNS recovery is also important for gen pop and beginners just like for advanced athletes.

When you say stuff like this, its really hard to have a serious discussion. I would urge you to talk in terms of 'cumulative fatigue' . Your ability to discern CNS fatigue from PNS fatigue from micro-trauma, from the hormonol response of ATP depletion to plain old im not eating and sleeping enough is impossible. I have no evidence that a novice lifter has the ability to sustain enough volume to ever worry about CNS fatigue. If we were talking about running marathons, sure.

> it's not a good reason to give beginners unoptimized programming and make their lives harder.

I agree.

But Ill do my post to stop posting because im distracting away from your video, which was a really well done video.

No problem! I'm glad we got to have the discussion and thanks again for watching and for the nice words on the video.

 

[Nick481]

Thanks for this - I can take some of my specific case offline, but maybe this works (?) as a rough example for the "weekend warrior" hobbyist or tournament player who also wants to remain well-rounded:

Offseason:
-Form (form, and more form)
-Peak strength & volume training, shore up relevant & weak areas as needed
-Resistive "fast twitch" and functional movement training

"Preseason" (~2-4 weeks)
-Shift to form maintenance and minor adjustments to address specific problems
-Tapering from strength & volume toward strength maintenance
-Emphasize fast twitch and functional movement training & preserve form

Onseason*:
-Mon/Tues: Sustain reduced volume but still emphasize new strength & strength maintenance. Continue to emphasize any areas of weakness. Allow sufficient recovery for compensation/performance overshoots.
-Weds/Thurs: Mobility, rhythm, quickness, power, some throwing & form work/maintenance.
-Friday: Recovery, visualization, low impact repetitions.
-Weekend: Game time

This is an ok general takeaway. Though I will admit my initial reaction is similar to Axion where I hesitate whenever I hear people talk about the CNS or CNS recovery. I'm a neuroscientist by day trade. Here, it does depend on what we're talking about. My main area of specialization is in brain circuits that manage cognitive load and difficult tasks during decision making in healthy and clinical samples, which got me interested in fatigue.

Incidentally, one of my students is about to graduate with her Clinical PhD studying cognitive vs. physical fatigue, so I'm sure there are things we could discuss more deeply to avoid bunk concepts on that topic in particular. There are many, and it is still incredibly contentious even among the people taking your NIH dollars to study it very seriously. Physicians, cognitive neuroscientists, bioengineers, and physical trainers all take very different approaches to the problem.

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I really like that program you outlined! Compartmentalizes form changes to when they should happen, and the in-season component has really nice tapering down of the heavier loading/more fatiguing as you go thru the week and towards game day.

Also love the Friday visualization work. It reminds me of the shakeout sessions sprinters do the day before meets.

That's super cool that you are a neuroscientist - I bet you'll be able to help me with a lot of the terminology and specific physiology. Totally understand where you are coming from as I was pretty general about how I said the CNS stuff.

I'm mainly referring to the depletion of neurotransmitters from synapses (in brain and spine) and whatever other stuff happens from repetitive forceful muscle contractions, but I'm sure there is a lot of other stuff going on that you know much more about.

A lot of my background with it just comes from tried and true empirical evidence from S&C coaches over the decades, personal experience, and also Andrew Huberman's resources on his podcast but I'd love to learn more about it since it's so impactful to what I'm trying to do with sports.

Something I am curious about, is when we are exhausted from more mentally dominant work and then push it in the weight room (and do whatever it takes to hit the target numbers), I always feel exponentially more fatigue/limited ability to produce mental and physical outcomes, as well as drastically increased need for sleep. Do you and your peers think there may be some or lots of overlap between the neural pathways used for purely mental and purely motor-related functions (such that those synapses are both getting depleted at similar times, etc) or is it just overall brain "exhaustion" that causes the inhibitions?