Training the Core in the Sagittal Plane Part II: Performance

Welcome back for Part II of our Training the Core in the Sagittal Plane series. If you missed Part I, be sure to go give it a quick read. The info in that will really help you better understand the material we’re going over today, and improve your ability to think critically about training the “core.”

The Training Process

While being able to riddle off some anatomy is great, it doesn’t mean anything if you can’t relate it back to training and get people a training effect.

Like all things, the training process can be broken down into three major steps:

  • Learn/Teach
  • Train
  • Integrate

This process is something everyone has experienced before, and learning to ride a bike provides a great visual for understanding the separate steps. You start off (at least most people do) with training wheels because you need to give your brain an opportunity to learn (an extra bonus provided by training wheels is that they decrease threat, but that’s a topic for another time). Eventually, as you log more and more hours, the training wheels come off and you get to start experiencing the real thing.

But you still aren’t crushing it yet. It’s not like the training wheels come off and you immediately hop into full fledged down hill racing, or start launching yourself off ramps in the backyard. You still have to practice and train.

After playing around with the real thing for a while, and again acquiring very important hours of exposure for the brain to learn, you start stepping it up and doing some of the sexier things you see on TV.

This is all part of the process, and whenever you’re attempting to learn a new physical skill you and/or your athletes will have to go through it as well.

Now…let’s relate this all back to the core.

Step 1: Learn

Before you can get to what most people would consider the sexy part of training (deadlifting, jumping and doing other such things), you must first give yourself and/or your athletes the chance to learn. In other words, you need to give the brain access to experiences and outcomes so it can begin adapting.

For example, in Part I I briefly touched on what we’re looking for when it comes to core control and strength: the ability to keep your ribs down and pelvis underneath you.

So, go ahead and do that….

Chances are you can’t (unless you’ve been coached through it before) because you don’t know what it feels like. The position is very foreign, and you’re attempting to find it without a map.

Thus, we need to give you a map. We need to figure out where you are so we can properly teach you how to get there, and one of the best places to start is with breathing.

Yes…breathing, and in particular learning to exhale because if you can truly exhale then you’re very close to regaining control over the sagittal plane. In other words, exhaling gives you abs. I’m going to repeat that one more time just so we both know how important it is: exhaling gives you abs.

And it gives you abs because while your internal obliques, external obliques, and transverse abdominis are pushing air out (aka they’re exhalers), they are also bringing your ribs down and pelvis underneath you (sound familiar?). If that doesn’t make sense, look back at the pictures in Part I and envision what happens as those muscles shorten.

Here’s the issue though: most people are terrible exhalers and need some help learning how to exhale again.

Enter our friend the balloon.

*I’d like to pause here for a second to briefly touch on


(The Postural Restoration Institute) because the balloon and everything else we’re talking about today draws heavily on their principles. If you aren’t familiar with PRI, then please go take a course. I can’t recommend it enough, and I’m not going to be going down that rabbit hole today for a handful reasons. The most important of which being that I’m not qualified to do so. It’s a monster of a rabbit hole and I’m going to let smarter people than me teach about it.

The balloon is a wonderful teaching tool because it provides resistance as you exhale, in turn forcing you to actually use your abs to get air out. You may laugh, but I’ve seen plenty of people (athletes I may add) who honestly can’t blow up a balloon.

So…here’s a quick tutorial on how to blow up a balloon:

And here are a few great exercise options to get you started (you can realistically implement the balloon into any exercise we’re going over today to help make sure you are appropriately exhaling):

  1. All Four Belly Lift and progressions

While the all four belly lift may seem like its over shooting a little on the flexion piece of the equation, you have to remember that I’m assuming we’re dealing with someone who has lost the sagittal plane. In other words, I’m assuming we have a bilaterally extended individual who has no idea how to flex and breath, so I need to re-establish that first before addressing other needs.

Also, let’s think through what’s happening from an anatomy standpoint. In particular, let’s revisit our good friend the serratus and appreciate how the reach in this exercise is helping to draw your rib backs, thus allowing you to better use your abs.

In review: serratus + obliques + transverse abdomins = winning.

  1. 3 Month Breathing with Band Pulldown

Remember how we’re attempting to give people a map? Well think of the All Four Belly lift as a system reset (in other words teaching them how to flex and breath), which then gives you the opportunity to create a new map with an exercise like 3 Month Breathing with Band Pulldown.

For starters, it gives the person a reference center: the ground. Which in all honesty is one of your best friends as a coach. It makes your life way easier when you can get someone on his or her back (with gravity on their side I might add) and cue him or her to “crush a bug” or “velcro their low back to floor” because they’ll be able to feel that. In addition, it gives you a target for your ribs: “as you exhale here I want you to think about drawing your ribs down to the floor.” In essence, whenever you can make things simple…do it.

Now, a key feature of this exercise, like all other exercises, is how it’s performed. The low back needs to be pinned to the floor, and the ribs need to come down and stay down (to a degree) on the inhale. In other words, your low back shouldn’t pop off the floor when you go to take a breath in because that defeats the purpose of doing the exercise. I want to see if you can get in a good position with some added tension from the band and breath without breaking down.

It’s absolutely essential that the athlete learns what this feels like, and is able to find it on his or her own, because this is the foundation for everything else you’ll be doing.

Step 2: Train

Once the new map has started to take hold, it’s time to up the ante a little and add some more definition to the map. If you ever played Age of Empires, think of it like at the beginning of the game when the whole map is black except for where your few little settlers are.

As you played the game and explored you uncovered more and more of the map, and the black area slowly gave way. The same thing is happening here: you’ve done some of the early exploration work, and now it’s time to set off and uncover more of the map.

Thus, let’s stress the system a little more. Let’s put you and/or your athletes in positions that’ll challenge their ability to hold the rock solid position you taught them earlier.

  1. Leg Lowering with Band Pulldown

Yeah, this should look really familiar. All we’ve basically done is take the 3 month breathing with band pulldown exercise from above, and make it more dynamic by seeing if you can move your leg without falling apart.

Let’s think on a deeper level though and focus on a big muscle we talked about last time: the rectus femoris. What’s happening to that muscle as you’re going from hip flexion to hip extension? It’s lengthening right. And as that muscle is lengthening what is it doing? It’s attempting to yank your pelvis forward, and make your low back come off the ground. In order to prevent that from happening what better be working? Your abs! Those sexy obliques and transverse abdominis better be opposing that quad, or else you’re going to lose the tug of war.

This, in essence, is exactly what you’re looking to do when training the “core”: how many different ways can you pit someone’s “abs” against muscles like a quad or a lat.

3 Month KB Pullover

I explained pretty much everything in the video, so yeah…not gonna waste your time and repeat myself.

While there are probably 50-100 exercises that could fit into this section, hopefully these two exercises give you a good idea for how to start thinking about “core” training: opposition. It doesn’t matter that you can do crunches. What matters is that you have abs capable of opposing big muscles like your lats and quads. Ultimately, if you understand anatomy then you should have a field day coming up with ways to challenge this.

*challenge homework assignment: think your way through a split squat.

Step 3: Integrate

At the end of the day, the goal is to be bigger, faster, stronger and better conditioned than everyone else. Period. Unfortunately, however, people often mistake what I’ve gone over thus far as being “too low level” or “not intense enough” to reach that end goal. But I couldn’t disagree more. If you aren’t adequately addressing Step 1 and 2 in this process, then you one, aren’t doing your job, and two, are merely setting up your athletes for failure down the road. You’ve gotta build the pyramid from the bottom up.

Now that that short rant is out of the way, let’s talk about integrating because this is what we live for right? I mean who gets excited about lying on the floor and breathing? I know I don’t (I actually hate it). I’d much rather turn on some loud music, hangout with my bros, and throw weight around for an hour.

And assuming you’ve done your homework in Step 1 and Step 2, it gives you the ability to do so because now we can start talking about deadlifting. In other words, movements like the deadlift represent your highest level of “core” performance. It’s where are the boring, shitty work you do on the side gets to shine. Just think through any major, compound, complex movement and you’ll see a beautiful sequence of events that all stems from your basic ability to control the sagittal plane.

And let me make something perfectly clear: this is the goal. The goal isn’t to lay on the ground and breathe. That is merely a tool so that we can get you on your feet, integrate, and turn you into a monster. So PLEASE, do not forget this step. Performing a high quality deadlift is core training. Performing a high quality squat is core training. And so on and so forth.

Closing Thoughts

While there are many exercises that we could have gone over today, I chose to focus just on a few them because I care more about you understanding the principles behind why we do them as opposed to just listing off exercises. Thus, if you feel lost or don’t understand anything we’ve gone over today, please post your questions in the comments below.

Also, I’d like to go over one last tidbit of info before I sign off for the day, and that’s failure. Generally speaking, when someone is performing these exercises I look for them to fail 2 out of every 10 reps because this tells me that I have found something that’s adequately challenging. In other words, if someone can crush something for 10 reps and every rep is literally perfect, then you should probably find a way to progress the exercise or else they won’t get better. Small amounts of failure tell me that I’m imposing enough stress to get an adaptation.

That's about it for today though.  Hope you enjoyed the article and post any questions/thoughts you have below.

about the author




The core…

What a popular buzzword.


But what is the core?

What is it supposed to do?

How do you train it?

Where should you start?

Where should you go?









What’s the Job of the Core


To quote Shirley Sahrmann:






Some Anatomy



  • -Rectus abdominis
  • -Internal obliques
  • -External obliques
  • -Transverse abdominis
  • -Lats
  • -Rectus femoris and TFL
  • -Serratus anterior

Let’s go ahead and address each of those accordingly

Rectus Abdominis (aka the six pack muscle)












Lats (aka Bane)




  • -Posterior aspect of the ilium
  • -The lower three ribs
  • -Inferior angle of the scapula in some people
  • -Intertubercular groove on the anterior aspect of the humerus.

So yeah…this thing is big.

Now to the function as described by any anatomy textbook ever:

  • -Internally rotate the humerus
  • -Shoulder extension
  • -Shoulder adduction




It’ll produce something like this:





Rectus Femoris and TFL (aka The Joker)





Serratus Anterior (aka Robin)




Closing Thoughts









about the author




Understanding the Underlying Purpose of the Energy Systems

The most important thing for detectives trying to solve a case is to understand the motive of potential suspects. Training the energy systems of an athlete is one of the most important jobs of the strength and conditioning professional. To solve this case, you must understand the motive force behind why the energy systems are present in the body. I’m going to say the same thing a bunch of times in a row in the following sentences because I need to kick the absolute hell out of this dead horse to reinforce the point I’m going to try to make with the gravity it deserves. The purpose of the energy systems is to deal with the outcome of the hydrolysis reaction of ATP. Stated in another way, the purpose of the energy systems is to rephosphorylate ATP and to deal with the threat of hydrogen and heat that cellular and mechanical work imposes upon the organism. Stated in another way, the purpose of the energy systems is to allow you to perform sufficient levels of ATP hydrolysis to power your organism’s need to engage in behaviors in specific environmental circumstances. If you do not understand this underlying purpose and the ways in which this plays out in the body, then you do not truly understand energy system training. We all have our pet peeves. One of mine is that I can’t stand it when people say that energy systems create energy. Another one is any time I hear anyone say anything about lactic acid. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Energy is transferred from one state to another inside the body. Lactic acid does not exist inside the human body. Lactic acid never has existed inside the human body. Lactic acid never will exist inside the human body. These statements may sound like condescending, semantical remarks made by an exercise science nerd; however, I do not think they are, and I think that failing to address these concerns will continue to lead to erroneous thought processes in trying to develop energy system training. I think these pet peeve concepts of mine are related to the two biggest missing links in our field’s current view of developing the energy systems, which are both fundamentally tied with failure to appreciate the two-tiered purpose of the energy systems.

Threat Deterrence

We probably all know about the concept of ATP being the energy currency of the body. The ability to restock your supply of ATP is one of the two purposes of the energy systems. This is the most commonly discussed factor in regards to the science of energy systems, and I will surely address this here, but first I would like to discuss the second energy system purpose, which is threat deterrence.

Hydrogen is the most abundant material in the universe, with approximately 80% of the known universe being made up by hydrogen. Movement of hydrogen is what drives the universe. When viewing the internal universe of the human, hydrogen is both the driver of life and something that can kill you quickly if left unchecked. Entropy is the direction of the universe. The universe is expanding and the energy found within the universe is headed more and more towards a chaotic state. Heat is the expression of entropy most prominently displayed by life forms. Try living as a mammal without heating yourself. Hydrogen load and heat load are perhaps the two most fundamental things that the human body has to manage. If not kept within a careful window of appropriate levels, you will surely die. We have a variety of measures and systems that we use to regulate hydrogen and heat, and the energy systems are a powerful one when it comes to the hydrogen threat.

There is no lactic acid inside your body, therefore it is not a threat. Lactate production is an outlet for dealing with an acid threat, and is therefore not a threat (it’s a strategy). Hydrogen is real, and very present inside your body. Hydrogen is a threat, and hydrogen must be accounted for. Where does this hydrogen come from though? Hydrogen is a bi-product of the hydrolysis of ATP. Every time I do anything inside my body, I need to power that action via the hydrolysis of ATP. The potential energy that will power my bodily actions is found in the bonds between the phosphates making up the ATP molecule. I must break these bonds to release energy from a bound/potential state to make it available as free energy to perform work. The body uses a hydrolysis reaction to break these bonds. Hydrolysis reactions are those that require water to be present. When ATP combines with water in the presence of the enzyme ATPase, the bond between the second and third phosphate is broken, and stored energy is released. The reaction looks like this:

ATP + H2O (in the presence of ATPase) → ADP + P + Free energy + Hydrogen + Heat

We did this to gain the release of free energy. Free energy release is the purpose of the hydrolysis of ATP. The energy systems are in the body to deal with the outcomes of the hydrolysis of ATP.

Three Strategies


The energy systems put ATP back together again after it is broken down. We have three strategies of putting ATP back together again, a phosphagenic one, a glycolytic one, and an oxidative one. The phosphagenic and glycolytic strategies are the most primitive, and took place in cellular life forms prior to the evolutionary step of mitochondria creating a mutually symbiotic relationship with cellular organisms by moving into the cells of other creatures. The phosphagenic energy system can rephosphorylate a singular ATP through its one enzymatic step, but it cannot do anything to reduce hydrogen or heat levels inside the body. Here is the primary reaction used by the phosphagen system:

ADP + CP (in the presence of Creatine Phosphate) à ATP + Creatine

The phosphagenic energy system has low cost associated with it, since it does not cost any ATP to run the system. This lack of cost cannot be said about the glycolytic system.


The glycolytic energy system has the ability to rephosphorylate 4 ATP (you receive a net of 2 ATP, because you have to spend 2 ATP to power the glycolytic machinery) through 10 enzymatic steps. Glycolysis can also directly take two hydrogen ions out of circulation. To view the ATP rephosphorylation and hydrogen reduction capacity of glycolysis, the following image is helpful (note that the hydrogen is reduced at step 6, where NAD combines with a hydrogen).


The non-oxidative energy systems pale in comparison to the ability of the oxidative energy system to rephosphorylate ATP and reduce the hydrogen threat inside the body. One of the interesting things about the oxidative system is that it actually powers itself through the motion of hydrogen.


The oxidative energy system utilizes the Krebs Cycle and the Electron Transport Chain (ETC) to rephosphorylate ATP and to reduce the hydrogen threat inside the body. Very little ATP rephosphorylation takes place within the Krebs Cycle; however, the products of the Krebs cycle power the ATP rephosphorylation machinery of the ETC. The primary product of the Krebs Cycle that powers the ETC to rephosphorylate ATP is NADH and FADH2. Every NADH that enters the ETC allows the ETC to rephosphorylate 3 ATP, and every FADH2 allows the ETC to rephosphorylate 2 ATP. The Krebs Cycle churns out 8 NADH and 2 FADH2 molecules every time carbohydrates are the substrate being utilized to power the energy systems (note fats have the potential for many more NADH and FADH2 molecules). The following diagram depicts the NADH and FADH2 synthesizing steps of the Krebs Cycle (note that the Krebs Cycle spins twice when carbohydrate is the substrate):


It is fair to say that when it comes to the power of the oxidative energy system, the ability to shuttle NAD/NADH back and forth between the Krebs Cycle and the ETC is the show. If you have a super powered ability to load hydrogen onto NAD (which converts it into NADH), move NADH to the ETC, unload the hydrogen from NADH at the ETC (which converts it into NAD), and then return that NAD to Krebs to repeat the procedure, you will have a monster aerobic system. It is probably also fair to say that NADH is the show inside the show, and the thing that nobody is talking about. Finally, it is tremendously fair to say that the purpose of the Krebs Cycle is not to rephosphorylate ATP directly, but to power the reduction reaction that results in NADH, which powers the ETC.

Electron Transport Chain

The ETC is the engine that is the big bang in the rephosphorylation of ATP. The ETC is also the best strategy for reducing (both literally and figuratively if you appreciate redox humor) the hydrogen threat. The ETC is a multi-enzymatic intra-mitochondrial machine that has the potential to rephosphorylate 28 ATP from the products of the Krebs Cycle when carbohydrate is used as the substrate (8 NADH at 3 ATP per molecule, and 2 FADH2 at 2 ATP per molecule). One of the first enzymes present in the ETC is one called NADH dehydrogenase. The purpose of a dehydrogenase enzyme is to remove a hydrogen ion from a molecule. NADH dehydrogenase cleaves the hydrogen away from NADH, which oxidizes the molecule and returns it to its state as NAD. When NADH is oxidized, the hydrogen ion is then shuttled outward from the inner mitochondrial membrane. To help understand this process, see the following picture:


In examining this picture, let’s start at the left. You see NADH being converted to NAD. This is taking place due to the activity of NADH dehydrogenase. You see the hydrogen ion being sent upwards into the space between the inner and outer mitochondrial membranes. Let’s skip over the activity in the middle of the graph to simplify this process. The hydrogen ion that was removed from NADH moves from the left to the right of the picture until it reaches the final enzyme on the right hand side. The most rightward enzyme is ATP synthase. As you can see in the picture, hydrogen moves downward through ATP synthase. The kinetic energy of hydrogen moving through the ATP synthase enzyme is what powers the enzyme to rephosphorylate ATP. ATP synthase is the location where all of the ATP rephosphorylation takes place inside the ETC. From an ATP rephosphorylation standpoint, let’s say that ATP synthase is the show. While giving the credit to ATP synthase for the product that we’re looking for, let’s not forget that it is hydrogen that powers this enzyme’s activity. As I said before, in the internal universe of the human, it is hydrogen that drives life.

While hydrogen drives life inside the human, unchecked, overabundant hydrogen will also kill you very quickly. The hydrogen that powered ATP synthase must be accounted for once it has given this enzyme its motive force for ATP rephosphorylation purposes. Have you ever wondered why the oxidative energy system is named as such? The answer is simple. Oxygen must be present for the system to run. The location of oxygen in this process is inside the inner mitochondrial matrix, specifically right below ATP synthase. When the hydrogen passes through the ATP synthase enzyme, oxygen is sitting there ready to receive it. If I combine two hydrogen with an oxygen, I get water. Synthesizing water is the most effective and least harmful strategy that organisms have adopted for dealing with the potential threat of hydrogen. When your body is able to power its behaviors via an electron transport strategy, the organism is operating in the least costly, most highly efficient manner possible, with the least amount of threat presented. When oxygen supply inside the mitochondria is not sufficient to deal with the amount of hydrogen present inside the mitochondria, or the shuttling of NAD/NADH to and from the Krebs Cycle/ETC is not robust enough or fast enough to move hydrogen through the oxidative pathways, the body is forced to go to a checkdown option and deal with hydrogen another way. This other way is via the creation of lactate.


Lactate is created when pyruvate binds to two hydrogen ions. Pyruvate is the product of glycolysis. To see pyruvate, let’s revisit our glycolysis diagram.


When it comes to glycolysis, things can be summarized into the following statement: one glucose enters, two pyruvates leave. There is no aerobic or anaerobic glycolysis. There is only glycolysis where a glucose comes and two pyruvate leave through ten enzymatic steps. The fate of pyruvate is what determines whether we operate with an oxidative or non-oxidative strategy. The hydrogen load inside the cell determines the fate of pyruvate. If the Krebs/ETC processes can handle the hydrogen load, things run smoothly. If Krebs and ETC are unable to handle the hydrogen coming from a specific rate of ATP hydrolysis, then we must call on the backup system, which is the synthesis of lactate. Lactate equals pyruvate plus two hydrogen. It is as simple as that. View the following image to appreciate this concept:


In viewing the above image, focus on the bottom. Pyruvate is on the left, lactate is on the right. Look at the molecular makeup of the two substances. The only difference between pyruvate and lactate is that a singular bond attaches one hydrogen ion on the left side of the structure, and another hydrogen is bound to oxygen on the right side of the structure. Lactate is a fantastic method of removing two hydrogen ions from existing in a free state. The purpose of the lactate system is to act as an alternative strategy for dealing with hydrogen load during times of extreme behaviors. Lactate is your checkdown receiver on a hot read.

Closing Thoughts

As the great Mike Cantrell likes to say at PRI courses, it’s cool that the aspirin works, but it’s cooler to know how it works. It’s cool to know that the program design approaches of Joel Jameison work. It’s cooler to know what’s happening inside the system that drives the reasons behind why they work. If you do not know why things work, you do not have a good BS detector. You will fall for stupid training concepts and you will be a garbage strength coach. If you want to be a beast in the majority of American sports, you need quality energy system development coached in the proper sequence of development. This may not be the fastest road to success, but it will be the road to the highest success with the least amount of detrimental stress put on your organism’s homeostatic control systems. We live in an age of information and accountability. If you are stupid, you are easily replaceable. Be an intellectual savage who does not accept ordinary, mundane, or low level things in your life. As you were.

about the author


pat davidson


-Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College, 2009-2011

-Assistant Professor, Springfield College 2011-2014

-Head Coach Springfield College Team Ironsports 2011-2013


-Renaissance Meat Head

Shifting In and Out of Patterns: A Discussion on Extension, Neutrality and Performance

I’m a conventional deadlifter, but I’m a short guy. I’d probably be better off pulling with a sumo style. I’ve tried sumo a couple of times, but they were pretty frustrating experiences. I definitely couldn’t pull as much sumo as I could from a conventional approach the first time. I guess I probably just need to work on it. I certainly wouldn’t enter a meet and try to use sumo for the first time ever under those conditions. Something bad might happen. Every year during spring training you hear about pitchers trying out new pitches to add to their repertoire. These pitchers don’t just decide to add a new pitch in the middle of the season, because they know they have to practice it and work out the bugs before trying to mix it in during games that count. In the world of Postural Restoration Institute (PRI) practitioners there is often times discussion regarding whether it is a good idea to pull athlete’s out of their pattern because this might make them run slower, throw with less velocity, or not be able to jump as high. My personal thought on this matter is that perhaps these quantifiable drop offs are the result of the athlete not having practice performing this skill from the new position that they are performing them from. Perhaps with more practice and the acquisition of training volume in this new position, the athlete would be able to reach the same quantifiable expressions of the sport movement, but do so with a biomechanical approach that would be better for longevity related matters.

Extension Patterns

Stress, behaviors, exercise, and specific sports movements are associated with driving people into extension/inhalation oriented positions. Extension strategies are used to power up for strength and power movements in competition and training. If movements are practiced in an extension oriented position, then that position becomes the dominant response strategy that you go with when you need to perform that exercise under competitive or high stakes conditions. Extension strategies, which are associated with anterior pelvic tilt, lordosis, and elevation and external rotation of ribs may limit a number of joint movement capabilities, such as humeral and femoral rotation because of bony positions, or result in compensatory strategies to achieve required necessary motion for sports movements.

While there is nothing necessarily wrong with extension positions, problems may begin to occur when people exist in extension during times of rest, and when they are unable to get out of an extension oriented position in general. Excessive extension seems to be related to unnecessary levels of muscle tone, which may increase internal resistance to joint movements. Discussing all of the pitfalls of excessive extension and resting extension positions is beyond the scope of this document. The overall concept that this document is aimed at addressing is the idea that extension is a part of sports, and a strategy that many athletes may over utilize. Chronic pain syndromes may become a part of an athlete’s life if they are unable to prevent excessive extension during the performance of their sports movements, and if they exist in that position during rest/utilize this strategy during activities of daily living.

Extension and Performance

Regardless of the downside of utilization and reliance on excessive extension, tremendous displays of strength, power, and athleticism through extension is a common occurrence in sports. Exercise adaptations that take place with repeated sports movement performance in extension will result in hypertrophy and force production of the tissues used to power those movements. These adaptations will make these extension driven sports movements even more powerful. These adaptations are very specific to the tissues used in an extension position, and adaptations will not present themselves to the muscles that would be utilized in a more flexed position. Therefore, the musculature that would be recruited and utilized in a more flexed position would essentially be untrained.

Perhaps the reason why sprinters run slightly slower following an intervention that makes them neutral is because they haven’t trained the tissues that they’re recruiting to power that movement under those circumstances. Claiming that making sprinters neutral is a bad idea for their sport may be a short sighted statement. Perhaps an individual with impressive quantifiable expressions of force production who witnesses acute reductions in those expressions after achieving neutrality simply needs to train that movement under the conditions of neutrality. New muscles will have an opportunity to power joint actions if someone achieves neutrality after not being able to reach that position previously. These muscles need to be strengthened and then integrated into more complex athletic movements. If proper joint actions can be utilized for sporting movements with the appropriate prime mover and stabilization strategies of muscles and then optimal quantifiable expressions can be reached, this would appear to be the best practice approach to training and competition. Coaches simply should not expect equal quantifiable expression of new positional and muscular strategies to that of older strategies to be instantaneous.

The quantifiable comparison of an extension strategy to a neutral strategy is not necessarily a fair one if neutrality has been recently achieved. If we as a community want to evaluate whether neutrality is a detriment to the quantifiable expression of an athletic movement, we need to properly train the musculature that would be recruited under neutral conditions in the performance of a sport movement for an appropriate amount of time to allow it to experience the positive effects of training adaptations. Appreciating the differences between acute and chronic physiological expressions is an important consideration on this topic, and one that needs further evaluation before any definitive statement can be made.

Fitting the Mold

In the world of sports performance, it seems that there are criteria levels of fitness that must be met as a requisite to be successful at high level sports. Football receivers will be unable to play in the NFL if they run a 4.9 in their 40 regardless of their sport specific skill. In regards to movement capabilities, there is also likely a similar phenomenon. It is highly likely that each sport, and each position inside each sport possesses a specific range of motion profile that would be a requisite for the ability to execute sport specific biomechanics associated with optimal performance of sporting actions. Once the athlete possesses the appropriate levels of joint movement variability, there is probably little additional benefit from going greatly above and beyond that level.

If the athlete is capable of quantifiably reaching a movement range of motion standard and is able to recruit the appropriate muscles in the right sequence, the athlete will likely be able to realize best case mechanics and will be doing everything in their power from a biomechanics standpoint to prolong their playing career. All this being said, the stress of training and competing, as well as the aging process will likely alter the gross range of motion capabilities or alter the sequencing and/or synchrony of muscular action utilized in the active performance of dynamic tasks over the course of the athlete’s playing career.

If the athlete has been trained with an understanding of proximal neutrality, and what sorts of positions and muscular strategies are associated with being able to stay within a criteria motion standard and synchronization pattern that allows for the expression of proper biomechanics, the athlete will potentially extend their playing career and be able to realize more great performances per playing season.

about the author


pat davidson


-Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College, 2009-2011

-Assistant Professor, Springfield College 2011-2014

-Head Coach Springfield College Team Ironsports 2011-2013


-Renaissance Meat Head

Arousal Theory and Strength Sports: How to Harness Nuclear Energy


Overworking vs. Underworking





*for more on homeostasis and stress read here.


When to Turn It On



Arousal and Threat


  1. - Digesting the food you just ate
  2. - Defending against a disease that may harm you tomorrow
  3. - Getting an erection
  4. - Running away to ensure survival





Generally speaking, certain sports require distinctive arousal levels






Don’t train harder, train smarter.







about the author



Advanced Modalities to Increase Weekly Training Volume

Below you'll find a recent interview I did on energy systems, autonomics, and how to increase training frequency...enjoy: 

about the author


MASS: Are You Ready to Enter the Beast



Foreword by Jim Ferris





[Click Here to Buy MASS Now]

Introduction 1 by Ethan Grossman



Cold, dark Russia:

  4. -You want to strengthen your team’s bond
  5. -You consider yourself a beast inside
  6. -You sleep 7 or more hours a night
  7. -You eat for fuel
  9. -You are just returning to training
  10. -You have an acquired taste for pain


Warm, sunny LA:

  4. -You can’t commit 4 days a week
  5. -You might miss workouts when you’re too hung over


[Click Here to Buy MASS Now]

Introduction 2 by Dr. Pat Davidson





[Click Here to Buy MASS Now]





[Click Here to Buy MASS Now]


about the author



What Causes Muscles to Grow Part II: The Science Edition


The Rate Limiting Factor



Photo Credit:  Pearson Education
Photo Credit: Pearson Education








Photo Credit:  Nature
Photo Credit: Nature









about the author


pat davidson


-Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College, 2009-2011

-Assistant Professor, Springfield College 2011-2014

-Head Coach Springfield College Team Ironsports 2011-2013


-Renaissance Meat Head

What Causes Muscles to Grow

There are a million articles and programs offering up the next secret (aka, gimmick/fad/farce) method for packing on tons of muscle. Rather than give you some, “top secret” approach or quick tip that will have you spinning your wheels in the gym, I’d rather explain to you the overall concept of what has to happen for you to add muscle mass to your frame. As an overall concept, what I would like to get across to you in this article is that the human body doesn’t want to put on muscle mass.You have to make a conscious decision to do something that is incredibly uncomfortable and jarring to your organism so that you give your body no other choice but to pack on more muscle so that it can defend itself from the same stressor if it is encountered again. Gaining muscle mass is hard work that never ends. Following the application of significant stress to your body, you need to recover. The recovery period is where you add new proteins to your muscles so that they become bigger and stronger. As un-sexy and not new as it sounds, if you want to gain muscle mass, you’re going to have to work very hard in the gym and live a healthy lifestyle outside of it featuring appropriate sleep, nutrition, and hydration. If you understand the big picture and why things have to be done a certain way, perhaps you will be more willing to actually do it.

The Captain and The Ship

Think of a ship out on the open ocean. The ship encounters a storm. Driving winds and rain wreak havoc on the deck while the hull is getting pounded by enormous waves. The ship survives this storm, but it took on significant damage. The captain of the ship looks around in the aftermath and sees a broken mast, holes in the sidewall, and a few steady leaks. If he wants to keep sailing in these waters he’s clearly going to have to make some repairs and perhaps revamp this boat.

He analyzes the damage of the ship and sees which areas were most impacted by the storm. He reinforces those areas. He puts up a thicker, sturdier mast, makes the sidewalls denser, and shores up the leaks with a stronger adhesive material. The ship goes back out on the ocean, and another storm comes along almost exactly like the first one. The ship survives this storm with only minimal damage. All the areas that the captain focused on for repairs held up pretty well.

Photo Credit:  Todd Kumpf
Photo Credit: Todd Kumpf

The next day he and his crew patch the ship up a little bit and it’s ready for the open ocean again. This time a completely different storm is encountered. Freak snow comes out of nowhere, icy seawater sloshes over the sides of the boat, and chunks of debris come flying through the air, shredding the ship. The crew and the vessel make it, but this time the damage is completely different compared to the first storm. It was as if nothing the crew had done in their repairs following the first storm had prepared them for this last squall. The captain orders the crew to go back to work the next day. They focus on the areas that were most heavily damaged in this last disaster and rebuild those sections with more robust material.

Do you think the captain and crew of our imaginary ship want to spend their days laboring to rebuild their ship? Of course not. All they want to do is to continue to sail so that they can do their jobs so they can put food on the table. They would never put in the effort to work on the ship unless it was very clear that the ship was unfit for use and that it needed to be strengthened to handle similar difficult demands again in the future.

Do you think they’re going to fix and rebuild parts of the ship that were unharmed from the storm? Of course not. You focus your attention on the areas that need help. Can you fix every part of the ship all at once? Probably not, you have a limitation to the size of your crew, and they can only work so hard for so long. You also do not have unlimited amounts of wood, tools, and other assorted pieces to be able to repair everything all at once. Ultimately, you have to decide what kind of storm you want your boat to be ready to handle. You simply can’t have it all. You also can’t permanently live in the storm. If you’re going to be fixing your boat, you should probably do it when it’s sunny and you’re safely docked.

Your body is the boat. The captain is your brain. The crew is your immune and endocrine systems working to trigger the appropriate cellular repair steps. The wood and the tools that you use for repairs is the food you eat, the water you drink, and the sleep that you acquire. You have to figure out what kind of storm is the appropriate kind in order to trigger the appropriate repair process that will build you a new body that is more muscular than it was before. Obviously running a marathon is an absolutely ungodly storm that you could encounter, but the repair mechanisms that would take place after wouldn’t be geared towards adding muscle to your frame. The storm has to be highly specific. The raw material also has to be of very high quality that you use to repair yourself after the fact. Do you want to be going into your next storm on a boat made of rotting wood, or do you want only the finest, most outstanding construction material possible for your vessel?

The Perfect Storm

What is the perfect storm for creating the optimal stimulus for growing muscle? It primarily comes down to three variables. It seems as though the combination of mechanical load, heat, and acidity is the right environment for optimizing muscle growth.

The research in this area seems to indicate that multiple sets (3-5) of approximately 10 repetition maximum (RM) load using multi-joint compound exercises (squatting, bench pressing, deadlifting, pull-ups) with short rest (approximately 60 seconds) is optimal for increasing muscle mass. Go ahead and try doing 5 sets of 10 (with a weight where you couldn’t get 11) in the squat with 60 seconds rest in between. You’re going to be hot, acidic, and your muscles will be dead. You just hit the perfect storm.

Your brain will register this event and trigger all of the cascade responses driven through the hormonal and immune systems associated with repair and growth of skeletal muscle that you can muster up as an organism. You could do this kind of workout over and over again for a pretty substantial period of time and continue to get great gains for a while. The problem with that exact workout is that it’s pretty boring at a certain point, and even if you were the most diligent person, who cares nothing about routine and boredom, at a certain point, your body would adapt to this, and you’d stop making any headway. You need to vary things up a little bit to keep yourself engaged, and to force the organism to have to adapt to a salient threat. The thing is, you don’t want to vary things up so much that it’s a completely different kind of storm. If the storm is wrong, then the repairs will be to create a different kind of ship. If the challenge to the body isn’t appropriate, it might strip material away rather than add on.

Closing Thoughts

To finish off this article, you need to understand the following things about the storm and the repair process. Feeling a fairly heavy weight, feeling hot, and feeling an acidic burn are the three threats that drive the muscle building train.

When it comes to driving adaptation, you need to scare your body…so threaten it the best you possibly can. Sets between 6 and 15 reps are probably the most appropriate for hypertrophy, with sets of 10 being most optimal. Rest periods need to be kept short to create the truly significant heat and acid load response. If you’re using the same exercise over and over, look to stay within 60 to 90 seconds of rest. If you’re setting up a circuit, you’ve got a little more leeway, and you can make the rest periods shorter.


Work really hard, but when you’re done, make sure you recover appropriately. Earlier I talked about fixing the boat in sunny skies and calm seas. Here’s my recommendation for sunny skies and calm seas in life. Most importantly, have a good relationship with family and friends. Spend time with other people. Social engagement will trigger the parts of your brain associated with relaxation, regeneration, and recovery (specifically the nucleus ambiguous component of the parasympathetic nervous system located in the medulla). Second, if you’re going to do recovery exercise, do easy cardio. Try to get outdoors to soak up some vitamin D. You don’t want to try to create a whole new storm environment to fix your ship in. Light cardiovascular exercise increases circulation (gets the repair pieces to the tissues), and increases the amount of mitochondria in your body. Mitochondria are the location where you utilize oxidative rephosphorylation of ATP. If you’re using your oxidative energy system, it allows the muscle tissue to relax in that location. Being able to relax and hit the off switch is critical when it comes to repair and growth.

When it’s time to be in the storm, make it the perfect storm. The storm should be hell. See what you’re capable of surviving. Load the bar up pretty heavy. See what you’ve got. Push through those last couple of reps. Keep your rest short…feel like you’re going to die. When the storm is over, shut it down. Relax. Enjoy other people that you really like. Eat, drink, and be merry. Do a little recovery work between storms. Make sure you don’t have to recover from your recovery work. I wish you well young sailor. Hopefully your vessel is sound and your captain is wise. Keep sailing, I’ll see you in Gainsville if you stay the course.

If you're into this whole muscle thing, then be sure to checkout Pat's new e-book MASS.  It gives you 66 pages of awesome info coupled with a 16 week training program designed to build muscle.

about the author


pat davidson


-Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College, 2009-2011

-Assistant Professor, Springfield College 2011-2014

-Head Coach Springfield College Team Ironsports 2011-2013


-Renaissance Meat Head

Coming Up With a Long Term Plan: The Proper Lens to Look Through for Your Macrocycle

A major issue amongst the novice and intermediate athletes of the strength community today is their vision. The amount of emails and questions I get regarding how to get ready for X in 4 weeks completely out weighs the questions I get regarding long term progress. I of course answer with the best advice and help I can give, but I always try to point them in the direction of long term preparation. I do this for two reasons:

1.  It gives the best results

2.  It highlights those who are exceptionally motivated

The people who are looking down the line for success will always beat the ones looking for an easy way out. I truly believe everyone has the ability to reach their goals, but the proper motivation and guidance are needed.

The Long Term Plan

This is where devising a macro cycle comes into play. A macrocycle is essentially a long term block periodization plan that leads an athlete to an ultimate goal. This goal is typically a competition or a milestone that has high levels of emotional attachment. This means the macrocycle is your treasure map to striking gold. If you know anything about gold miners, you know they don’t just mindlessly hack away at the same spot hoping for something to magically change.

This is the major flaw in the training programs of many athletes.

If someone decides to compete in a strongman show 20 weeks out, the worst thing they can do is begin hitting the competition events right away. They are hacking away at the same thing hoping for improvements in performance to come. Specificity is an incredibly important portion of a training program, however, if it begins to over take its purpose it can certainly inhibit you. The reason sport specific training can elicit a peak is because for a short period of time the sport specific traits are exposed to higher volumes and given more emphasis while under residual fatigue. This causes the body to super-compensate the recovery/neural aspects of the stimulus (i.e. the sport specific training). This is your ace card and your final progression. If you play that card too early, then you're going to miss out on a lot of potential for improvement and eventually have to settle or fold.

So what is supposed to fill the rest of your macrocycle? It is most effective to reverse engineer it when looking at your own training. I will take you through how I am viewing an upcoming goal of mine through a long term lens. Beginning around 28 weeks out, this is the first major step in my longer term plans. There is no standard number of weeks when planning a macrocycle, however, I would recommend a minimum of 15 weeks to allow you to flow well.

Start: 06/01

Compete: 11/14

Goal: bulk up to 198 and total over 1460

First 5 weeks:

-Kcal set 3100 weekly, maintain BW of 188

-Increase muscle mass and work capacity

Weeks 6-10 (in this phase currently)

-Kcal drop to 2800-2600, increase body comp

-Increase movement quality and muscle mass

Weeks 11-16

-Kcal increase until BW reaches 190-192

-Begin implementing SPP and developing alactic capacity

Weeks 17-22

-Kcal increase to maintain 193-195

-Bulk of sport specific volume handled

Weeks 23-28

-Cycling of Kcal throughout week to maintain 195

-Peaking phase begins

Now this is a very rough and vague outline for where my training and nutrition will go. My longer term goal is to compete in the 231 class in strongman, meaning I will be bulking long term. Hence the cut of bf % and kcal because it's easier to maintain body composition while gaining weight than to improve it. To aid in this goal I am currently doing a John Meadows program 7 days a week, then I will transition into a phase were I develop efficient patterns in the bench, squat, and deadlift while returning to the alactic energy system. Finally, from week 17 on I will be focusing on building strength and preparing for the meet.

Important Considerations

The goal of this was to show you the changes and transitions training must go through in order to properly prepare you to reach a goal. When creating an effective long term plan you must objectively look at yourself. What are your weaknesses? What will be your limiting factor in performance? What is your long term vision? It is uncommon that you are creating the last major macrocycle, this only happens once or twice in a life time. Most macrocycles are only means to further progress yourself using other goals as a medium.

The most important variables are the energy system the sport utilizes, the strength demands of the sport, the movement demands of the sport, favorable anthropometrics, and the conditions the sport will be performed in.

These are by no means the only ones, but these can generally be applied to all sports.

So you're at block one...how do you start? I recommend looking at the most successful participants in your sport and break down their performance and learn about them. You should have a clear indication of the direction you want to go with the program based on the research you have done before hand. Since you are working backwards it should be easy to periodize everything. The beginning portion of your program should be set to fixing weaknesses and creating a rock solid foundation. It should then progress to focusing on building important attributes for the sport. Finally, the program should be heavy in sport specific volume that translates best to your goals.

Think about how treasure maps work in movies:  the trip begins nice, but as you get closer and closer to the treasure you have to evade more dangers until you finally reach the end and are glad its all over.

Step 1: Pick 1-2 goals that you will be programming toward

Step 2: Pick the qualities and attributes you would like to improve to reach the goals

Step 3: Do the calendar math on how many total weeks you will have

Step 4: Pool together the movements you will be using

Step 5: Establish the method you would like to peak with and its attributes

Step 6: Begin reverse engineering the program back to week 1

Step 7: Sit on it, and review the program multiple times before you begin

Closing Thoughts

I may be beating a dead horse with this, but when it comes to planning out the macrocycle reverse engineering is most effective. You have a clear cut end goal with the traits you want to peak.  You then take one step back and start asking yourself questions:  what type of training protocol would allow you to peak for this? And so on and so forth.

Long term progress is not a linear track. This is where too much specificity can hurt you. If you spend more time developing your aerobic GPP you have a greater ability to handle general volume, which will allow you to handle more specific work, which will allow you to handle even greater amounts of specificity and so on. Do not allow yourself to view this process linearly, it is very much cyclic in nature. Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid of long term commitment. Don’t be afraid of any bumps in the road. Don’t be afraid of the success you may reach.

about the author
