New Article on NCT

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
1

Christian,

How many NCT workouts a week would you recommend starting with? And I assume these are in addition to normal workouts. So an NCT session in the morning and normal afternoon workout or vice versa? Thanks for your help. A very interesting article.

2

There are several applications to NC workouts:

  1. As a planned part of a hard training week to prevent excessive fatigue accumulation at the end of the week For example one could do hard lifting workouts Monday/Tuesday, Neural Charge Wednesday, hard workouts Thursday/Friday, OFF Saturday, Neural charge Sunday (for example)

  2. As an activation for a hard workout In this case the Neural Charge workout would be done 6-8 hours prior to a heavy session.

  3. As a recovery tool after a “test”. By test I mean any workout where you lifted to your max or went overboard in some regard. When that happen you can replace the next day’s workout by a neural charge one to allow for neural recovery

  4. After an actual competition to get back on track ASAP. You would replace he first 2 or 3 workouts after the competition by neural charge ones.

  5. As a deload after a grueling training cycle, doing 1 week of only neural charge workouts.

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3

CT, I really think neural charge workouts are really valuable. I would like to do one to “prime” the muscles I am going to work on a given day yet I always train first thing in the morning and thusly would not have the 6-8 hour window you recommend between the neural charge and the hard workout. Would doing the neural charge one day before be too far in front of the hard workout?
Thanks so much,
George

4

I’ve had athletes to them the night prior to a game. For example an athlete competing in the morning couldn’t do the NCT on the same day so I had him do the NCT the preceding evening. He reported a better feeling and performance.

5

Thanks Christian, I can certainly do one the evening before. Hope it doesn’t hurt going to sleep.

6

Christian,

for team sports, do you have different protocols? I mean, the night before for a soccer player who plays next morning is the same for NFL player? For a midfield soccer player for instance, how would you set up such workout? Is it different the night before that in the morning before the match?

7

When I worked with pro players ideally it is done the morning of Games if schedule allows.

8

Im currently doing the look like a bodybuilder perform like an athlete program and am going to do the destroying fat program when I finish.I was considering doing nct on the off days and was wondering if it would be too much to do them on some of the workout days also. I will be back to work in doing construction soon and will only be able to go to the gym 4 days a week due to work and children but I like the high frequency lifting ive been doing while ive been laid off.I usually just do bdwt things for the nct as I do it at home for example vertical jumps plyo pushups broad jumps.

9

If you respect the principles, mostly NOT allowing ANY fatigue or decrease in performance and keeping the sessions REALLY short (closer to 15 minutes in your case) you will be fine. It might even help.

10

Great! Thanks christian just a side note ive got our 10 year old doing them with me he asks everyday if we can do it he loves it

11

Wow, that’s awesome!!!

12

Hi coach, just a quick question on nct, are short sprints (say 20 to 30 meters) acceptable to do as an excercise in a neural charge workout?

13

Yes, but make sure that there is not fatigue accumulation.