THIB'S TRAINING JOURNAL (Enjoy It While It Lasts!)

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
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Ok, as you know I highly dislike posting my training journal mostly because my training is my “me time” and I often use it to experiment and do stuff that might go against my normal recommendations and that are often counter-intuitive and I don’t really want to get into the whole “In X article you wrote Y, I’m confused” thing.

But I’m doing something that I think is interesting so I thought I’d sare it as long as I’m motivated.

Preface
While I enjoy pretty much every type of resistance training, there is some stuff that I like more than others and that really get my blood going:

  1. Getting stronger on the bench, squat and power snatch
  2. Getting super lean
  3. Performance (strength, power, speed) training
  4. Specializing on ONE thing

Everything else I can do in spurts, but the above are what I REALLY love.

Sadly, in the past 6-8 years #1 and 3 were kinda out of reach because of a lingering shoulder and elbow issue (that came along with an almost complete inhibition of the anterior deltoid and significant inhibition of the triceps) made it impossible to gain strength on the bench press and snatch.

I was able to focus on my squat 2 years ago and get it back up above 500 (525 with a safety squat bar, which is roughly equivalent to a 550 squat) but then pulled my adductor slipping while shoveling snow.

So I was pretty much only able to focus on #2 (getting lean) while doing low-weight hypertrophy work.

I recently seem to have been able to fix my injury issues by using a pretty intense BPC-157/TB500 protocol. I don’t have pain while benching and squatting anymore and with the use of EMS I was able to fix my activation/inhibition issue (more on that in a moment).

So, I decided to give getting strong on the bench press one last try, then (if all goes to plan) I’ll do the same with my squat and, God willing, then do it on the power snatch.

Healing the injuries
I don’t like using grey area products. But a friend of mine told me about European research using high doses of BPC and TB500 to heal organ issues. If you didn’t know, I do suffer from kidney issues that developed during my “bodybuilding phase” 15 or so years ago (due to the mandatory anabolics use that is required to do well in bodybuilding, likely the worst mistake of my life, anyway…).

So I decided to try this healing protocol. While I didn’t have blood work done yet, so I don’t know if it worked for my kidneys, I had some unexpected “side effects”: my shoulder and elbow are 90% better.

Inhibition issues
Fixing the injuries made me decide to switch from trying to get shredded to trying to get a strong bench back. Knowing that losing my front delts and triceps would be my limiting factor, seeing that my pectorals and back are actually better than they were when I was at my strongest, I decided to try EMS (on my front delts first).

At first it was only to try to rebuild muscle mass. I reasoned that I had inhibition problems which made it all but impossible to develop my front delts with resistance training so EMS would be a way to rebuild some muscle. hoping that I could use it when pressing.

Surprisingly I had rapid strength gains in my front delts. After doing some research, it turns out that EMS doesn’t work exactly like I thought that it did.

What I learned what that EMS substituted the central nervous system activation signal for direct activation. In reality, while that is part of the mechanism of action, it is not the only effect: it turns out that EMS actually has a training effect on the central nervous system. What happens is that the electrical signal activates receptors in the skin and muscle, which send afferent signals back to the nervous system and in response to those afferent signals, the CNS sends a downstream activation signal to the muscle.

So not only does EMS directly recruit motor units, it trains the nervous system to send an excitatory signal to the muscle!

This essentially fixed my inhibition problem in 3 sessions! I’ve only done the front delts so far and will keep up with that muscle for at least 6 more sessions, then I might go to the triceps.

The plan
My program is pretty much 100% about the nervous system. It combines elements of my own performance methods, as well as Jay Shroeder and Dan Fichter/Wannagetfast methods.

It is a specialization program for the bench press, improving the bench press is pretty much the sole purpose of this plan, although I’m still training other stuff.

It looks like this.

It is a specialization on the bench press so my schedule is:

Day 1 - Bench spec pin work (either from mid pins, high pins or functional iso)

Day 2 - Bench spec full range (either normal or wth weight releasers or WR + slingshot)

Day 3 - Squat/Back

Day 4 - Bench spec pin work (either from mid pins, high pins or functional iso)

Day 5 - Bench spec full range (either normal or with weight releasers or WR + slingshot)

Day 6 - Squat/back

Day 7 - Bench spec pin work (either from mid pins, high pins or functional iso)

Day 8 - Bench spec full range (either normal or with weight releasers or WR + slingshot)

Day 9 - Squat/back

That’s a full microcycle

The actual plan looks like this:

I’ll explain the loading after the schedule

Day 1

Main: Bench from pins (mid-range)

Assist 1: Bar front raise functional iso (below shoulder height)

Assist 2: Triceps isolation sets of 3

EMS: Front delts

Day 2

Main: Duffalo bar/Weight releasers/Slingshot (+100lbs WR)

Assist 1: Bar front raise functional iso (shoulder height)

Assist 2: Triceps isolation sets of 6

EMS: Front delts

Day 3

Main: Cambered bar box squat (parallel)

Assist 1: seated row sets of 6

Assist 2: lat pulldown sets of 6

Day 4

Main: Bench functional iso (from mid-range)

Assist 1: Bar front raise with bamboo bar sets of 6

Assist 2: Triceps isolation sets of 3

EMS: Front delts

Day 5

Main: Duffalo bar bench with weight releasers (+100lbs)

Assist 1: Bar front raise sets of 6

Assist 2: Triceps isolation sets of 6

EMS: Front delts

Day 6

Main: Cambered bar box squat (above parallel)

Assist 1: seated row sets of 6

Assist 2: lat pulldown sets of 6

Day 7

Main: Bench from pins (top 1/3)

Assist 1: Bar front raise drop and catch

Assist 2: Triceps isolation sets of 3

EMS: Front delts

Day 8

Main: Duffalo bar bench press

Assist 1: Bar front raise rapid fire DB front raise between 2 bands

Assist 2: Triceps sets of 6

EMS: Front delts

Day 9

Main: Cambered squat with chains

Assist 1: seated row sets of 6

Assist 2: lat pulldown sets of 6

LOADING:

On the main movements: For the lifts from pins and WR work ramp up to 1RM, then lower to 94% and perform as many singles as possible with 2 minutes of rest

On the functional iso work (main and assist): Ramp up to the max weight I can touch the pins with for 9 seconds. Then, with the same weight, do as many sets of 7 seconds as possible with 2 minutes of rest

On the regular reps assist: Ramp up to the max weight for the programmed reps (normally 6) then lower to 94% and perform as many sets of 6 as possible with 2 minutes of rest

LONG TERM PROGRESS:

I keep doing this until I have a regression over the microcycle (3 or more sessions bench sessions in which my performance decreases over the preceding similar workout). When I hit that point I do one microcycle focusing solely on explosive work for the bench (squat stays the same).

This “change of pace” (or rather change of neural dominance) lasts 7 days and looks like this (main lift listed only):

Day 1: Bench drop and catch

Day 2: Dynamic effort bench with 60% using an accelerometer to evaluate when to stop the sets (6% drop in speed)

Day 3: Squat

Day 4: Twitch reps (short partials in the low range with the eccentric/transition/concentric done as fast as possible)

Day 5: Ballistic bench (like dynamic effort bench but with the fastest eccentric and transition possible)

Day 6: Squat

Day 7: OFF

After this change of pace microcycle I restart with the strength cycle and keep doing it until I regress again.

Where I’m at, where I want to be
When I started this plan last week my bench pressing strength was understandably pittiful. First because of the injuries but also because of not doing much, if any free-weight pressing in the past 6 years… at least not heavy.

I hit 265lbs which pains me to write (consider that I’ve done 445 in the past). But the good news is that it has already gone up significantly and I’m on pace to get back to a 315 bench with a Duffalo bar (which is harder since it increases the range of motion by 2-3").

At the moment that my short-term goal: doing a 315 bench with the Duffalo bar and a 415lbs eccentric overload with a 5 seconds descent.

My medium-term goal is to hit 365 / 465 and my long-term objective is to get back to 405+.

Then I’d like to get back up to a 500+ squat again (which should be fast as I can still do in the 400 and last time it only took me 6 weeks to get from 405 to 525).

And eventually power snatch 265.

It all sounds fun in writing, but we’ll see how it goes.

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Well, as I mentioned it was a very aggressive protocol aimed at healing organs. It might be overkill (and pretty $$$) for muscles/tendons but here it goes:

It’s a blitz (4-6 weeks) of 2mg TB500 per DAY and 1mg BPC157 per DAY. Which, even if it’s for a short time, is expensive. But seeing that it was to fix a seemingly unfixable issue (kidney damage) which could, if healed, add years to my life, that’s a small price to pay.

After I get to see the blook work I might make this something that I do 2-3 times a year (depending on the degree of healing achieved, or maybe I won’t need it anymore, we’ll see).

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It’s pretty much impossible for me to help you there as I’m using a unit with pre-planned protocols (Compex Sport 6.0) and the thing with EMS is that effectiveness depends not only on the quantitative variables (duration of the high-intensity periods, level of intensity, work:rest ratio, number of intense contractions) but also on the type of wave and rise pattern (square vs. sinusoidal for example). All of that is pre-programmed in my unit and I don’t know all the specifics.

I know that the ratio between tetanic contractions (as intense as tolerable and keeps the muscle contracted) and pulse contractions (lower intensity very short pulses) is 10 seconds to 20 seconds and there are 40 of those cycles in a workout.

Both types of impulses are different. In the tetanic contraction the electrical impulse is sustained for 10 seconds so the muscle stays contracted, it’s not contracting/relaxing.

During the pulses it very quick impulses… on/off/on/off/on/off… etc. which basically make the muscle twitch slightly. The intensity is lower, this is the rest period if you want to call it that.

But you can also use the original Kots protocol (the one that was used in the original research as well as by Charlie Francis, Ben Johnson’s coach). which consits of 10 “reps” lasting 10 seconds at the highest tolerable level of intensity (sustained contraction/current, not pulses) with 50 seconds of rest between “reps”.

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Nutrition/Supplementation
While I dislike “blogging” about my training I truly HATE writing about my nutrition. I think that’s because there are so many conflicting opinions that its impossible to post about a diet without having dozens of people questioning and doubting you. I once posted about an eating plan I was doing, which included about one kg of broccoli and I swear to God, I must have had 20 people commenting about the broccoli.

I also am not at a point in my life where I need to measure everything and follow an exact plan to a “T”. I’ve been eating to gain muscle or lose fat for more than 25 years now. And for a good portion of these I did measure and wrote down everything I ate. But it is just not necessary for ME anymore as I have a solid sense of how much I’m eating without measuring.

I also don’t consider myself to be a great example when it comes to nutrition because:

  1. I’m a very picky (taste-wise) eater, I don’t like many foods
  2. I eat everything plain, I don’t do recipes (I hate when I several foods touch each other) so my nutrition is super boring and limited

Plus, since my goal right now is to gain strength (ideally without gaining fat) my intake is not as controlled as when I’m dieting down. And I eat stuff that will get me judged by nutrition purists who expect me to eat like a contest bodybuilder year round because I’m an expert (hint: I’m a training expert, not a nutrition expert).

But anyway, here is an approximation of what I consume daily.

Upon waking up
1 serving of Mag-10
5g creatine

  • On the big bench days (days 2, 5 and 8 in each microcycle) I also have a Brain Candy

15-30 minutes later (Breakfast)
175-225g of animal flesh (typically salmon or steak)
4 capsules of Flameout

15-20 minutes before training
1 serving of Surge Workout Fuel
1 serving of Mag-10

Intra-workout
1 serving Surge Workout Fuel

Post-workout
170g of berries (typically either raspberries, blueberries or blackberries)
1 bag of mini rice cakes, popcorn flavor
1 serving Mag-10
5g creatine

Lunch
175-225g of animal flesh (often chicken, sometimes steak)

Dinner
175-225g of animal flesh (salmon or steak)
500ml of chocolate milk (let the haters judge!)

PULSES: I also consume several Mag-10 drinks throughout the day. On top of those planned. Basically, I put 1/2 a serving in empty Gatorade bottles, put two of them in the freezer until they become like a slushy and I drink/eat them, then refill them and but them back in. I probably have 6 of those per day (so an additional 3 servings).

That’s something I did when I was working at Biotest HQ and always progressed a lot faster when I did that. So with Mag-10 available again, I decided to get back to that strategy.

EXTRA: Since I’m not dieting to lose fat (but I don’t want to get fat) I’ll sometimes have some extras like more rice cakes, low-fat frozen yogurt or even bread (yes, I’m the Devil).

I tend to have those extras on the first bench day of a triplet (days 1, 4 and 7 in my microcycles) to speed up recovery between the two consecutive bench days. For example, yesterday I did have some frozen yogurt and 6 slice of bread dipped in BBQ sauce (follow me for more culinary delights). Woke up heavier and fuller (extra glycogen and water retention) which will give me better leverage since today is day 5 of my microcycle, a key bench day).

On the big days (days 2, 5 and 8) I take Brain Candy upon waking up and then 600mg of alpha-GPC, 20mg of noopept and 200mg of caffeine 30 minutes before my workout.

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An update. So far I’m impressed but I’m trying to stay objective and not to jump on the “this is the greatest plan ever”, after all, I’ve only been through 1 and 1/2 cycle (Did the 6th workout of the 2nd cycle today).

At the moment, everything is up by 20 to 30lbs, which impressed me tremendously. However, this could be because of several things other than the actual plan:

  1. Getting back to heavy lifting after a while
  2. not being inhibited by pain and dysfunction
  3. Not being on a caloric deficit anymore
  4. More water retention from all the electrolytes from the Mag-10 and Workout Fuel which give me better leverage

So I’ll wait before saying that this plan produces shocking strength gains.

But so far so good.

One thing that I notice is that my muscle tone is dramatically increased. My muscles haven’t felt that hard even at rest since the days I was bench pressing 445 while also doing gymnastic rings work.

This is likely neural activation from the high level of CNS demands of the program.

Also, one odd thing is that I did cable crunches today. Which are my go-to abs movement. I’ve been doing those since forever and over the past years I would use mostly 80-90lbs on my cable station (resistance varies with different pulley stations). At the most I’d use 100lbs but these were hard and didn’t feel solid. Well, today I “had” to use 150-160lbs… my normal 80-90lbs felt shockingly light so I just kept adding weight.

160 still felt easier than what 100 normally felt like.

What was shocking for me is that I had not trained abs since starting this plan. This makes me suspect improvement is overall CNS efficiency.

Anyway, cool so far, hope it continues.

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Today was what I could call the assessment day of the microcycle: the day where I do a full range bench press without any additional tools (e.g. weight releasers or slingshot) so it gives me the best idea of the progression.

So far, from a microcycle to microcycle I basis I had improved all bench press variations by 20-30lbs. The only exception being the functional isometrics that only went up by 15lbs, but I suspect that it’s because on the ramp up sets I pushed as hard as I could into to pins instead of just touching them which essentially makes every set a max effort and would cause more fatigue.

But until I could see what it actually does on a “regular” bench press it’s hard to evaluate how effective the microcycle was.

Some notes:

  1. I’m still weak AF, but it’s moving in the right direction. Considering that I had not been able to press more than 270 in the past 6 years, I’ll take any strength gains that I can get.

  2. I am using a Duffalo bar for the bench. This is a “curved”/cambered bar which increases the range of motion by around 4-5" (so it’s harder) BUT the angle of the bar makes it easier to keep the upper back engaged.

So during my first microcycle, I hit 270lbs with the Duffalo bar. And it was a grind. That’s roughly equivalent to a 290lbs bench with a regular bar, so I was actually pleased considering my situation.

Today, 8 days later, I hit 310!!!

Which is properly ridiculous and sounds like an advertisement for a 1980 supplement ad. But that’s actually exactly what I hit. And the 310 was less of a grind than the 270.

Plus, for my drop off of 94% I was able to do 5 x 1 @ 280

I still wanna weight until getting excited about the program because it could simply be me being able to use the strength I had but couldn’t due to the neurological inhibition and injury.

But it’s certainly a great start.

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UPDATE

This will be all over the place as I’m still organizing my thoughts.

I’ve been on my specialized plan for almost 2 months. The progress has been satisfactory, especially considering that I was ill twice and lost 7lbs as a result.

I’ve also tried two versions of my plan, the original (posted earlier in the thread) and a variation that I will explain in a moment. I’ll give you my diagnostic about what worked and what didn’t, and will explain my path forward.

First, some notable improvements:

Slingshot bench press went from 305 to 385lbs
Regular bench press went from 285 to 345lbs
Weight releasers (+100lbs during the eccentric) went from 355/255 to 395/295

Still not great numbers, but considering that for 9 years, due to injuries, any form of pressing over 205 lbs was almost impossible, this pleases me.

Now, most of these gains were made with the original variation of my plan. The second variation gave me an extra 20lbs per method. So the first one gave me 2-3x more progress.

However, it would have been unrealistic to keep adding 20-30lbs per workout as per the first block.

Some other observations though…

  1. During the first plan I gained size VERY fast. Not only that, the muscle density and hardness was ridiculous.

  2. When I switched to the second plan I didn’t get the same size and density improvement. I had lost 7lbs due to the illness before the 2nd plan but haven’t regained that weight since. Muscle hardness is still there in the arms but not in the pecs, delts and traps like it was in the first plan.

The main difference between both plans was taking out the -6% sets.

In the first plan I would ramp to a 1RM for the method of the day, then would lower the weight by 6% and do as many sets of 1 as possible (with a timed 3 min of rest). This fluctuated a lot during the plan, from a low of 2 x 1 up to a high of 11 x 1. I also used this for my assistance work.

In the second plan, I only ramped up to a 1RM for the method of the day and did 3 sets on assistance work.

So the volume was a lot lower in the second plan.

The reason that dropped the -6% sets was that I was starting to feel what I thought were signs of overwork (tired, poor sleep, low motivation). But in retrospect, these could also have been due to the beginning of the illness.

Another difference was how I organized the methods.

In the first plan I would (if you remember) do:

2 days of bench press
1 day of legs and upper back

That was a training unit and a microcycle had 3 of them, with different methods.

So for bench I rotated methods every workout and it would take 9-10 days for a method to “come back”.

In the second plan I decided to try out a concentrated approach: doing 3 days of bench in a row, with the same method.

So each training unit was now:

3 bench press days with a specific method
1 lower body/upper back day

And there was 3 training units like that, each with a different method.

So for example it would be:

UNIT 1: 3 days of Duffalo bar bench press (3 workouts)
UNIT 2: 3 days of slingshot bench press (3 workouts)
UNIT 3: 3 days of bench press with weight releaser (3 workouts)

I did progress, but not at the rate of the previous plan. I might simply be the lower volume due to dropping the -6% sets. I could be the lower volume of assistance work (especially back which had a lowered volume but also lowered frequency) or maybe the time between similar stimulation was too short.

Anyway, I’ll attempt a 3rd variation:

  • Briging the -6% sets back in
  • Using 2 bench workouts per unit instead of 3

The units will be:

UNIT 1
DAY 1: 3 Boards PRESS
DAY 2: Paused on chest
DAY 3: lower body/pull

UNIT 2
DAY 1: Slingshot
DAY 2: Normal bench press
DAY 3: lower body/pull

UNIT 3
DAY 1: 2 boards PRESS
DAY 2: Weight releasers (+100lbs) bench
DAY 3: lower body/pull

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“Regular bench press went from 285 to 345lbs“

I haven’t read through all of this but my initial thoughts are WOW!

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Well, used to bench 445… so lets put that in perspective

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Understood, I recall you mentioning this once before in your journal. Still that kind of progress in such a short period of time must feel good…to see an idea come to fruition.

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Still doing the Layer System (2RM version)…will swap the 2nd layer of 4-6 reps of 90% for the (x) sets of 94% and see how it goes. (Whilst keeping the 6-8 reps of 70% and 2 sets of 50%).