One of the biggest challenges athletes face is managing joint stress - especially when stacking strength, speed, skill work, and conditioning together.

Whether you’re rehabbing an irritated knee, coming off a muscle strain, or trying to spare your joints during a higher volume training block, “occlusion” or blood flow restriction (BFR) training is one of the most effective, underused tools available.

This tool has been hyped in the past for bodybuilding purposes, but physiologically it provides us a lot of support for other strategies. Used correctly, BFR goes far beyond arm pumps and can serve as a critical method for joint protection, rehab, or conditioning maintenance.

Table of Contents:

• What is BFR Training?

• How It Helps You Train Through Joint Pain and Injury

• Why BFR Works

• Active vs. Passive BFR Protocols

• Safe and Effective Pressure Guidelines (No Expensive Cuffs Required)

• When to Use BFR in a Session

• How to Integrate BFR into the Hybrid Elite Program

• Real-World Use Cases

• Takeaways

What Is BFR Training?

Blood Flow Restriction (BFR) involves applying controlled pressure to a limb - usually the upper thigh or arm - to partially occlude venous blood flow while still allowing arterial blood to enter. This means fresh, oxygenated blood can enter the muscle, but the blood carrying waste metabolites struggles to leave.

This creates a unique metabolic environment in the muscle where:

• Waste products like lactate build up fast

• Oxygen is limited

• Muscle fatigue happens quicker

• But loads stay light - only 20–40% of your 1-rep max

You’re not cutting off circulation entirely. You are creating just enough restriction to encourage the body to adapt with less weight used. This occurs because the compression results in increased lactate buildup, subsequent oxygen deprivation in the muscle, and thus accelerated fatigue. All of which amplify the body’s growth and repair signals.

Traditional lifting fills the adaptive stress cup through heavy load.

BFR fills it through enhanced metabolic buildup.

Both can activate muscle or other tissue growth pathways - it’s just through different emphasized mechanisms.

⸻

Why It Works: Rehab and Performance Applications

For those interested - here is how it’s actually working inside the muscle tissue and why it creates a unique effect:

1. Metabolite Accumulation = Powerful Growth Signals

Lactate, hydrogen ions, and other byproducts can’t flush out efficiently. This mimics the muscles function as if it’s under heavier strain than it really is

Your body responds by:

• Recruiting fast-twitch muscle fibers at lower loads than usual

• Activating satellite cells (which aid repair)

• Increasing local hormonal signals (GH, mTOR and IGF-1 pathways, etc.)

• Lactate-driven hormonal cascades for systemic adaptation

Even muscles not directly under the cuff (like the pecs) can benefit due to hormonal and signaling spillover.

2. Pain Reduction and Joint Relief

BFR creates a strong local release of natural pain modulators (like endorphins and endocannabinoids), which reduces pain signaling in joints and tendons.

This makes it useful for:

• Arthritic joints

• Chronic tendinopathy

• Post-op movement prep

• Pre-session warm-ups when joints feel stiff or “off”

Even simple, small movements with the cuffs on (like light squats or leg extensions) can dramatically improve comfort and tissue activation.

3. Intramuscular Resistance + Joint Sparing

There’s a likely mechanical benefit too:

Compression from the cuff increases internal resistance within the muscle during contraction, adding tension to the muscle itself without adding much load to connective tissue.

This also contributes to the same benefits such as:

• A higher training effect than you otherwise could during injury or deload

• Reduce joint strain from higher weights (if needed or desirable)

• Target weak links or sensitive areas safely (ie. hamstrings post-strain or elbows with tendinopathy)

4. Reactive Hyperemia = Recovery and Healing

When you release the cuffs —> Blood rushes back in (called reactive hyperemia)

This floods the area with:

• Nutrients

• Oxygen

• Growth factors (IGF-1, VEGF, nitric oxide)

This rush enhances recovery and may improve soft tissue healing, which is why BFR is now used in post-op rehab and elite performance settings.

4. Systemic Carryover

While BFR’s main effects are local, research also shows:

• Systemic GH release from metabolite stress

• Possible neural and hormonal benefit to other limbs (“cross-education effect”; training one limb affects the other)

• Cardiovascular and endurance improvements with aerobic BFR work

You’re not just rehabbing or sparing joints - you’re still benefiting your entire system.

5. Conditioning and Aerobic Maintenance

If you can’t run or push intensity, you can still train with BFR:

• Cycling or walking with BFR can potentially improve VO2 max and oxygen delivery to muscle tissue.

• Raises heart rate and strain without requiring speed or force.

• Maintains cardiovascular fitness during rehab, deloads, or travel.

When Should You Use BFR in a Session?

If You’re Healthy and Training Normally:

I would tend to use BFR toward the end of your session - useful for:

• Hypertrophy finishers (to compliment muscle growth but without fatiguing you before other training)

• Joint-sparing accessory volumes (allowing you to accumulate reps and quality work without as high of a joint strain if needed)

BFR at the beginning can interfere with your main lifts or explosive work, so it’s better saved for after primary performance work.

(Use this in mostly in tertiary sections in any of the Hybrid Programs)

If You’re Injured or Training Around Joint Pain:

Use BFR at the beginning of your session — even passively or lightly.

• A few minutes of light BFR movement can reduce pain and increase local activation (e.g. quad sets for the knee, band curls for the hamstring, light pushdowns for elbow/shoulder prep)

• This primes the joint and improves quality of movement in your main work

• You can also repeat it passively later in the day for recovery

Hybrid BFR Training Protocols for Injury Rehab + Mass Gain

Injury-Hypertrophy Protocol

Read more

The video above covers only 1 week of this relatively new clients programming - and does not go over any of the custom instructional details for exercises that certainly are where a lot of the magic happens but you could …

Read more

Thanks for taking interest in the Performance Manual. This blog is dedicated to introducing and developing readers to a broader approach to physical training past what most fitness content available delivers.

This system dives into a more “strength & conditioning” influenced framework and helps you apply it to your personal regimen - which should compliment your physical health and ability much more so than isolating singular niche qualities and paradigms such as within bodybuilding, powerlifting, and endurance hobbies.

This is also not a “gimmicky” manual to share toward athletes that is speaking on subjects with no backing, evidence, and empirical reasoning.

Athletic development is simply human development and everything discussed here is based on years of experience, research, and backing from some of the top mentors in the world internationally.

You will find no nonsense here - simply high passion writing & content designed to help you upgrade yourself as an organism to be better able to withstand and impose your will on the world.

How this Manual Works

This manual is added to periodically with generally very long posts. Most take 20-45 minutes to completely go through. Take your time - most coaches will sell an eBook for 8-10x the price that contains half or less of the information here. Utilize it as you go along at a pace you can handle.

It is meant to be absorbed like a curriculum - with which you can then use to both motivate and inform you on how to fill out templates and programs provided here, or write your own programming (or client’s of yours).

For those who may be overwhelmed or not sure where to start, the below listing are introductory essential reading:

Topics for Introduction

This material will bring you into contact with some very basic methods and information toward strength & conditioning training. All further information is built on top of at least understanding this material.

• The Hybrid Training Hierarchy + Basic Training Management

• Foundational Health

• Nutrition Basics

• Hypertrophy & Strength

• Conditioning Base

• Plyometrics

• Ranges of Strength and use of “Tension”

• Training “for” or “with” a Sport

• Roadmap to Athletic & Physical Transformation

  • (video version)

NOTE: There is FAR more material covered in the manual so feel free to search the archives. However, everyone should be familiar with the above subjects to gain the most benefit.

Programs/Templates:

These are basic templates that can be followed depending on your needs, preferences, and training level. They will be adjusted by yourself as needed based on information from the rest of the manual:

Basic Strength

Useful for beginners or those with lower training experience/capacity to begin gaining strength and size while learning fundamental movements.

Hybrid Program 1.0 (Template)

More advanced program setup for harder training that is flexible and covers a wide range of qualities. can be performed 3-6 days per week. Requires you to fill out desired exercises yourself to custom needs/preferences.

*Primary program for this now is “Hybrid Elite Performance Program 2.0” (Group)

Hybrid Elite Performance Program 2.0 (Group Training)

This is a group program. Details are listed and described + a full tour at the page listed. Goal is concurrent training of all qualities - flexible with 3-4 days training days per week. Text access to me personally + group material to better understand and engage with the program.

Programming is given weekly on an app and contains video + text tutorials.

Combat Ready

2-3 day template to help organize your training around sport/combat training. Provides plenty of information on how to execute and adjust. Requires you to fill out preferred exercises with lots of flexibility. Primarily focuses on strength, hypertrophy, and power as its expected endurance will be covered during sport practice.

1x20 Prep

Classic and simple introductory program to help those who are recently getting back into training, coming off an injury, or need a break from hard work. Workouts are meant to rebuild general capacity to get back to training harder. Good for those who are deconditioned.

Program Terminology (Needed to understand program material)

Popular & Useful Podcast or Reading Topics:

• Making Gains vs Getting Injured; Stress Capacity Model

• Stretching vs Mobility

• Pain Science

• Wrestling Vs Jiujitsu + Becoming a “Fluid Mover”

• Training The CNS

• “Speed is Genetic”…

DIRECT CONSULTATION + GROUP Q&A

The page above outlines our community questions and interaction. This is a space where we can speak directly and I am happy to discuss any and all subjects with you in a casual atmosphere. Any and all are welcome. These sessions are designed to bring more value to everyone by fostering real-time interaction and collaboration and while recordings are only available to paid subscribers it is free to any who need help and hop in for discussion.

When Are the Calls?

• Current Call Slot: Every First & Third Wednesday of the month @ 8 PM EST

• Future Meet Times: These will be adjusted regularly to accommodate as many schedules as possible. We’ll adapt based on feedback from participants to ensure maximum accessibility.

Podcast & Questions…

The podcast is generally produced every month (in-season) and 3-7 days prior I will ask for any Q&A material to cover for the end. I try to answer every question. If interested in asking, follow me on twitter and ask in the comments under a post each month when I send it out. If you cannot do this - feel free to message me on any social media and I’ll cover it during that months segment.

Thank you for reading, and if you’ve subscribed to full member status - please feel free to message on twitter or Instagram or email me at hybridathletetraining@protonmail.com about any comments or questions you have.

Appreciate all of you.

Train sensibly and enjoy.

Topics covered:

• Electrical vs chemical systems

• Bodybuilding fatigue vs athlete fatigue thresholds

• CNS fatigue symptoms at different levels; Speed, strength, alertness & cognition/focus/energy, joint health/emotions/motivation/sleep.

• Cats as athletes

• Yin & yang vs constant “middle ground” (high low approach to training)

• How to test/judge your CNS recovery state

• Tools/tactics you can use in programming to modulate your electrical systems better

• High velocity training and the force velocity curve

• Tactics to increase the CNS propulsion ability for “bursts”

• Sprinting programming concerns and contexts

Will Wayland - also a very good coach, strong + jiujitsu blackbelt - found here

• Myths, Half-Truths, and Misconceptions

• “Sports are played on one leg” (No they’re not actually)

• True Unilateral lifts vs Quasi-unilateral/asymmetrical exercises

• Unilateral lifts do not just include “hypertrophy” exercises

• The REAL advantage of single limb exercises

• Multiple planes of movement

• Neural drive & the “BLD”

• “Hiding a limb” and targeted joint work

• Glute & Niche Structure Loading

• Work Capacity

• SFR vs RSM

• Injury Management

• Time

• Fatigue Types and Related Concerns

• How to Incorporate SL Exercises Intelligently

• Primary, Secondary & Tertiary Slots

• Plyometrics

• Alternating/Reciprocal Movement Variations

• Fixed Position Movements

• Hypertrophy & Killing 2 Birds with 1 Stone

• Block & Week Wave Rotations

Most People Do Not Understand the Actual Differences Between Single and Double Leg Exercises…

It's insanely common that people make conceptual assumptions about the benefits of unilateral single-leg exercises (or single-arm… though ironically, it's less common) regarding functionality, common athletic transfer, etc. The reality is that these assumptions are somewhat shortsighted, often rooted in faulty models of human function, and tend to hold some truth for accidental reasons rather than the reasons prescribed.

If you ask someone to elaborate further on why a split squat would be more beneficial to athletics than a back squat, most would not be able to provide anything besides a vague conception of "athletic positions." The reason this is an issue for some is that if you lack a thorough understanding of what is going on during an exercise and the actual mechanical differences between unilateral and bilateral lifts, you are not going to make decisions in training that move the needle; instead, you may make redundant or harmful ones.

Not all bilateral or unilateral exercises are the same, and by simply throwing out vague buzzwords like stability, balance, athletic, etc., you will also be making more vague decisions. This is not how I program or train.

In this post, we're going to dispel myths surrounding single-limb training and enhance your understanding of how to look at exercise movement qualities. You should come away with a strong sense of when, where, why, and how to incorporate unilateral work into your programming. We will also cover with some detail some topics surrounding the context of how I apply unilateral training into programs for the sake of driving home their importance and where they need to be considered as they fit into your regimen.

First let’s cover common statements used to justify the use of unilateral exercises and explain the issues with their reasoning. I am specifically going to attempt to make the most “good-faith” representation of common positions and elaborate on some informative context that will help drive your decision making and efforts.

Myths, Half-truths, Misunderstandings, & Contradictions:

“Sports are Played on One Leg at a Time” 

No doubt you have heard this before. The concept that because a sport is supposedly played on a single leg at a time that training exercises off of one leg will make you more athletic than a lift that's done on two legs at a time.

Does this ACTUALLY make sense? No. The reality is that sports are not truly played on one leg as much as many claim.

Examples below:

Rarely are actions taken with maximum force on a single leg. Athletes tend to utilize two legs when high forces are required like absorbing momentum and redirecting it.

It’s also common that many will look at the highlight reel actions they want to perform in and forget that most games are won in less bombastic but more crucial exchanges. Being able to produce force in general is important but the idea that single leg training is specific to athletes while bilateral exercises don’t have transfer to athletic tasks is nonsensical.

Frankly - MOST of our explosive athletic actions take place on TWO LEGS…not one. Even many actions that most don’t think about - like punching or throwing propulsion - actually demand synchronous actions and drive from two legs at once.

However, there is some important context to add here which this post will deep dive further into.

What people really mean by “sports take place on one leg” is primarily that RUNNING occurs with a single leg ground contact at a time with the swing leg off the floor. They somewhat unconsciously are identifying that human propulsive actions are tied to the GAIT cycle and that means that respecting this foundation has a place in all training because it's fundamental to our movement patterns (More on this later).

NOTE: In addition to the fact that running itself takes place in most sports - This concept is true - though I personally had to explain that full truth FOR most people who couldn’t really understand what they are trying to say as precisely.

Understanding this actually matters because:

1. Gait cycle mechanics do not always disappear when we move with two legs at the same time, its principles of IR and ER still apply. Thus, we are not necessarily ignoring an actual important part of training when using certain bilateral lifts.

2. Just because we utilize a single leg exercise doesn’t mean that we are training the joints through the ranges they will need in the gait cycle either. Details matter here.

3. This actually highlights that we don’t create our strongest muscular actions off one leg in sport. We actually create our most rapid elastic actions (sprinting). This is very different from raw strength. We are mostly *bouncing*off of one leg during sport - we get set on two legs when we need maximum strength and power.

The central point being made here is:

First, that sport actions taking place on a single leg at certain times doesn’t negate all the moments that our sport actions take place on two legs at a time… so the “either/or” approach that some coaches (yes, there are a number that do along with their proponents) take with this is moot.

Second, that bilateral exercises don’t necessarily ignore functional movement principles of athletic action.

And third, that movements in the gym will never fully replicate the motion of another action that isn’t weight training so the idea that more mimicry between sport movement and strength training will automatically enhance your athletic capacity is not true.

While some might say that “you don’t squat all the way up and down in basketball” or “we move like this in basketball so this loaded basketball specific exercise will work better” … we also don’t hold dumbbells in basketball either - so why would lifting with any weight at all be beneficial…?

If the idea that the more we imitate the movements in sport, the superior they will be for transfer - then why are you in the gym at all? Accepting that doing *anything* besides playing the sport - which is the only thing with full imitation of the sport movements - can help enhance performance is accepting that things don’t need to look like the sport movement at a glance to have benefit.

This has been covered in depth on the podcast before if you want to dive deeper into how to approach “sport specific” training. Summary is that we are in the gym to build qualities… not skills or sport mechanics. Strong, fast, healthy, mobile, and durable is why we train and anything that creates those outcomes for your body is worthwhile. If it holds you back from that then it’s not.

“Stability, Eliminating Imbalances, Etc.”

"If you are measuring a hip shift during your squats and using a single-leg exercise to fix this, are you measuring the potential hip shift that occurs during the single-leg exercise as well?"

Imbalances:

Unilateral work is commonly prescribed to address imbalances in muscular strength from side to side or supposed resulting movement inequities.

One of the most common examples is a hip shift in a squat. This is often attributed to a strength discrepancy between sides, labeled as dangerous, with coaches claiming that muscle imbalances will lead to injury. The reality is that muscular imbalances between limb sides, unless truly egregious, are normal and almost entirely benign. Additionally, hip shifts in squats may also be benign depending on severity.

I want to emphasize further that issues like hip or shoulder shifts during bilateral movements are more commonly due to coordination or mobility issues (usually both) rather than a raw strength problem. What often happens is that coordination issues persist because they are not properly addressed by teaching the athlete how to organize themselves over each leg, and the problem is never resolved.

A critical point to consider is, "If you are measuring a hip shift during your squats and using a single-leg exercise to fix this, are you measuring the potential hip shift that occurs during the single-leg exercise as well?"

For those interested, observing and recalibrating movement through a lens like that is much better for fixing mobility issues than simply applying a blanket solution to everyone without considering the mechanical details.

Stability:

“You build strength, muscle, balance and stability at the same time” is what most say with single leg work.” It’s true in many cases.

However, while the development of stability may be necessary in cases where it is a problem (rehab after injury), it generally hits a point of diminishing returns in the gym. Firstly, if stability and balance are traits you want to build and maintain (which you probably should) then yes, train it. But if you want to train something that will be challenged enough to keep building along with other qualities then having too many limiting factors in a single exercise will limit how good most of those qualities get.

This is why those who want to keep getting stronger on single leg exercises always seek to find more ways to increase stability with their setup, rather than just expect to be stable enough to keep getting stronger.

At a certain point - the instability of being on one leg at a time gets in the way of force outputs. While having elements of this in a strength & health routine aren’t bad - it pays to also understand tradeoffs so you can balance the program as a whole rather than throw out the whole toolset of bilateral squats/deadlifts/pressing.

Quasi-Single Leg Exercises vs True “Single Leg” Lifts

“Only an exercise that solely utilizes a single limb would be a single limb isolation exercise, others are quasi-single limb exercises that may be inherently more “asymmetrical” than they are unilateral.”

Many exercises that are considered to be unilateral are not the same. There is somewhat of a gradient even to various exercises. Deciding there is a hard differential between a single leg and bilateral exercise is a bit misguided at times.

Is a split squat the same level of “single leg” as a pistol squat is?

Or a single-leg leg press or a walking lunge?

Note: As many would claim that a single leg strength exercise is better for sport due to single leg action - somehow, they don’t tend to think a single-leg leg press fits into this category despite being as “single leg” as possible

A superior lens to potentially look at some exercise movements from this perspective might be symmetrical vs asymmetrical exercises. Only an exercise that solely utilizes a single limb would be a single limb isolation exercise, others are technically quasi-single limb exercises that may be inherently more “asymmetrical” in stimulus than they are truly unilateral.

The effect of asymmetrical movements can even be manipulated through the execution of exercises with similar setups. Sending the knee forward during a split squat vs dropping the back knee down will create very different results in stimulus.

You can observe from the above examples that even two exercises with the same stance can have difference emphasis on muscle groups and even the limb challenged. The first picture will actually demand significant work to be done by the back leg while the second picture will demand less of the trail leg (but still not fully isolate the front leg alone).

While this point doesn’t negate the use of the terms unilateral vs bilateral for practical use - it’s worth shining light on this concept to better understand the nature of our exercise qualities.

Upper Body Isn’t Held to The Same Standard

“If we need to focus on single-leg exercises because single-leg action is more specific, then why don't we apply this logic to the upper body as much?”

It's worth noting that it is just as true that we use most upper body actions through gait propulsion mechanics and use one arm at a time as well. Yet, it is far less common to promote single-arm lifts. Why? Most likely because the bilateral exercises most commonly used still feel effective (which shouldn't make sense compared to single-arm exercises per this logic), and people see no need to exclude them.

In reality, I think this is because there are other underlying motives for wanting lower body workarounds to the bilateral lifts (squat/deadlift, etc.).

In my opinion, a lot of people really just don't want the stress/trouble of loading heavy squats/deadlifts...which is okay and often a good choice for other reasons than athletic transfer. Let’s just address the actual reasons why someone might want to bias more single leg work instead of making up some faulty logic.

Unilateral Leg/Arm Exercises Are Not Exclusively “Hypertrophy” Exercises

“While training single leg strength is what will create sport transfer over bilateral lifts due to supposed unilateral nature of sport…suddenly this logic disappears when training plyometrics.”

As coaches often advocate for single-leg exercises in lifting, emphasizing the "one leg" theory, there's a notable discrepancy when it comes to applying the same principle to plyometrics, which are even more closely related to sport-specific movements.

This is a major point of hypocrisy amongst the “single leg specific” crowd. While coaches will claim a “Bulgarian split squat” is more sport specific/transferable due to its unilateral emphasis, they often don’t pursue the same logical end toward their plyometric and explosive efforts. Box jumps and hurdle hops are just as popular and don’t receive some sort of anti-bilateral feedback toward them. They are very easily perceived to be useful in an athletic context. This, however, somehow is not considered often when claiming that it is the 2-leg simultaneous action that prevents exercises from transferring to sport…

If symmetrical leg propulsion is not applicable to sport, then why don’t broad jumps, box jumps, depth jumps, hurdle hops and their derivatives get the same critical analysis from coaches…?

Ultimately, as you follow the logic of these considerations, we need to ask:

“Is it actually true that single leg work is what will transfer to sport and not bilateral lifts… or are coaches/athletes just looking for justification to not squat/deadlift?”

Note: I could provide arguments and context as to when we would not use a deadlift or squat or even bench press for athletes. It is a good idea to shine light on why people make these arguments though and deeply investigate our reasoning if we want to make the most effective decisions long term, however.

The REAL Advantages of Single Leg (and arm) Exercises

Okay, so we've covered enough of why single-leg exercises are justified using flawed logic. This isn't going to turn into a barbell back squat promotional post however, we are going to cover how some coaches are accidentally somewhat correct when using single-leg variations and what positives they bring to your program.

Key Point:

Human movement is ROTATIONAL at its foundation, and this occurs though gait propulsion (see hip mobility post). Sprints, throws, punches, jumps, COD, etc. occur with sequences of external and internal rotation of the body’s slings or hemispheres. Thus, its normal to see “single leg/arm” action in one direction at a time.

Take a moment to really observe how we produce propulsion in these athletes below:

Each leg cycles between internal rotation and external rotation over and over in order to move and propel the athlete forward. The spine, lats, and ribcage all rotate and flex accordingly in rhythm. As well as the shoulders and arms pumping on every step. Specifically, it can be eye opening to realize even the upper limbs don’t swing back and forth in perfectly straight lines either - the shoulder IR and ER’s too.

If this confuses you or you want a direct introduction to the basics of gait… it is covered more in the hip mobility post here.

Positives, purposes, and considerations to take advantage of unilateral work:

Read more

Train with Peyton to Lose Fat and Gain Muscle using an Engineered System

Peyton’s Twitter

Contents:

• Purpose of updates

• Goals of the program

• Overview

• Telegram Direct Coaching

• Access to app

Purpose of the Updates

As I’ve alluded to many times since the first month of the year - the goal of this spring and summer was to finalize the design of an updated program based on the philosophy I share both in this manual and online as a whole.

Train everything while being ready for anything.

I know a lot of coaches will share that sentiment and give out a program that promotes being “functional” but ultimately it ends up being poorly thought out, doesn’t consider the details of deep performance enhancement NOR does it make it accessible and practical for those who don’t have access to special equipment.

This is not that.

This is a program and training system that I’ve built a delivery system for that fixes several common problems to almost every other program that promise a lot:

1. Covering ALL relevant training qualities from strength, muscle gain, mobility, speed, power, durability, all necessary aspects of endurance and ACTUALLY effective mobility training into a single program without it becoming impractical or overly stressful.

2. Training all of these qualities effectively enough to make gains WHILE leaving a recovery surplus so you don’t break down or lose the ability to engage with recreational activities outside the gym. Strength & conditioning is meant to prepare your body for any activity and it doesn’t do that very well if it leaves you fried all the time when you might be called upon to do something besides the workout.

3. Show you how to do this and coach you through the system without leaving you confused, hanging or performing things poorly while also leaving you enough room to pursue training at your own pace without the intensity of a 1 on 1 coaching relationship. Most PDF programs are inflexible and leave you with no training assistance/adjustment while 1 on 1 coaching is not for everybody - this makes effective program delivery a delicate balance between quality instruction and flexible “private” execution.

On top of these elements I have also made it so that the most updated and effective methods I use in my own training and with my “1 on 1” client team both online and in-person.

The substack manual is an educational platform for you to understand the finer details of training and potentially upgrade your regimen yourself - with the original hybrid program & combat ready template made to be flexible for the sake of your own adjustments.

1 on 1 coaching is for those who need custom programs and direct close contact with me for maximum results.

This program is meant to fill the gap between those two for those who need a program written and demonstrated for them with a little coach assistance but also able to go at their own pace privately if they want.

Goals of this Training Program

This program is for general physical preparation at the most refined level.

This means the changes it will make to your body at a holistic level will alter you to become more ready for every type of task.

The format is specifically designed to help you cover everything you are interested in if you are a reader of my material.

Gain strength, speed, endurance, mobility, durability, and build muscle mass from head to toe (and I mean literally from the neck to the feet) all in a seamless and natural flow of programming that also provides you the recovery reserve to remain healthy and ready for spontaneous activity.

We want to max out our overall stats blending all skills and talents

It includes a little heavy lifting, with well selected plyometrics, hypertrophy and stretch related isolation exercises, movement challenges & accessible gymnastic work, along with setup variations and special exercises meant to fill every other gap in your general physical preparation. It also includes endurance work built into the framework of the sessions as well as outdoor accessible speed/conditioning work as well.

This is all neatly woven together while threading the right amount of volume and overall stress to keep you in the pocket of progress *without completely crushing you* so you can make gains all year round steadily and without quick burnout (an extremely key element to program success).

This is a concurrent training program that will allow you to easily develop and maintain all relevant training & physical fitness qualities at once without overly adapting to everything we are doing in order to prevent progress plateaus.

The input is the programming and the output is being a savage.

Overview

The program structure is as follows:

• 3-4 strength & power sessions per week (adjustable options)

• 2-3 additional sessions for conditioning and/or speed & agility work. Outdoor compatible.

• Delivered on an app that provides weekly updates to training with exercise video tutorials and detailed written instruction. It will also allow you to directly log your data for me to see and review.

• Special telegram messaging group access. I’ve built an extensive group on the Telegram message app that houses video instruction and direct access to me to help coach you through the program as needed. The videos in the group will explain to you exactly what you need to know to run it as well as understand its purpose behind the training decisions.

How the Program is Designed

Strength + Power Sessions

These sessions are designed to make up the centerpiece of your development. Building structure in the form of muscle mass, joint and connective tissue quality, and power development.

They are designed in most seasons (every block varies) in this fashion:

A) Prep Work - movement prep to build mobility, control, and nervous system activation.

B) Primary Section - Our main section work designed to build the ability to produce more force and produce it faster.

C) Secondary Section - Structural development to build muscle, connective tissue strength, mobility, and durability.

D) Tertiaries - Filling in the gaps for any areas needing more work or commonly neglected but important joints/muscle groups.

All exercise prescriptions rotate and are sequenced differently week to week / month to month so training doesn’t create burnout, overuse, and keep progress both consistent and also broad in the elements you train year round.

Conditioning Sessions

These sessions are meant to include recreational or skilled development practice in various sports or targeted energy system development depending on your needs.

The group education section as well as direct consultation with me, can be utilized to customize the sections to work best for you.

The goal is an elegant approach to developing work capacity, aerobic and high threshold energy production systems that will keep you pushing a high pace when needed, as well as recovering from training better than other traditional programs.

Speed Work & Mobility

A classic element of the Hybrid Elite training systems that you have probably seen impact fitness culture on the Internet has come from my promotion of the derivative benefits of speed training & sprinting, as well as an integrated approach to mobility development.

The goal with this work is to improve maximum elasticity, contract and relax mechanisms, and maximum central nervous system outputs. If this is meant to provide you not only with ground sprinting speed, but also the ability to move more fluidly, safely, and utilize the electrical CNS boost provided from our specific protocols to feed your athleticism everywhere else.

This session can also be modified depending on your experience, constraints, or specific needs.

Telegram Direct Coaching

As mentioned above the telegram group is a big part of the program experience and important for you to get the most out of the training and coaching experience.

Below is a video overview of what is inside the telegram group:

Program and App Access

As this program is a group coaching service it will be delivered on an app for the programming instruction and then telegram will provide the broader coaching assistance and information as required.

For those here who are readers of the blog here I will be wiping out the cost of the group here from the program access if you just use the code below.

If you do have any questions first use this link here to view the program overview and then ask below if you have any other curiosities.

PROGRAM ACCESS

*Remember to use the code below if you are a member here and as long as you are a reader, the program will wipe the substack cost from the app. (emails will be cross referenced so use the same email OR notify me directly)

This is my favorite thing I’ve ever built online so far and it begins officially today so thank you all for being so supportive of me.

Genuinely grateful for everyone of you.

See you in the chat.

Read more

• What is Mobility vs Flexibility?

• Why stretching is not a complete solution and tends to fail

• What prevents hips from accessing full range

• Pelvis position

• Femur movement

• Methods:

  • Breathing Positions

  • End range eccentrics

  • “PAILS & RAILS”

  • Long Range Isometrics

  • Yielding Plyos and Impulses

  • Unilateral Strength Exercises using Gait Rotation concepts

• Programming Considerations

None of the above is medical advice. Please consult a physician before doing anything demonstrated here. Hybrid Athlete Training is not responsible for any harm caused by exercise you engage with regardless of affiliation with this product here.

Mobility Defined

Mobility and flexibility often get used almost interchangeably. Sometimes this isn’t done on purpose but ultimately anytime someone says they have “mobility” issues they essentially only think they have a “flexibility” issue.

The most common area in question being the hips. (This post will cover this area specifically obviously)

Practically speaking - everyone (specifically men) struggles with the following:

• Reaching a deep squat.

• Touching their toes.

• Lifting their legs above their waist.

What some may not realize is that these are all almost the same thing.

It is reaching top end ranges of the pelvis and femur while maintaining muscular control of them.

This requires more than just muscle lengthening capacity - the ability to control these motions into those end ranges is what makes mobility more expansive than just flexibility.

Stretches never do the real trick

To be flexible means to tolerate long muscle lengths. It is to allow the nervous system (mostly) to permit access to a lengthened position of the tissue. This can be done by pushing the individual into stretched positions like below:

By pushing/pulling the hamstrings into length the brain will slowly shut off its “stretch reflex protection mechanisms”. However, this is not what is always what is being asked of the body and joints during tasks that we desire mobility from. In addition, this effect is often not very long lasting when used in isolation.

What is being asked is to squeeze a certain opposing muscle to shorten as much as possible while another is asked to lengthen, typically this is also done while some level of force production is required. Thus active control is the key to mobility and not just passive lengthening - the oppositional musculature must be strong and neurological control must be adequate.

While stretching is not a bad thing - nor is it completely useless - it generally is not the panacea for most athletes movement or orthopedic issues despite being the only answer most people have to offer. It should also be noted that “not stretching enough” is commonly a misguided retroactive diagnosis for many peoples injury concerns. Stretching is essentially not an effective injury reduction protocol - it can be useful for those needing to prepare for actual high stress training which will yield real benefit later but this is not the needle mover when it comes to joint health.

When various aspects to achieving tolerance AND muscular control at end range is developed then mobility gains in range of motion, strength, joint length-tension relationships (Feeling “achy” or “tight”) and increased movement options + athletic solutions during activity will finally settle in and stick around.

Stretching and mobility comparisons have also been discussed on the podcast here if you need more context into why stretching is not high stimulus enough for most average problems.

“Everything is Rotation”: How the Hips Move

The hips are essentially designed to move through what has been termed the “gait cycle”. Gait is simply the process of walking or running - the cycling of our lower (and upper) limbs and thorax in a rotating pattern which allows us to move and cover distance. Our ability to walk and run on two legs extremely efficiently is one of our most effective evolutionary adaptations.

Understanding this is important as you realize that function and form are always intertwined and this means that by understanding gait we can understand hips normal healthy function & movement - then applying those lessons and needs to our exercise selection.

The Gait Cycle Explained

Gait traditionally is broken into several phases as shown here:

A very simple way to look at it in relation to mobility is:

1. Early-stance (heel strike into early loading)

2. Mid-stance (loaded leg)

3. Late-stance (terminal → toe off)

This simplified model of movement is looking at what the stance leg (the leg in contact with the ground and producing/absorbing force) is doing. The “swing” leg (leg not in contact with the ground) is not unimportant but is not needed to understand what matters here.

The central concept to learn here regarding the hip function is that while its easy to think that the leg is simply hinging forward and backward in order to walk or run, in reality, all of this movement forms from *rotation* of the hip - up and down the lower limb (as well as torso).

Foot Movement

Foot pressure and its reactive movement/change in shape is intimately related to the gait cycle as the base of support and reciprocally affects how the hip translates over the leg. Starting with an understanding of these mechanics is a better way to begin to look at the gait cycle as its the point of contact and interaction with the ground.

The foot is frequently touted as problematic if it is “flat”. However, it’s ability to flatten, or “pronate”, is key to the function of transferring your weight forward and producing force.

The foot, tibia (and fibula), femur and pelvis are all being loaded and unloaded through this cycle where the foot lands on the heel in a more supinated (arched) position during early-stance, pronates (flattens) as you translate weight forward to the forefoot in mid-stance and supinates again as the toe propels off the ground as you complete late-stance movement.

Supination is where the leg rotates OUT (external rotation) and pronation is where the leg rotates IN (internal rotation).

A lack in this ability to flatten or unflatten the foot can either create or be derivative of a lack of rotation in the hip during gait (or any motion).

Pelvis Position

The resting position of the pelvis has a reciprocal relationship with the rest of the leg. While the leg position can alter the orientation of the pelvis - it’s often the orientation of the pelvis which provides movement options and strategies for the lower limbs.

Proximal to Distal Principle

Commonly when looking at mobility improvements, the individual will attempt to first move the limb (distal structure) around the thorax (proximal structure). As a rule of thumb - it is the proximal structures position that gives way for the distal structures potential for movement.

Much like how a small alteration in angle close to the center of a circle creates a larger disparity in space between two points the farther out you go from the center, the pelvis and ribcage operate the same way.

(We have covered similar material on the shoulders and ribcage here as well for reference.)

The position of the pelvis will determine if the hips are biased into internal or external rotation and thus how much the limbs translate between those two relative positions during gait.

Though there is nothing wrong with a natural anterior pelvic tilt (as many claim), the ability to control and manage the tilt of the pelvis will be an important element in creating movement options with the hips as it will either open or close off space for the femur to move within.

We will often want to actually move the pelvis over the leg rather than tryin go move our leg around the femur in order to actually free the space for the leg to travel when building maximum hip mobility.

Note: It’s really common that “tight hamstrings” that don’t go away no matter how much you stretch is due to the pelvis always being tilted forward and thus the hamstrings are always being stretched. They feel “tight” because they are already being somewhat stretched due to your skeletal position but not because they lack adequate length but rather because you may lack adequate pelvis control. (Solutions covered in the exercise list further down.)

Tibia + Femur Movement (Knees actually “rotate”)

When the foot is supinated during early-stance it encourages an external rotation of the tibia (lower leg) and then reflexively creates an external rotation of the femur (upper leg).

This then follows the pronation of the foot during mid-stance which prompts the leg to internally rotate.

This is again followed by external rotation once more when the leg releases from the ground during late stance.

This rotation of the femur is really more than just the leg rotating under the pelvis and is really more of the pelvis rotating over the ball of the femur in the hip socket.

The Knee Rotates

Note: Sit down with your knees bent. Place your heel on the floor and swing your ankle bones left and right around the heel of the foot like you’re putting out a cigarette with your heel. Place your fingers on the top of the shin bone and you will realize the knee has rotational elements (as does the elbow).

Hamstrings Help Rotate the Leg

Some under discussed musculature that is intimately involved in internal and external rotation of the femur/tibia are the inner hamstring (semitendinosus) and the outer hamstring (biceps femoris).

You can see below how the position of the musculature as it would shorten would pull the inner or outer tibia (lower leg) around to rotate the limb. As the foot is grounded and secure on the surface of the floor it ends up pulling the pelvis to rotate over the femur a bit more than the actual femur and tibia rotate relative to the ground - however the relative orientation to each other is the same regardless of which is technically moving through space.

For this reason, despite the fact that the hamstrings are not directly loaded against gravity as much during gait - they play a pivotal role in rotation of the lower limbs and pelvis around each other and thus cannot be ignored even when looking at hip rotation and not just stretching them to touch your toes.

The Glutes & Rotation

We can also see above how the insertion points of the glute max attach at the center of the pelvis and on the outside of the femur. This is why the glutes are LENGTHENED when you internally rotate the hip/femur and SHORTENED when you externally rotate them. A full contraction of the glutes therefore rotates the hips outward - and by contrast (and this is important…) that means that full internal rotation of the hip requires stretching the glutes.

Perform the movement above with your legs while standing. Turn your knees out and let your weight shift onto the outside edge of your feet while pushing your hips forward.

You will feel the glutes squeeze tight.

Perform the opposite motion and try to touch the knees together (notice how the feet should pronate) and no matter how hard you try you will not be able to squeeze the glutes any more in that position.

Now you understand that the hips and the gait cycle - which is typically thought of as lunging forward and backward - is really just rotation of the ball of the femur in the hip socket.

What’s also very important to note is that even when getting maximum hip internal rotation you generally DO NOT feel a massive stretch in the glutes. This is because it is often not a “tight muscle” that is your mobility problem if you struggle with hip rotation - it is MOTOR CONTROL.

You need to learn how to load and unload the glutes (below).

Adductors + TVA/Abdominals

The inner thigh obviously works in opposition to some of the rotational capabilities of the glutes and thus are essential to gait and all movement of the femur laterally, especially.

Due to the phenomenon surrounding “booty bands” and “pushing your knees out” the adductors are often less well trained if ever properly developed.

Another muscle less appreciated is the TVA, or transverse abdominus. What does this matter? Because it is essential to exhalation and the breath cycle. As we cover details on the practicals below you will see how breath matters in mobility.

Mobility Methods

So you’re finally here. If you have read the above, you have earned the right to cover how we can apply this engineering knowledge into practice with a plethora of tactics addressing the elements noted above.

Mobility Target Factors:

• Ribcage & pelvis positions, motor control, and antagonistic relaxation

• Lengthened muscle positional strength

• Full end range exposure/tolerance + “capsule space” and up/downstream cooperators

• Fluid access under “speed”/impulse

• True full hip ROM = Rotation under load

Breathing & Position Control

See the shoulder mobility post as a compressed back of the ribs can inhibit the ability to create posterior pelvic tucks.

All exercises below should be done as RELAXED AS POSSIBLE. Deep full exhales are key followed by slow silent inhales through the nose expanding the chest/back. (The lungs are not in the belly so we aren’t using them to expand the stomach.

They can take some concentration and practice. Almost everyone who says they are “doing it” but it’s not doing anything *at all* is never ever doing them well. Patience, focus, and self awareness are key in order to make this work.

Read more

0:00 Intro

4:02 New Program

7:50 How to get into the Elite Performance Program

31:15 Knees over Toes Guy Review

56:17 Q&A

56:30 Body Types, Long vs Short limbs, Wide vs Narrow Ribcage

1:20:55 Improving Reflexes vs Reaction time

1:23:35 Can you improve mental toughness?

1:28:08 Essential Exercises for MMA?

1:31:42 Building a system for striking sports

1:37:52 Adding size without losing athleticism for combat athletes

Early Access to the Hybrid Elite Performance Program Checklist:

All items must be complete - message me for questions on Twitter, Instagram, Email, or Substack.

1. Message me through any of the above mediums with the words “hybrid performance”

2. Send a screenshot of a comment under this Substack, the Youtube version of this podcast, or the twitter post with the words “Train everything”

3. Send me an email address that you will actually respond to when I send login information (if you miss it I will not provide you the same offer).

4. You must have an email attached to this Substack (free or paid).

Once this is all completed you will get a message back from me to confirm and you will be given login information to the app with all program information once its launched.

This will be the cheapest offer I will ever give for this and the reason for the checklist above is so that it’s not given out to too many people for so cheap or to anyone lazy.

For those that want a “tour” of what is available and offered this will be sent to them personally as well as provided on here in the near future (but the same offer will be gone once the offer is public everywhere else).

Read “Conor Mcgregor Knockout System” Breakdown Here

Alternatively listen on YouTube:

Contents:

• What is “Tendonitis”?

• Factors to consider in management of pain and function

• Common mistakes in rehabilitation and management

• “What to do instead” - General outline of a pathway to recovery (Skip to here if you are lazy and like pictures)

• Reverse engineering pain to get back to the demands of your performance

• Rates of adaptation and expectations (Tendon remodeling rate vs inflection point of subjective symptom relief)

Fixing & Managing Tendinopathy

This post will cover some topics that have been covered in more detail in the previous “tendon properties” post - however for the sake of organization into something more comprehensive we will address some of the same information here. I do suggest that you read the last tendon post above in order to get the full picture if its necessary for you - but this post is meant to help guide you if you are suffering from a tendinopathy related problem and will be enough for those with mild cases.

If you want just the recovery outlines then just skip to that section way down there, but I highly suggest taking time to go through this whole post and others as the more informed you are the wiser you will be with your decision making when training yourself to recovery here as you are responsible for your own decisions with this information.

Note: None of this is medical advice, I am not a practicing physician. This is simply educational material based on my knowledge and personal practice. Consult a physician or your physical therapist if you are suffering from a health concern.

What is “Tendonitis”?

Tendonitis, or tendinitis, is a condition characterized by inflammation of a tendon. It often occurs due to overuse injuries, which are common in athletes who play their sport frequently or laborers who perform repetitive actions throughout the day.

However, it's worth noting that the term "tendonitis" is often used when it should really be referred to as "tendinopathy" because chronic conditions are the ones that are usually diagnosed. In most chronic issues, inflammation of the tendon is not actually the issue itself, as inflammation can be reduced, but the tendon damage still remains. Tendonitis itself without real pathological tendon damage is common and will heal in 2-4 days with nothing but bed rest in many cases. Chronic tendon degradation is a separate issue that involves actual structural issues deep in the tissue. Thus, most tendon issues that persist and cause concern for individuals are usually considered a case of tendinopathy and not tendonitis itself, even if tendon inflammation is present and a factor in management.

From this moment on, I will refer to the pathological issue that concerns populations with long term issues more generally as tendinopathy.

Though this may seem semantic - it matters because it helps you understand the difference in concern between issues which creates a different approach to recovery & management.

What Is Happening to my Joints?

In pathological cases of tendon issues, it is usually due to a deformation of the tendon structure caused by repetitive trauma that did not resolve itself in the short term. This occurs when tendons are stressed through their primary functions, such as elastic storage and release (e.g. jumping or sprinting) or mechanical strain contribution (e.g. heavy lifting or repetitive strength efforts), leading to deformation of the tissue. Deformation is typically a breakdown of collagen fiber layers that make up a tendon and provides its strength (along with an intra-fiber gel that makes the tissue elastic at high speeds). This causes blood vessels to expand into the tendon territories, bringing more blood to them, and nerves to grow into the tissue to sensitize it to pain when detecting upticks in inflammation (tendonitis). Pain often eventually occurs due to the new "alarm system" that has been installed into the tendon structure.

Essentially - the inflammation that normally occurs in the body to promote healing and adaptation is now being responded to by the nervous system much more sensitively. You might picture this like when a division or employee at your workplace has a dysfunctional issue or episode and then a supervisor is sent down to observe them - common behavior is now more likely to be scrutinized and the workers are also much more encouraged to be on their “best behavior”.

In your case - your joint hurts when you do “X” and now, due to pain, you are hesitant to do “X” and HOPEFULLY this allows time for the tendon to heal…

Note: As we have mentioned on this blog regarding pain before - the purpose of this mechanism is to create some pain to encourage you to rest and recover from stress so the tendon has a chance to heal. However, its also been noted before and is worth mentioning that deformation and damage to a tendon does not mean you will necessarily by symptomatic, posses any painful response, or even be in danger of loss of function. Deformation and damage are simply risk factors for tendinopathic issues but not a guarantee. Many individuals have very deformed connective tissue under scans but perform perfectly fine - we are resilient animals.

Factors to consider in Tendinopathy Risk, Management of Pain and Function

Pain shows up AFTER the problem has been around a while

One of the more interesting notes is that the above process of blood vessel and nerve ingrowth begins to take place weeks prior to pain onset. It is typically the increase in stress (more training load, volume, or novel tasks) OR a loss of recovery ability (psychological stress, sleep, nutrition, etc.) that leads to an accumulation of damage to tendon structures that begin a process of building a pain response through nerve growth into the tendon. The nerves will then respond to inflammation levels that you previously were unresponsive to from a nociception (pain) standpoint.

Whatever pain you are experiencing now - it is the culmination of some behaviors or stressors from weeks prior. This will be important to understand later.

Deformation of a tendon is a RISK FACTOR for pain, but not a guarantee.

As mentioned prior, structural integrity of the tissue may incite a tendinopathic symptom response OR may impede function - or it may not. Many people have deformed tendons and it is not an issue and they function at virtually 100%.

However, it is a good idea to try and address damages and deformities to the structure in a tendon for the sake of prevention of future pain, as well as keeping a tendon healthy as we progress through life and new training phases.

Tendons have a low metabolic rate & access

Tendons are notorious for having “poor blood flow”. This is partly true but for accurately it is that tendons just generally absorb and interact with metabolic resources at a much slower rate even when in periods of higher contact. (Tendons that are “inflamed” actually have higher blood supply than usual).

However compared to tissues like skin and other rapidly regenerating organs/systems tendons just interact with the rest of the bodies nutrient supply less actively.

Note: This is a net positive adaptation that we possess. By being less dependent on blood supply the tendons that allow our musculo-skeletal system to function at baseline prevents us from losing total movement capacity if we go through any sort of low resource period, disease, etc. Muscle loss is more acceptable than tendon wasting as a smaller muscle is LESS strong but a smaller or missing tendon is catastrophic. Low blood flow means a tendon can work on its own with less nutritional dependence.

The downside to all of this is that when the tendon is “cooked” it can take MUCH longer to heal fully than other issues (much more important issues on this below)

Metabolic health greatly affects connective tissue quality

While tendons do have greater survivability under low nutrient and blood supply - it is STILL dependent on some nutrient and metabolic processes long term.

(See the previous tendon post on properties and tendon nutrition list here)

Its been observed that many factors can crush the recovery and collagen synthesis properties of a tendon related to metabolic health - completely unrelated to typical approaches of strength training & passive modalities like stretches and massage etc.

As elaborated on in the above linked post, tendons require various nutritional elements to repair and maintain themselves (even though their overall process is less active than muscle tissues). Despite being less responsive - they DO still operate as a reactive tissue and do need a supply of nutrients regardless of the tissues work rate.

Other factors like systemic inflammation due to chronic un-wellness & obesity, diabetes, dietary responses, lack of protein, other recovery factors like sleep and psych health etc can all deteriorate or diminish the bodies ability to promote the processes of proper healing when tendons need repair (which - like all body tissues - is daily).

Its been observed that diabetic patients in middle age have similar tendon tissue quality to other individuals between 90-100 years old. The rate at which they can handle and recover from stress is MUCH lower and essentially massively increases tendon rupture risk over time.

Vitamin C in particular is very important for collagen synthesis (which is the building of collagen tissue that makes up/repairs a tendon each day when you rest). Vit C deficiency reduces collagen tendon fiber repair up to 50% compared to those considered Vit C supplied. This is compounded further when more damage to a tendon occurs and thus the demand for extra collagen synthesis is even higher than usual.

Note: Its also been noted that collagen supplementation might not be relevant at all to the repair of a tendon for several reasons. However, this is not 100% clear and it is unlikely that you would not benefit from higher glycine and proline in your diet so collagen inclusion into your diet (through foods and possibly supplementation) is typically still a good idea.

Tendons have several functions in loading and movement

Though you should have read the tendon training series (5 parts linked above) to become familiar with this, we can summarize that tendons are largely made up of collagen links and a intracellular gel, both of which are essential to a tendons typical movement functions.

Collagen fibrils are used to be loaded up heavy and provide strength to the structure. They are used to absorb and pull muscle & bone upon high loading forces. They are very strong but still pliable so they can respond to both high loads and long muscle lengths.

The “intra-fascicular gel” that resides within the tissue provides a stiffening ability when the tendon is acted upon quickly. Under the higher impulse tensions from jumping, sprinting and catching your bodyweight - the gel provides a fast acting stiffness to the tissue so it can create propulsion.

The model I use to break up stress factors for both performance improvement but also injury management is length, load, and speed.

Tendon Shielding

A tendon is typically not completely damaged even when significant structural damage occurs. In almost every case, despite damage to part of the tendon, the tendon's function may still be at 100%, except for the pain response and perhaps muscle inhibition due to the perceived weakness. The cross-links of a tendon can redistribute force among healthy tissues and relieve compromised areas. This means that the protective mechanism referred to as tendon shielding can actually hinder your ability to stimulate and repair the damaged portion of the tissue in some cases.

Loading strategies will need to be specific to bypass this issue and actually stress the damaged fibers to realign, if this is occurring.

Tendons work WITH muscles and bones

Tendons function is to cooperate between a muscle and a bone as a piece of a “pulley” system and thus can only be functionally stressed by being pulled on with adequate tension. This means the tension and impulse that either a muscle OR bone applies to the tissue must be both adequately stimulating and not overly damaging in order to produce a favorable adaptation.

Tendons might be too strong relative to a muscles contractile strength for muscular efforts to be directly effective by actually challenging the tendon and bone to tendon contractions (plyometrics) can be dependent on the mechanical strength of a tendon if it is compromised enough and that can only be fixed through heavier loading.

Common mistakes in understanding, rehabilitation and management

Google any injury and you will receive and immediate recommendation of R.I.C.E. and NSAIDs. Even in 2023 this ancient piece of advice is medical information industry standard.

Horrible.

Read on.

This is covered in the previous tendon post as well but for the sake of making a more comprehensive single resource I am also mentioning these here. If you’ve already read the previous post - skip this section if you’d like and jump right into the recovery map.

R.I.C.E

Rest

We have covered this in the prior post with more depth but its worth reiterating that any rest period over 1-2 weeks is both beyond the point of usefulness and is actually quite harmful. In fact - after 2+ weeks of total bed rest (rare that one is totally immobilized but it happens with some populations) the muscle function can be aggressively diminished. In typical populations you will have noticeable decline in a few weeks of non-simulative training across several qualities.

This ruins the muscles ability to function as well as overall health/fitness (important as mentioned above) and when you do return to activity you are now even more compromised rather than recovered. This leads to several bigger problems when it comes to continuing with the rehab process.

1. The tendons are typically stronger than the muscle is - which both need to be stimulated enough to strain in order to adapt and get stronger. When muscle is already weaker than tendon and then diminishes its force capacity further you often cannot load a tendon heavy enough or with enough work to force it to adapt. Now you are forced to bring a muscle back up to former strength levels WHILE suffering from tendinopathy issues just to have a chance at beginning to actually create meaningful changes to the tendon later.

Don’t give yourself an extra step to overcome on an already potentially lengthy timeline of recovery. Begin training the area in some capacity you can tolerate within 1-2 weeks of recognizing the issue. In many cases you can continue training it the whole time while using methods to de-load the stress level lower temporarily with no full rest period or time off taking place at all.

2. On top of this total rest when a tendon is damaged enough will degrade its strength even further. Its ability to handle any mechanical load on the healthy parts of the tissue will diminish because they will simply “detrain” and become less conditioned to the stress of mechanical loading and store-release functions (lifting and running).

Thus you will compromise your ability to perform actions that you could have tolerated sooner had you not abandoned activity for so long.

Resting excessively past a 1-2 week period can turn a mild case of tendonitis pathological.

In this case you will take a situation where 1/4 of your life savings is in jeopardy and then you start blowing away the rest hoping the other quarter comes back later.

Ice & NSAIDs

Cold exposure can potentially be alleviating in some case in the acute and early phase of some injuries - however the case for alleviating natural inflammatory processes in order to treat an injury is obviously ass-backwards. Inflammation is part of the recovery process - its potential to cause discomfort is just a necessary side effect at times.

Reduction of the inflammatory process is short term gain for long term loss. Avoid icing and especially avoid the use of NSAIDs (They will destroy tendon health long term + a myriad of other complications in the body. Avoid unless absolutely necessary in the short term only).

Compression & Elevation

These are essentially irrelevant to anything in my opinion and we should all just leave it at that.

As a side note: Massage is often considered a form of passive “compression” therapy and it does absolutely nothing for a tendon or any connective tissue. Tendons are among the most durable “soft” tissues in the body and poking or massaging them will do nothing for their health.

The only indirect exception to this is that massage can help one relax and downregulate the nervous system effectively - this can actually be a good thing as it can help alleviate stress and temporarily numb you to symptom fixation and thus improve overall psychological status which can aid recovery in a indirect way.

So in this case - I am FOR massage or anything with no health costs if it makes you feel good. Feeling good = better health = better everything. But it does NOT “break up adhesions” or “stimulate healing tissues” etc.

Not loading or stressing the tissue enough

Typically many rehab protocols give you exercises > principles. People respond to this because they don’t want to do any thinking (understandable because you have 150 other problems to solve in life) so they ask for an exercise to “fix their knee”. Sometimes this works but sometimes it does not. This is often because it is not the exercise protocol given that will actually challenge your body’s capacity.

Often due to the fear of placing others in harms way, legal issues, or personal concern for individuals coaches & therapists will provide very low stress exercises to build the tissue capacity back up.

This may work when strength is very compromised but it also tends to “help” in the sense that it forces people to rest and deload their training protocols.

Half the benefit of little pink dumbbells and sticking to that (when it does slightly help) is just that the individual is forced to regress their stress loads on the tissue. Beyond that being useful it serves only to leave you spinning your wheels.

You need to progressively strengthen the area and seek to actively pursue greater capacity by stressing the body to get stronger - and not stagnate performing “3x10 wrist curls with 4lbs” for 5 months.

This takes an understanding both how to target the area with load and how to push that load further without taking too high of a jump between steps.

A favorite slogan I have adopted is being “aggressive with your rehab but smart with your progressions”.

Training only “Pain-Free”…

The reality is that flare ups in pain are not the exact same thing as degradation in capacity. Typically due to the nerve-pain response you are likely suffering from, normal inflammatory responses that typically would have been tolerated without major pain will simply feel more sensitive. Thus you may feel a tendinopathic pain response despite not necessarily having regressed or reinjured yourself in any serious way.

Pain is generally going to be a part of recovery - it is just about how much and when.

As a rule of thumb, if pain is subjectively exceeding 3 or 4/10 (meaning pain is beginning to be very difficult to ignore even if its not seriously intense) then you will want to tone total training/life stress down or address general health & recovery if that is compromised in the form of sleep or nutrition etc.

You need to develop tissue capacity by getting structurally stronger and develop a nervous system/psychological capacity by creating new experiences with using the joint that boost your confidence and heighten expectations of a pain free or more comfortable performance.

Expectations

Understand that if tendonitis (the mild inflammatory condition) is occurring - then it will simply dissipate after a few days to potentially a couple weeks if it is allowed to rest. However, true tendinopathic issues that become chronic and have broken into deeper fibers of the tendon will both regenerate OR be compensated for at a much slower manner than some like to expect when compared to other adaptations we seek in physicals training (i.e. muscle gain, fat loss, endurance improvements etc).

Often an approach will need to be looked at in the form of several months, and not days/weeks.

This leaves room for you to be pleasantly surprised if a recovery is ahead of schedule however, it prevents you from making a critical error in the process by understanding this.

If you get discouraged from the process 1-2 months in when it would be month 3-4 when symptomatic improvement would be noticeable then you will be more likely to divert from the plan and possibly fail when you were very close to a recovery.

A common experience is one gets hurt, takes a break, comes back and realizes they are still hurt, takes another break, comes back again with a worse issue and then tries “rehab”. They “attempt their rehab for 1-2 weeks at most before they fall off as symptoms didn’t improve. They might even feel slightly better during it and then attempt something they aren't ready for and reinjure. Often they will instead just fall into habits of avoiding what they once did in terms of fitness and leave themselves with the burden of a lingering constraint for an indefinite amount of time. These behavior cycles are the antithesis of what is required for success and thus it is crucial you are at least willing to be in this routine for several months without deviation.

Best case you are surprised by how fast you recover, worst case you are prepared for the journey.

Muscle and other tissue/function adaptations often are what improves symptoms and performance (not tendon repair)

It's important to note that tendon tissue healing is not always the sole cause of a successful rehab. Sometimes, it's the supercompensation of more muscle strength, movement adaptations, or other tissue and CNS changes that allow you to circumvent a tendon "hole" that may still exist. Either way, the result is virtually the same, and that is what we are chasing. The goal of rehab is not just to heal the tendon tissue, but also to improve overall function and performance. By focusing solely on the tendon tissue healing, we may miss out on the other adaptations that can lead to improved function and performance. Therefore, it's important to take a holistic approach to rehab and consider all aspects of the body and its function.

On top of this, as mentioned previously, muscle strength and its balanced cooperation with the tendon is a factor in injury as a muscle too weak to challenge a tendon that has been cooked is not going to allow you an easy pathway to actually stress and rehab the connective tissue. So training for more than “just the tendon hole” is valuable.

Progressions & Consistency

As mentioned earlier, inconsistencies in your habits are very common. If you struggle with knee tendon issues after playing basketball, and you play a lot, then stop playing altogether due to pain, and then jump back in again at the same volume once you "feel fine," you are likely to have the issue come back, perhaps worse, in a few weeks.

This can also happen during attempts at rehab. If you try rehab by finding some useful exercises, and then hammer them intensely for a session or two, but then take time off for other life activities, pain may flare up. If you realize you need to train and jump back in again, trying to make up for lost time, the issue may resurface.

Being consistent with your progression habits is more important than being intense with them in short periods. Due to various factors you may see symptom flare ups come and go during the process but there should be a general long term trend upward congruent with the steady climb in training stressors you place on yourself.

Fluctuations in volume and stress that are too high or frequent will be disastrous for many.

"What To Do Instead" - General Outline of a Pathway to Recovery

The theoretical outline for this strategy (which can be applied to any training goal, ultimately) is as follows:

Read more

BEATING A RANGE ADVANTAGE

Range and reach are not exactly the same thing. Height + reach + movement specifics combine to create a total range factor.

On top of this it’s often considered given that a “reach advantage” is a passive bonus to your striking ability but in reality this is not how striking works. There is a point of “peak range” for various strikes and this will vary depending on the unique structure of a fighter as well as the noisy variables at play during every exchange.

The effectiveness of a strike is just as easily smothered by being too close as it is being too far and thus effectively controlling distance is a balance of keeping your peak range for your preferred strikes in place when exchanges occur.

Lateral + vertical positioning play just as much a role as maximum horizontal wingspan & this makes the relevant factors that occur during stand up exchanges much more chaotic than many would claim watching professionals balance intricate details while they make shallow & low perception conclusions from the sidelines.

Winning the long range “outfight” is about maintaining dominance with tip of your spear & a long spear is just as much a hindrance once you step too close inside its peak threat range.

> longer surface of targets

> disadvantaged angles of defense between head & body

> visual blind spots

> slower cycling of combination strikes due to limb length

> power loss up close

> risks from being forced to punch downward

> massive speed + energy management costs of any level changes

> (I could list more)

…ALL play huge disadvantages for taller/longer opponents yet these are the traits most amateurs never seek to exploit in these matchups.

Low analysis coaches chalk it all up to “reach” because most standard tactics everyone has been taught is meant to maximize effect of longer builds - not exploit a longer build.

Many think the answer is to abandon technical fighting at long range & rush them - this is high risk.

Instead don’t hopelessly abandon the “outfight” (long distance exchanges) & instead engineer the collisions to occur in your peak range.

You’re not helpless. Solve the puzzle.

If you enjoy breakdowns like this please like and share it and let me know - very happy to make much more with high frequency as they are shorter in length.

0:00 Intro

2:56 Updates for new content

10:05 “Slow tempo squat study” + benefits & uses of slow tempo eccentrics

29:10 How to identify the right coach for you & maximize the coach/athlete relationship in an online format

59:05 Q&As

• Conditioning for MMA

• Old school boxing training

• Mobility work outside of gym training

• Gaining “quality & athletic” muscle mass

• Heavy bag training benefits in a power training format

Etc

• Active vs Passive Recovery

• Recovery = Healing

• Sleep data and Effects on Performance + Healing (This will change your mindset on sleep)

• Recovery Hierarchy

• Priorities vs Supplements (often useless)

• Benchmarks for recovery to hit for APEX healing ability

Active Recovery? Is That a Thing?

Some advocate for recovering using passive modalities such as stretching and massage while others advocate recovering with light workouts. There are positives and negatives to both, but they have both been misunderstood and miss applied by even high-level coaches.

Active recovery - such as low intensity cardio - has been touted as a recovery accelerant from the metabolic and physical effects of training fatigue. Passive modalities - like Stretching and massage have also been promoted as such. The reality is that both of these things are not entirely true and are mostly misunderstood. What we will cover is an understanding of what recovery is, how to diminish and manage fatigue, and what you should really focus on and apply to boost your recovery between training sessions in an actually meaningful way – which will allow you to train harder, longer and get the most athletic adaptations possible out of your training sessions to lead you to high performance.

What is Recovery?

Training is simply applying stressful tasks to ourselves so that our body will biologically adapt to better overcome these tasks. In order to be effective, training is meant to be a fairly high stress activity which will require rest and recovery to formulate desired adaptations.

Your ability to rest and heal the body from hard training is not only important but a non-negotiable requirement for any type of training adaptation. (This includes strength, speed, endurance, and even skill acquisition.)

Not only is general performance in physical contest and training better, but it is worth noting that reflexes, cognition and intelligence, skill learning and memory, as well as essentially all other favorable health factors are improved with good recovery in training.

“Healing” processes in the body primarily will be accomplished through sleep & nutrition, supported further by other external factors to the gym.

While many individuals do train effectively enough to stimulate adequate adaptations they may struggle with recovering from their sessions adequately enough to both make physical improvements as well as be healed enough between sessions to train effectively each time, or they begin to slowly degrade their “health bar” week by week until they become burnt out or injured.

What we are often presented with as effective methods to improve our recovery capacity between training sessions are “active” & “passive” recovery modalities:

Passive approaches are methods that involve low/no effort physical effort or stress in application. Massage, stretching, foam rolling, sauna, etc.

Active recovery is essentially low intensity training sessions meant to improve our recovery by actually training but at a low intensity so that hopefully our metabolic recovery process benefits more than it produces in cost.

Which of these is better? Do either have merit?

The reality is that both methods can be overrated depending on who you're talking to.

Generally, those who advocate greatly for either or both approaches may tend to focus so much on these supplementations that some audiences may lose sight of what actual recovery entails.

Active recovery or passive recovery are not at all recovery methods - they are stimuli or stress.

What we want after our training is done is to absolve ourselves of stress and instead MINIMIZE demands on the mind and body.

This means we want to enter a parasympathetic nervous system state as soon and as much as we can after training - not add additional stressors.

To maximize our bodies time spent healing rather than being broken down - sleeping, resting and eating are the apex recovery modalities above all else.

Naps, meditation and low stress relaxation, snacking & enjoying quality meals that you will both be fueled by but also enjoy - will set the body into rest and digest mode which is where our actual strength and other gains come from.

When your sessions are complete it is helpful to mentally frame your further behaviors as NOW making gains (Not before). Instead you are now making gains through healing when you eat well, relax, do something low intensity on the mind/body and enjoyable, and sleep long hours.

This is the secret to proper recovery & no over the counter supplement, special routine, or gadget will replace this.

So, what is the point of active and passive recovery methods? Do they have any purpose?

They do. Our bodies metabolic processes that need to take place to soak up physical and chemical fatigue states that spike after high stress sessions can be manipulated and boosted using some intelligent strategies that can be added to your programming.

This matters greatly on what methods we are using however…sauna vs massage etc.

Read more

0:00 Intro on topic order

2:00 Wrestling Tweet response

• Wrestling vs Jiujutsu…”Wrestling is the most important solo skill in fighting”

• Classic Jiujutsu approaches are fundamentally “defensive” in nature while wrestling is “offensive”

• TERRIBLE arguments against my point

• What “wrestling” really means/is in terms of fighting and why this definition of wrestling is the dominant skill in MMA…

24:01 “Stiff movers” vs “fluid movers”

• What is “fluidity” at its core

• Differences between “stiff” vs “fluid” athletes movement strategies

• Compression vs Expansion, “Proactive stiffness vs Reactive stiffness”

• Athletic development tendencies & implications

• “Will muscle & strength make me stiff & uncoordinated?”… No, as long as you do this properly

35:22 “How to become more fluid”

• Exercise types to build fluid ability

• Exercise types to build compression ability

50:10 “Overrated or Underrated” RAPID FIRE ANSWERS

• Tendon Importance & Resources

• Tendon Properties

• Common vs Uncommon Approaches: RICE method & Hybrid Method

• Nutrition factors and external concepts for managing tendon health and recovery

Tendon Health Importance & Resources for Care

The connective tissue between our muscles and bones determines a tremendous amount about our health, physical ability & performance. Tendonitis in both the acute & especially chronic case can inhibit our capacity to function, enjoy life, and definitely our ability to perform physically at a high level. The first thing that seems to hold individuals back from explosive sport as they grow older is not the loss of muscle mass OR its function, but rather decline in their connective tissue integrity which necessitates downregulation of the use of the muscles.

Fast actions become “dangerous” and falls, impacts, and heavy weights begin to frighten one after they receive an injury - which accelerates the decline as one’s psychology affects their future behaviors (avoiding explosive activity) and then the age related decline with regard to sprint, jump, throw and landing ability becomes exponentially faster (over the course of 5-10 years instead of multiple decades).

What we will cover here is general information on tendon properties, complications, common misconceptions, and pain + injury recovery. This post will also possess a particular focus on the less tangible and non-strength related factors that will both aid with, or inhibit recovery from aches or serious injury depending on what factors you may or may not be managing. Through an understanding of these factors you should understand how to manage important elements in the recovery and management of connective tissue health to address or prevent your own issues afterward.

If you have recently sustained a serious injury, rather than possess a long term chronic issue, the following information does apply but I suggest reaching out to my trusted peers here at:

https://imhurtnowwhat.com/

You can utilize their free information or schedule a consultation for how to go about the initial and progressive stages of a recent issue you've sustained.

(If in an emergency however, contact “911” of course)

Tendons are not static - They grow, change, and adapt to stress like everything else.

It is often considered that “tendons & joints” are like car parts…that they “wear out” the way a tire or breaks do. This is not really the case. Essentially every tissue in the body is made up of a cellular tissue and thus is “alive” and adapts to stress. Tendons, like other tissue, is constantly remodeling itself and repairing daily damage. They adapt to training, stress, and recovery the same way other tissues do (Muscle, bone, ligaments, nervous system etc).

The reason tendons seem to be less responsive is multifactorial, but it is untrue that the joints wear out based on a finite amount of mileage they possess. They need to be cared for and managed like every other element in the body and that can sometimes be poorly understood by the general population.

Nuke Studies

It’s been found that individuals absorbing and consuming food + air that has a high carbon content due to nuclear detonation has been found to dissipate everywhere in the body over time except for the inner core of a tendon.

You can learn more about the details of this here:

https://twitter.com/_SwagHercules/status/1569385428205043713?s=20

This research implies that at least chemically, the inner core of a tendon does not change or alter much past the age of ~17. because if carbon is not being filtered out its less likely much is also being filter into the tendon either.

This does indicate that our activity in our youth is very important to our long-term athleticism and also health (bigger more durable tendons can aid anyone but especially good in our later years)

However, this doesn’t necessarily mean the structure of a tendon cannot change even if carbon levels seem to remain fairly static.

While the “core” of a tendon doesn’t seem to change much ordinarily, the outer layer of our tendons seem to regenerate and adapt daily.

The larger fibrils of the tendon in its center don’t respond as much to stress but this is also because they bear less loading of stress when the tendon function is called upon. So, it is not as much of a major concern to say that they respond to training less, but there is another point worth mentioning:

When the larger fibrils in the core of the tendon ARE injured, they break into smaller fibrils and then begin to repair and adapt the same way the outer layer does.

So, while many have remarked that there is nothing that can be done about tendon repair as it can’t respond to training…this is untrue.

The reality is:

• Tendons respond to training much slower than muscle does but they do adapt. Training them to their maximum capability needs to be done with certain considerations for exercise selection & execution as well as appropriate loading progression and volume/frequency.

• Tendons will also grow the most during our youth but can be strengthened at any age. If they are injured, they will be more responsive to training as the body is smart enough to have a solution to the “low adaptation” issue. This finding about tendons “not changing past 17” has led to many misconceptions.

• The parts of the tendon we utilize the most for our performance (the outer later) is highly adaptable and if trained on a long timeline can make profound improvements in its ability & robustness.

Tendon Responses to Long Range & Reactive Exercises

Tendons are viscoelastic passive tissues that respond differently based on the level of force and speed of movement that they experience. They are elastic in that they are able to store and release energy, which translates into the ability to generate force. However, they are also viscous, meaning that they are able to deform and stretch under load. The speed of movement determines whether the tendon reacts more elastically or more pliably. High-velocity movements cause the tendon to act more elastically, while slower movements allow the tendon to act more pliably.

The loading also plays a crucial role in the tendon's response to physical stress. High loading causes the tendon to become stiffer, which can be beneficial for generating force and power. However, too much stiffness can lead to a decreased ability to store energy and can make the tendon more prone to injury. Therefore, sometimes a balance must be struck between developing stiffness and maintaining elasticity.

To fully develop and recover a tendon's function and health, it is essential to utilize a variety of training methods and contraction types. Varying the length, load, and speed of movement can help to ensure that the tendon is being challenged in different ways and is able to adapt to a variety of stresses. Eccentric loading, in particular, has been shown to be effective in strengthening tendons and improving their function.

(Read more about tension qualities here if you have not already)

However, the nature of this finding is more complex than slow eccentric tempos. Tendons seem to respond largely to stretch mediated tension.

Tendons and other connective tissue respond well to stretch-mediated muscle tension, where the long muscle length and added loading create a large amount of passive tension on the tendon and other tissues. This type of loading is much higher stress on the connective tissues but also is key to their greater adaptations.

In addition to strength work at long muscle lengths, reactive plyometrics create the ability to absorb and release force safely and effectively and are crucial to remain capable in our training and able to handle the higher impulses our strength gains will produce. Time spent under tension in singular positions also round out the variables mentioned above, making tendon development and recovery seem complicated.

(You can read about long range exercises, how to perform them, along with a list of strong examples here)

Stress/Adaptation Cycle of Tendons vs Muscle

As an added note:

Tendons adapt much slower than muscle does, and this becomes far more apparent when one focuses entirely on maximum muscle gain and their connective tissue cannot keep up with the muscle outputs. Bodybuilders using anabolic drugs are notorious for blowing tendons apart because their muscles grew unnaturally fast. Top powerlifters at the upper level don't differ much in terms of maximum lifting numbers because even when drug-using lifters gain more mass, they are limited by what their connective tissue can handle. Being explosive, strong, or durable means you must both have the structural integrity to support these outputs as well as being psychologically secure and comfortable with calibrating them.

As mentioned prior, tendons adapt much slower than muscles, and this is especially noticeable when prioritizing maximum muscle gain without sufficient connective tissue development.

Anabolic drug use among bodybuilders is notorious for causing tendon injuries due to rapid muscle growth which outpaces tendon and ligament development needed to support their strength.

In high-level powerlifting, maximum lifting numbers don't vary too significantly between drug-enhanced and natural lifters largely because connective tissue limits the maximum outputs that the enhanced lifters might have otherwise had the potential to produce. To excel in explosiveness, strength, and durability, one needs both strong structural integrity and psychological readiness in the tendons to handle these demands.

See here:

https://twitter.com/mpeytoncox/status/1650556563420254210?s=46&t=P4IKTNoKSiQL207_weqnwg

Common vs Uncommon Approaches: RICE method & Hybrid Method

The RICE Method

If you use a google or AI search asking “how to heal or repair tendon issues”… you will likely get some variation of the RICE method.

The RICE method is a common approach that is often recommended for treating soft tissue injuries like tendonitis. RICE stands for Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation, and the idea behind the method is to reduce inflammation and promote healing. However, recent research has shown that the RICE method may not be as effective as previously thought, and may even be counterproductive in many cases.

The original founder of the concept has long since recanting his original position and no longer promotes this approach.

Below I will cover various notes on tendon properties and management without going into detail on exercises - as this post is covering mostly external variables - to give you a better understanding of factors that go into my approach to dealing with tendon issues in athletes or general populations.

Read more

Intro 0:00

Stress-Capacity Ratio 1:10

“Positive vs Destructive Training” 2:15

The path to positive adaptations or injury recovery 7:03

When an injury has been “rehabbed” 9:31

Tips for managing stress/capacity balance 10:10

“Judo” strength questions, Q&A 17:14

Show notes:

• stress capacity model

  • Stress = how much total stress meaning stimulation & fatigue

  • Capacity = how much you can handle & recover from; acute or chronic

  • Stress comes from positive stress and negative stress which is stimulation and fatigue.

  • Stimulation is up-regulation of adaptation factors; hormones, anabolic or metabolic signals etc.

  • Fatigue is tissue damage, metabolic signals of breakdown, and compensatory mechanisms.

  • Both will always co exist and you can’t really have positive without negative but the ratio could be managed.

  • This balance between stress and capacity = our productive training, unproductive training, or injury occurrence.

  • When stress > capacity…we feel pain or injury

  • It must be just below enough that it raises cap without hurting you but not so low that it doesn’t challenge cap.

  • Stimulating vs breaking down is hard to judge at times: are you progressing at challenging intensity? (See post)

  • To improve your performance OR to recover from injury you need to follow this model:

    • Identify your rough capacity.

    • Stay under it while stressing the actual tissue or mechanisms you need to develop.

    • Push closer to the limits with breathing room.

    • Eat right and sleep well.

    • Manage mental health.

    • Do this continuously and check in with progress every 1-3 months to assess improvement or analyze status. (Review the checklist)

  • When capacity is raised to a level that can handle the stress of what you’re asking for: basketball, hiking, walking the dog, MMA, etc then yog have been successfully rehabbed or performance upgraded.

  • When you exceed the cap and get strong issues (pain > 5/10 or function collapse) then pull back and restart the process from a lower point again.

• How to use this post

• Troubleshooting Checklist

• Calories

• Protein

• Rep Quality

• Exercise Selection

• Rep Schemes

• Sleep

• Stimulus-to-Fatigue Ratio

• Misconceptions on “Progressive Overload” and creating “False Progress.”

• Expectations & Metrics

• Psychological Stress

• Closing

Introduction

This post is the first in a series of articles aimed at addressing the most common issues with individuals' training programs, habits, beliefs, and decision-making in the gym. These issues can hinder or eliminate progress that would otherwise be made with good programs or from capable athletes, such as yourself.

In short, this series will delve into the things that many people - including yourself - are doing that genuinely interfere with their progress in strength training.

If this series receives adequate support, we will expand the scope to include skill acquisition for fighters and other athletes, covering a variety of factors that hinder success in sports or hobbies. So stay tuned to the substack and engage by liking and subscribing to the substack from this post, along with leaving any comments.

How to Use this Post

Below is a list of essential elements that must be accounted for in training to ensure progress is being made. If you are struggling with improvement in strength qualities or other training factors, you can use this list as a series of "checkboxes" to troubleshoot what is limiting your success.

While some people may have success at times without adhering well to these elements, if you are struggling, these factors are the first things to take note of.

The elements will be ranked loosely in order of importance, although each of them is crucial. Before turning to alternative theories or drastically swapping training programs, determine if these elements are properly in play if you encounter trouble with any exercise or program.

Although some of these factors have been covered in previous posts, we will dedicate individual detailed posts to each deserving factor as this series and manual continue to grow (requests will drive priorities, so don't hesitate to speak up).

If you are not familiar with the basics of strength training, progressive overload, strength vs muscle mass, nutrition, etc., read these posts and programs first.

Strength Basics (Program)

Muscle Gain Nutrition Cheat sheet

Troubleshooting Progress Checklist

Calories

Let's get this one out of the way first: caloric consumption is generally priority number one for all gains, especially those of a hypertrophy-based nature (both muscle and connective tissue). Although gains can be made in a variety of areas without a major calorie surplus, overall calories still need to be adequate to drive adaptations. Even when losing weight in a caloric deficit, a shallow deficit of calories is much more likely to allow for performance improvement than a steep one.

The most surefire way to allow for strength improvement to persist or to diminish/halt is to not consume enough food.

A tremendous amount of trainees decide subjectively whether they are eating “a lot” or “a little”. However, this means nothing, and the actual numbers are what count. Regardless of whether calories are tracked and managed carefully or not, the math is what matters. Physics does not care how full you feel you are or if other factors are getting in the way. You are either eating enough total food for the body to use surplus resources for physical change, or you are not. In most cases, slowly gaining weight for temporary periods is desirable. Expect this to be the first mistake and source of failure in most men who struggle to gain weight. (In 99% of cases, the real issue is appetite struggles, not your metabolism.)

Protein

As a secondary component to calorie intake, the nature of the calories being consumed matters a lot as well. Adequate protein intake should generally be between 0.8 and 1g per lb of bodyweight or per lb of lean body mass. Protein is typically given the 1g/lb bodyweight metric as it is simple to remember and is in the ballpark of maximum effectiveness. However, it is often technically an overshoot when it comes to most training gains.

It is important that one doesn't use this as an excuse to under eat protein, however, and it is extremely common for individuals to think they are eating a lot of protein by simply “guessing” that a pasta dish with a couple small pieces of chicken is adequate for a meal. Track your intake, supplement if absolutely necessary, and get a strong idea of how much protein you truly are consuming and get it in the adequate range. Again, this is actually about 0.82g per lb of lean body mass at minimum, and thus shooting above that is a good rule of thumb.

Honorable mentions in this section also go out to eating adequate fats and carbs for performance and health. See the muscle gain cheat-sheet post for details.

Rep Quality

Repetition quality is the most abused element of progress within the walls of the gym. This often refers to the intent and focused execution of the exercises performed in question, but the factors are still myriad.

The most common issues individuals present is:

• General poor technical form on an exercise

• Undisciplined execution of tempos

• Undisciplined maintenance of range of motion on an exercise

• Maintenance of the technical execution of a set as fatigue sets in

Besides conscious focus during training, several of these issues can also be improved by improving other factors that will be listed further below. But it should go without saying that an exercise is meant to achieve an objective, and if executed inadequately toward its goal, it simply won't achieve it

Rep schemes

While selecting an appropriate exercise is important, so is the prescription for its use. Frequently individuals will program or challenge themselves with repetition schemes that do not service the desired goals or at least get in the way of training as well as they could.

Common mistakes are:

1. Taking heavy compound lifts to high reps very often. This usually taxes the body tremendously overall while limiting your ability to use them for what they are usually most beneficial for…heavy loading of the body. Often sets are finished due to systemic fatigue and not because a target muscle is being stimulated directly, and the effects of strength they provide are reduced by using lower weights for higher reps.

2. As a rule of thumb, most heavy compounds work best in the 1-10 rep range (most often the 3-8 range) depending on your specific needs/goals.

3. Taking isolation or secondary exercises (exercises that are still “compound” lifts but generally are biased very heavily into one muscle group or aren't loaded quite that heavy) to very low reps. This happens often when one is concerned with “strength” and begins to resent rep numbers that go above 5 reps.

4. Do not take any isolation exercise below 6 reps in most cases (8-15 being the best range for most) unless there is reason for a particular movement to be an exception (uncommon).

5. Performing explosive movements for higher reps. This generally diminishes the quality of dynamic work and most movements designed for speed and power should not go above 5 reps for the lower body and 6-8 reps for the upper body without some rest time in most cases. These numbers are also more about when your power begins to drop off and not necessarily about the number itself.

6. CrossFit gyms often utilize Olympic lifts and plyometric type exercises for metabolic conditioning work - this greatly reduces the explosive benefits as well as greatly enhances the impact stress on the body (Not always a bad thing…but often not the most efficient choice for most goals).

Your programming should generally have a mix of rep ranges between 1-15+ reps depending on what the needs/goals of the selected exercises are.

General guidelines: Reps should be 1-10 for force emphasized training, 6-15 for hypertrophy and tissue based adaptations, 15+ for endurance or capacity building for very sensitive tissue.

Sleep

Obviously sleep is important and this is nothing groundbreaking. We have all heard/read plenty about why its necessary and what is required. Nothing special is needed here. Video games and phone addictions often get in the way of most young peoples sleep.

If you are getting less than 7 hours per night, do what is needed to change that.

Bedtimes between 10pm and 12am with 1-2 hours of low stress time works best for most.

Caffeine abuse and screens inhibit sleep.

Most of this we know you are well aware of but its important that you make efforts on your sleep like you do training and diet.9+ hours of sleep has been measured repeatedly to show higher strength levels, faster sprint times, and much much lower injury rates in training.

Do what must be done if this is your problem.

Stimulus-to-Fatigue Ratio

This is highly correlated to the exercise selection as well as rep scheme factors, but is given its own spot simply to demonstrate the concept and its importance.

You can understand more about the stimulus to fatigue ratio in audio format here

Essentially however, it is important that you understand balancing training hard vs training effectively. This means that training that is very stressful still might not be yielding improvements. The quality of that stress is what matters as well as your ability to recover from it. If your body feels constantly run down, but you do not feel any sensations like CNS activation, muscle disruption/soreness, or see any metric for improvement - its likely your training is heavily fatiguing without providing quality stimulus.

Your exercise selection, rep schemes, rep quality, and overall program design should be assessed again in this case.

Proximity to Failure/Intensity Tracking Overload & “False Progress”

Exercises should generally have a metric for intensity of the sets performed. In my programming it will generally be an RPE or RIR rating.

This intensity is extremely key for achieving a proper stimulus. If an exercise is not taken to the prescribed or necessary proximity to concentric failure it will not provide the outcomes desired.

Its common that individuals do not reach muscular failure or adequate intensities because of poor exercise setups (see above) or rep scheme approaches. However, it is also very common that trainees get a basic understanding of progressive overload and seek to add specific increments of weight or reps each week.

This obviously isn't always bad but very frequently results in a major issue where the athlete is severely under-dosing themselves for weeks/months before the intensity of an exercise is adequate…and finally once they reach a zone of appropriate stimulus they seek to add weight/reps so linearly based on what would result in a “personal record” that day that they begin to compromise rep quality in order to achieve this.

The result is that they were only in the pocket of strong progress for a short period of time.

5 reps and 10lbs added to an exercise is not “progress” if it was only added over 3 months because you were training extremely softly at first. You did not get stronger as much as you literally “just added weight” as it was not testing or building your limits for most of that time.

This is why it is more important to assess STRESS during an exercise rather than the numbers and what you need to do to “progressively overload”. Overload should be observed over time as you actually make progress…but not all training logs that demonstrate “progress” are accurate in that way.

Your goal in training effectively is to hit the prescribed intensities that produce adequate and appropriate stress and then recover from that stress. Observation over the course of months to years from your training logs should reflect increased progression of load, length, and speed etc, but obsessing over “adding just 1 rep per week” will end up with wasting years of effort if that additional rep is either encouraging poor rep quality OR undershooting intensity.

Make sure every set you perform revolves around the intent and execution of the set being high quality and not worrying about the “numbers” until after.

Poor Overall Programming

Often it is not a smaller factor that is getting in the way but rather that a series of conflating issues are afoot with an entire approach to training that just makes for a complete training program to be ineffective or un-practical.

In these cases, you may have to revaluate what your program is like, what your goals are and perhaps seek another approach entirely.

It’s common that these situations arise when programs do not balance the split of training stressors, recovery days, total volume of work, individual factors including life constraints, and often sequencing training in such a way that time is used poorly as well as damaging the quality of work that can be done between exercises.

1. Some mistakes I've seen:

   1. Super-setting major muscle groups together, often defeating the purpose of antagonist supersets overall in most cases; ie dips + chest flyes

   2. Sprint or plyometric sessions immediately after strength training the lower body

   3. Adding extra exercises/sets to the point of diminished returns or thinking they are missing out on the benefits of another exercise and adding it in where it is not needed (No understanding of specific adaptations vs fatigue).

   4. Utilizing training programs that work for one goal and not understanding where they conflict with another…(i.e. running a hypertrophy split for bodybuilding while seeking to train boxing 5 days per week; boxing being the ultimate goal)

It is important to have some idea of what decent program design should look like for your goals so you do not veer too far off track making overly impulsive decisions.

Expectations & Metrics

It is also important to actually utilize some type of metric for success and managing expectations. Firstly because it is important to be able to acknowledge if you are actually making progress. It is short lived during our training history to make extremely rapid changes in every area - some individuals get used to this and expect it forever in some way despite being educated on “beginner gains”. This leads to many thinking they are “stagnant” when really they are in a typical rate of progress but hoping for something more that may not be realistic.

The body needs to take legitimate time to make advanced adaptations and this process must be done well repeatedly to show real reward. Understanding that if you are looking to make real changes you should be in this for years (not weeks/months).

Tracking metrics such as bodyweight, waist measurements, accurate lifting numbers, performance metrics for speed/conditioning etc. and all factors that matter enough for you to be concerned with should give you the most accurate story of what's going on and it may be the case that you are actually doing quite well.

In that case, good work and keep going.

Stress

Finally, we should touch on mental health and psychological stress. It is a real thing that periods of deep stress, anxiety, depression etc. do not improve almost any health metric. By default, recovery and adaptations can be lessened.

There is a catch-22 here where worrying about stress levels will create higher stress levels. So it is a balancing act and I suggest to not sensationalize any factor like this. Enjoy training and enjoy life is the easiest way to improve this in the most general sense when it comes to fitness.

External stressors that are serious need to be managed and tackled the best you can.

Ultimately this is a personal issue that reflects things that go beyond strength training and how you see fit to manage your psychological well being is unique.

I can say however that when it comes to recovery from training - having fun and enjoying the gym can do a lot. Making training sessions more engaging and enjoyable - however that needs to be done for you - can have a major impact on your recovery from them as you leave in a good mood and looking forward to the next rather than dreading training and leaving defeated.

Good mental support in all other ways goes beyond the scope of this post.

Conclusion

Training factors touched on here will likely be expanded on further in this series, but this should give you a general overview of what most faults prevent individuals from reaching their potential. The scope of this could go even further as well when we touch upon some other related factors that did not need to be bunched into this post but will all be written about soon.

Please comment what you would need clarification on or what you need covered next in more detail, and it will be prioritized.

As always, train sensibly.

Not medical advice. Discuss with your physician before engaging with any information on this blog.

In the meantime, post any questions or topics you want covered regarding health, fitness, training/MMA etc as usual.

Talk soon

• Common myths surrounding back injuries

• Pain vs Damage

• What to do when you “tweak your back”

• Intra-session “Back-Fix Protocol”

• “Mid-term” adjustments to programming and life

The Lower Back Injury Approach

Low Back Injuries

“Popping your back” while deadlifting is one of the most common fears and mild injuries individuals experience while lifting weights. It is also a common occurrence in everyday life, such as during horseplay with your children, housework, or even slipping on water or ice, which can cause your back to "lock up".

Firstly, I want to acknowledge the emotional and physical experience you are going through. As someone who has suffered from this scenario many times, I understand how debilitating it can be.

However, if you recently experienced a back lock-up, do not panic or despair. There is a pool of information and methods available to help you overcome this issue effectively.

This is not clickbait. It's a genuine, evidence-based, and time-tested approach to handling lower back injuries from the moment they occur. I and my colleagues have used this approach many times.

Today, we will clarify what is actually causing the intense pain most of the time, versus what people fear has happened when they "tweak their low back". We will also provide a protocol to help you quickly recover up to 80% or more within the same workout session in most cases.

By reading this post in full, you will be well-educated on your current "injury" and its causes, how to manage it, and how to recover fully in record time. You will also learn how to manage these situations if they ever arise in the future for yourself, your friends and family, or your personal clients.

Firstly, let's cover what occurs during a common "low back injury"...

Correlations of “Pain vs Damage”

A central concept to understand is what pain itself is…

Pain is not a consequence of damage so much as a protective mechanism our body possesses to prevent damage.

A common response to this is to ask: “If pain isn’t a consequence of damage - then why does it hurt when I am clearly injured or unwell?”.

The answer is once again obvious in hindsight…it is because when an area is damaged, pain can prevent you from performing any actions that may result in further damage until it is healed. The reason for the pain response is to alert you that there is a potential issue and the pain will arise acutely in order to prevent further action you may not be ready for.

Why is this almost “semantic” conclusion significant?

Because it informs us of the fact that pain is about protection and not necessarily tissue damage. Individuals very frequently have some tissue alteration, “damage”/injury, or other “problem” that is present upon witness (MRI or eye test) but suffer from zero symptoms whatsoever.

This can sometimes make pain an erratic and misleading sensation when it comes to our internal diagnostics of our health status.

Many individuals have heard of “phantom limb pain” where one who has an amputated limb can sometimes feel pain responses to an appendage that no longer exists.

If there was a perfect correlation between tissue “damage” and pain experience then these cases would not exist or be much more rare, rather than very common (as they actually are).

It’s worth noting that situations like this are both common experiences & common knowledge amongst individuals. Experiencing an injury that may not have healed at all (such as an ACL tear) and then the pain dissipating over time without any of the injury actually being repaired is extremely normal even if it is not every individual’s case.

This understanding of pain’s nature not being a perfect 1:1 correlation with damage is forgotten and usually unrealized in the average trainee that this means phenomenon can go both ways.

This means pain can ALSO be present when there is no damage at all…

To reiterate, this is because pain is meant to protect your body from potential damage rather than signal damage itself.

Though this is not always the case of course, and pain is not something that should be entirely ignored (obviously), my goal here is to help you understand that factors involving much more than actual injury to the body can result in pain - and this goes double for territories of the body that bear a high density of nerves and nervous system activity (i.e. the lower back and spinal regions).

Put simply: Pain is simply your nervous system setting off the “pain alert”.

This is much like our car alarms - which occasionally go off despite no one breaking into our vehicle and we simply opened the door a certain way at the time, or sat on our key alarm buttons, etc.

Myths about Back Pain & Injuries

“So, Hybrid, how does this relate to my back issue? I was lifting heavy, felt a pop in my back, and now I can’t bend over…SURELY, I have damaged my spine.”

Before we cover the steps to take if this has been your recent issue…let’s quickly summarize common myths specifically about back injuries and pain that you can take immediate comfort in. These notes are well researched, and backed by both peer reviewed evidence & outcome tested application:

1. As covered above, back pain - even when very sharp, intense, and suddenly occurring during strenuous activity - does not mean your spine is damaged, and certainly does not mean that it is damaged in a serious way.

2. Noise, or feeling of a “pop” sound in the back is often perceived as a frightening indicator of a serious injury, however it is usually not a tissue that has broken or been seriously damage and often is simply facet joints or other muscular contractions present in the back when the protective mechanism went off. So the “pop” often felt is not what most believe it is to be.

3. If a spinal disc is bulging, herniated, or otherwise compromised, the overwhelming majority (9/10+ cases) heal spontaneously on their own with no necessary surgery or treatment. Sometimes even years later when injury is persistent.

4. In cases where both tissue “injury” does actually occur & disc tissue has not been fully reabsorbed back into its exact former position, the correlation of bulging, herniated, or otherwise altered discs and actual pain experience is still actually very low.

5. Most individuals actually possess a bulging, or “imperfect” disc and have no idea and no actual causal symptoms related to it. In fact, human spines possessing disc shifts like this are entirely normal and an expected part of our lifecycle and this does not at all dictate or determine function or overall spinal health.

6. Back pain, especially chronic, are heavily affected by factors far outside the health status of the spine, including mental health, broad physical and psychological health + wellbeing factors, dehydration status, nutrition elements, injury risk or chronic injury belief systems of the individual, as well as overall physical training stress during the week for the athlete.

(You can listen to this podcast episode where we loosely cover the “bio-psycho-social” model of pain here)

Finally, after reading all of this - the single question most struggle with reconciling is:

“If my spine/back is not seriously injured…then why did I feel a sudden sharp feeling and immediate crippling shooting pain in my low back during a strenuous activity?”

The answer is because your nervous system, due to a conflation of many different measurable and immeasurable factors occurring at once, happened to sense a stressor on the lower back and an ancient protective piece of our evolutionary development sent our nervous system in to “defense” mode and seized up our lower back in an effort to protect it from perceived potential damage (see sections above if you need review).

Keyword: PERCIEVED POTENTIAL DAMAGE

This means that there is not necessarily anything wrong with you - and even in an acute injury to the back did occur, you have no reason to panic due to the information mentioned above.

Factors that can lead to these incidences do not need to be related to the spine at all (as mentioned prior) and can occur due to a myriad of factors that are often not even effectively measurable.

This also means that injuries like this are NOT fully predictable, and are not merely blamed upon an exercise itself, its minute elements of execution (“form”) or any common accusations that limit our ability to push our bodies or move with confidence.

All this being said - lets finally cover what do to immediately following a “twinge” in your back during any activity even if you feel you are nearly incapable of walking or even looking down at your phone.

Initial “Emergency” Assessment

As we have covered extensively, the lower back is not typically injured in common incidents. However, in order to cover all potential scenarios, it is important to address emergency factors.

Keep in mind that the chances of a serious injury are exceptionally unlikely.

If you experience loss of bowel function or complete loss of functional use of a limb after a back injury, you should contact a physician.

Shooting pain in the leg or back is not a sign of the above issues, and they are rarely actually occurring. However, for liability and safety reasons, it is important to mention them.

It is important, psychologically speaking, to not assume you have an emergency issue when you do not. Although you may experience intense pain, discomfort, and limited movement, you most likely only have a back tweak and not a catastrophic injury, which is more common in major car accidents and other serious events, not from lifting weights.

Full Protocol for Restoring Function to a “Locked up” Back After “Injury”

Here is a detailed elaboration of the steps to restore function to a "locked up" back after an injury:

(These steps can be progressed as quickly as all in the same session up to using them over the course of a week - depending on your ability to move & willingness to continue)

Read more

Intro 0:00

“Training Elements” to Improve Athletic Outputs” Lecture 1:33

Lecture Topic Summary: 18:35

UFC Commentary Recap 20:26

Striking Tips: “Punching Impact is a Relationship Between You and the Opponent - The Art of Hitting Hard is about Engineering Optimal Collisions” 33:34

Twitter Q&A 37:20

Topic Notes

• Outputs are measured outcomes that come from the interaction of various qualities; Strength, Power, Speed, Mile-time, etc

• Direct elements are the functioning structures and their properties that contribute to those overarching, macro qualities we measure at gross outputs…the things we typically care about.

• For example, no one cares about how solid your reactive strength index test is, or what your single leg hack pistol tempo squat rep numbers are…

• They do care about how fast you can sprint however, how much general force you can produce, and how durable/healthy you are overall. So, if the above exercises help build up elements of our structure & movement processes then they will help formulate high gross outputs in the general outputs we produce.

• What often happens is people get so enamored with the broad qualities and outputs that they do not train the micro elements involved in producing those outputs. They “squat heavy” to get strong, and “sprint fast” to get fast - and OBVIOUSLY those are fundamental to our progress - but it can be useful to understand that targeting micro elements in our training specifically can help tune up the hardware that we need to get the most out of those primary training tools.

• For example, squatting itself is not an atomized action. It is a pattern made up from a synchronistic series of action parts that make up the whole. This is partly why its called a large compound lift - it is an exercise with many operating parts.

• This is also why its effective at coordinating our ability to produce force - i.e. get strong. It helps us string all these contributing elements like our muscle size, tendon/ligament strength, neural drive, coordination, muscle length, etc. to work together to express and actualize our maximal strength potential.

• While squatting itself will yield many gains in all the above-mentioned elements…you may also benefit greatly from individually training those micro-elements in isolation so that you leave no potential on the table and leave no elements lagging behind if squatting alone is not maximally developing those factors.

• Powerlifters do this all the time with their primary lift work using the Big 3 - Squat, bench, deadlift - and then focus on muscle development with “accessory exercises”. We too should often do the same thing as a single exercise format rarely provides full development (see rotation of exercise post).

• If you are struggling to see results with general macro-outputs/qualities, and have otherwise been performing and improving at your primary exercises like heavy compounds or general training you might be missing the variations or more detailed training elements that are holding you back…

(Listen for list of qualities and elaboration on how to train + summary of concept)

UFC

• Lead hand play by Kevin Holland was nice and causes opponents issues if he can keep it standing.

• Jorge is a dog but can’t deal with grapplers. Defense declined. Right hand kept coming in with very little adjustments until the final minutes. Enjoyed it as a 3 rounder. Average age of top welterweights right now is amazing.

• Izzy v AP → same thing as last time but he baited the same situation as the first MMA fight *almost* knockdown. This time pushed it further and gave it more time. Amazing that he can produce power against the cage like that. He is really underrated as a hitter and its clearly a technical thing with the right hand. (Narrow build, rotates super well, elastic shoulders + snaps shots) Also tall AP means vulnerable to shots like that at that range…the leverage of your technique affects “power production” but “power connection” depends on the position of the target because striking is a relationship of your body and the opponents since striking isn’t “throwing or pushing”… it’s a collision of two objects and the position & velocity of either object (the weapon OR the target) will affect that collision - you can hit a target up tall really hard due to position of the target (his face) vs someone very low to ground…punching down isn’t effective for leverage regardless of how strong and explosive your body is.

Q&A

See 37:45 for rapid question answers

Heart rate variability

Training the wrist/ankles/grip

Playing sports recreationally

Swimming

Recovery

Starting Hybrid training after 40 years old

Red light therapy

“Myo-reps”

Etc