MIKE THURSTON TRAINING MANUAL LEGAL DISCLAIMER The information presented in this work is by no way intended as medical advice or as a substitute for medical counseling. The information should be used in conjunction with the guidance and care of your physician. Consult your physician before beginning this program as you would with any exercise and nutrition program. If you choose not to obtain the consent of your physician and/or work with your physician throughout the duration of your time using the recommendations in the program, you are agreeing to accept full responsibility for your actions. By continuing with the program you recognize that despite all precautions on the part of Mike Thurston, there are risks of injury or illness which can occur because of your use of the aforementioned information and you expressly assume such risks and waive, relinquish and release any claim which you may have against Mike Thurston, or its affiliates as a result of any future physical injury or illness incurred in connection with, or as a result of, the use or misuse of the program. See my social links below 1 TERMINOLOGY Annotations - note that each exercise has been assigned a letter, or letter plus number combination, the purpose of which is to instruct you how to proceed from exercise to exercise during the workout. A couple of examples should provide enough illustration as to how they are intended to be read: 1. If you see exercise ‘A’ on line 1 and exercise ‘B’ on line 2 for example, proceed as follows: - Perform exercise ‘A’ for the prescribed number of sets, resting for the prescribed duration between each - Once all sets have been completed, rest for the same duration (unless specifically stated otherwise) - Move on to exercise ‘B’ 2. If you see exercise ‘A1’ on line 1, exercise ‘A2’ this denotes a superset: - Perform set 1 for exercise ‘A1’ - immediately move on to exercise ‘A2’ - Rest for the prescribed duration (for exercise ‘A2’) following the completion of the set - Repeat this back and forth process until all sets have been completed - Move onto exercise ‘B’ Reps The number of times you raise and lower the resistance / weight Reps The number of times you repeat the prescribed number of reps BB Barbell DB Dumbbell EZ Bar A slight variation on the regular barbell, shaped with curves and grooves Dropset Following the completion of the final working set of an exercise (unless specifically otherwise), drop the weight by 20-40% and perform another 8-12 reps on the reduced weight. Allow no more than 10 seconds rest between them (ideally zero). Double Dropset Performing two successive dropsets in a row. Decrease the original load by approximately 20-40% on every drop, aiming to achieve 6 - 10 reps on each. End with as many partial reps as possible through to failure on the final dropset. Pronated Grip Palms facing the ground Neutral Grip Palms facing each other Supinated Grip Palms facing up 2 TERMINOLOGY Tempo - the speed at which you should aim to perform the various aspects of a rep, typically broken into 4 parts: 1. The ‘eccentric’ (negative) portion of the movement, i.e., when the muscle is lengthened in the direction of resistance e.g., lowering the weight when performing a bench press 2. The ‘concentric’ (positive) portion of the movement, i.e., shortening / contracting the muscle against the force of resistance e.g., pressing the weight up during a bench press 3 & 4: The pauses taken following the completion of the concentric and eccentric portions of the rep respectively e.g., pausing / squeeze at the 2 extremes, the top and bottom of a bench press 3 TERMINOLOGY Dumbbell Press following 2110 tempo. 2 = 2 seconds to lower weight (eccentric phase) 1 = 1 second pause at bottom (stretch) 1 = 1 second to press to top (concentric phase) 0 - no pause at top 4 EXERCISE EXECUTION Your ability to perform an exercise will be the one of the biggest influencers as to how effective your workouts are, along with how quickly you achieve your goals. You must be able to: - Initiate the movement with the working muscle - Maintain tension across the working muscle throughout the entire set - Maintain strong posture and proper form throughout the set - Squeeze the contraction in the working muscle as hard as you can (where applicable) - Control your breathing throughout the set If you cannot achieve these essentials during your set it is best to drop the weight, drop the ego and practice until you have them all ticked off. TRAINING FREQUENCY How often you train is very much dependent upon: - Genetics - Training experience (how many years have you been training) - Training frequency/volume in the previous few weeks prior to following a new programme - Training intensity during sessions - External factors such as your nutrition, sleep, stress levels and daily activity If you are relatively new to this style of resistance training I would not recommend training more than 3 days in a row. Depending on your training availability I would recommend having every 3rd or 4th day off from lifting weights. You should listen to your body and be aware of the signals it may send you, possibly indicating that you should take a day (or two) off from the weights. Symptoms of overtraining could be: - Lack of motivation or drive to train - Poor performance during sessions - Severe DOMS (Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness), often throughout your entire body - Short breath, looking ill, experiencing flu like symptoms That being said, it’s important you know the difference between being plain lazy and looking for excuses to skip training. 5 EXERCISE EXECUTION DON’T SPEND TOO LONG IN THE GYM Always priorities the quality of your sessions over quantity and duration. Once your warm up is completed you should be in the gym training for roughly 50-80 minutes. Keep the sessions intense, focused and challenging. Rest periods should rarely be more than 2 minutes, unless you are training for strength or are recovering from challenging supersets. Ideally you want to rest long enough so that you can match or increase the level of intensity that was given in the previous set. OVERLOADING THE MUSCLES The principles of time under tension and load selection are the critical factors to achieve hypertrophy gains. First you will need to master exercise execution before significantly increasing the resistance. You may need to drastically drop the weight to begin with in order to perfect your form. REDUCE OTHER FORMS OF TRAINING Set yourself a goal and make it your priority. Training to become the strongest, biggest, leanest, fastest, and aerobically most efficient you can possibly be, all at the same time, ultimately becomes counterproductive after a certain point. Chasing goals which often conflict with each other will bring overall progress to a halt. CORE & CALVES Although your core and calves will be indirectly trained during many compound lifts, direct training is still recommended, particularly if it is a weak point of yours or if you’re looking to get chiselled abs. Direct core training can also improve the performance of your heavy compound lifts such as deadlifts, bent over rows and squats. 6 EXERCISE EXECUTION CARDIO Cardio can be implemented into your routine where necessary. The type of cardio you perform will depend on several factors, such as your goals, rate of progress and time availability. Recommended forms of cardio include low intensity steady state cardio (keeping your heart rate around 120-130bpm) or high intensity interval training. If fat loss is your predominant goal you can incorporate more cardio sessions into your routine. If your primary goal is muscle gain I recommend minimising the frequency of cardio sessions, especially if you struggle to gain weight. Keep in mind that cardio should be used as a last minute tool to reduce body fat once all other fat loss strategies have been implemented. Although HIIT training has many benefits, frequent HIIT sessions can negatively impact your rate of recovery, can tax your central nervous system and reduce your performance during your weight lifting sessions. This is especially true if you are cutting and consuming fewer calories than usual. LISS can be performed more frequently without being too demanding or negatively impacting your recovery and other training sessions. Aim to perform cardio sessions on non-consecutive days whenever possible, ideally in a separate session to your weight training. Allow a minimum of 4 hours apart if possible with any HIIT sessions coming later in the day with respect to the weight training. 7
