| Happy Sunday, folks. For today’s Sunday with Sisson, I’m going to talk about the way I’ve been training lately: hyper-intense, very concentrated. Now, I haven't been training like this exclusively. But about twice a week, I'll hit my workouts in a strange (for me) manner. I don’t exactly know why I’ve been training like this—for whatever reason I’ve been seized by an urgent energy in the gym. I’ll give you example of a recent upper body one I just did: I had some rings set up and I had a pull up bar and I started with as many pull-ups as I could manage with each rep feeling "crisp." Rather than max out, I stopped short before my top "speed" faltered, almost like a pull-up sprint. It may have been 8 pull-ups or something close to that. Immediately after I hopped on the rings and did about eight or nine dips with good form—not rushing, just moving at a brisk pace and staying "crisp" again and avoiding failure. Then I stopped and I did about 10 deep decline push-ups with the form described at the end of this post. I kept those elbows in close to the body, focusing on tricep activation. Next, I hopped back up and I did four pull-ups again then I went over to the rings I did five dips and I hopped off the rings and I did 10 bodyweight rows with my feet on the ground really accentuating the squeeze. And then I hopped down and I went up against the wall and did a handful of handstand push-ups. After that I went back over to the pull-up bar and I did five more, and then I went over and did seven or so more decline push-ups. This went on for about 10 minutes in total. I didn't keep track of all the reps, but it was a constant flow of movements and, by the end, I had an incredible pump. The muscles felt really full and my entire upper body was spent, but—and this was the important part—I didn't feel wrecked or overly fatigued. I had energy to spare. The point was not to confuse my muscles or whatever term is being bandied about. The point was to just keep moving and to hit the same general muscles and movements with slight variations. Now if I were to just be doing push-ups and pull-ups over and over again, I would have fatigued more quickly because the same exact muscles would have been getting targeted along the same exact planes of movement. But because I was doing a variety of pushes and pulls along the vertical and horizontal planes I had more in the tank. Another interesting point: although this was intense with relatively little rest, it was not as glycogen-intensive as you might think. Engaging in 5-10 second bursts of intense output just shy of fatigue followed by a little bit of rest meant I was probably relying on creatine phosphate for energy. The creatine phosphate, or phosphocreatine energy system is the one you call upon when doing feats of superhuman strength: lifting cars off kids, maxing out on the deadlift, sprinting for 5 seconds all-out. I wrote about it long ago on the blog. It’s an ultra-intense and powerful source of energy that's very short-lived, lasting only for a few seconds, but it begins replenishing itself almost immediately. The replenishment happens even faster if you have plenty of creatine in your system, whether from supplementation or eating plenty of meat and fish (great sources of creatine). It doesn't replenish fully, mind you. With each subsequent expenditure throughout the course of a workout, the tank gets smaller and longer to refill. There are limits, after all. I'm not saying this is the best way to train. I'm just saying it's been an enjoyable, effective way to train that appears to be highly efficient. How are you training these days? Let me know in the comment section of Weekly Link Love. | 