208: Christian Thibaudeau on Adrenaline, Muscle Tone and Optimizing Training Splits in Athletic Performance | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

Today’s episode features strength coach Christian Thibaudeau. Christian has been involved in the business of training for the last 18 years, having worked with athletes from 28 different sports. He is a prolific writer and presenter, having written four books, as well as presenting to top coaches and organizations all over the world. Christian is also the creator of the Neuro-typing system, which classifies athletes according to the neurotransmitters they seek out. This system has the categories of 1A,1B,2A,2B and 3, and Christian has covered this topic extensively on this podcast, as well as many other shows. There are many intersections of the neuro-typing system, as well as other categories of individualization. As discussed on my recent talk with Ross Jeffs, the “concentric”, “elastic” and “metabolic” sprinter types tend to fit with the 1A,1B and 2A neuro-types in regards to their strengths and optimal training regimen. One element of training that I’ve been considering a lot is optimal training splits for sprinting and jumping athletes, and reconciling 4-day training splits (or even 6-day) where there is an intensive CNS element, versus more of a “high-low” split that Charlie Francis made so popular. This new podcast with Christian digs into understanding how to give athletes their best training split by understanding the relationship of adrenaline to overtraining. It also looks at things like muscle tone as how one can make a better assessment of an athlete, what training they may respond best to, as well as how to assess them on a daily and weekly basis, and make the best training adjustments. Christian covers this, nutrition, child development and creativity, and much more on this information-packed show. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more. Timestamps and Main Points 6:25 Christian’s recent thoughts on child development 12:25 The importance of creativity in early age, and how to cultivate it in developmental stages 28:45 Overview and updates of the neurotyping system from a perspective of COMT, serotonin, adrenaline, and methylation 53:15 Muscle tone, neuro-types and training splits 1:17.55 The role of carbohydrates, cortisol, and adrenaline in training Quotes “Any type of blue light or screen time is the number one enemy to child development” “You will always have what I call grinders… they will never become the stars, and the stars are those that have that little extra something, and that comes from creativity” “That’s one trait of high acetylcholine individuals, they will be more creative” “Some people will break down adrenaline super-fast, and if they can do that, they can tolerate a lot more training stimulus. That is why some people naturally can tolerate a boatload of volume” “COMT is the enzyme that breaks down adrenaline. The one that is fast will break down adrenaline very quickly after release, on the other hand if I have someone with a slow variation of the COMT enzyme, when you release adrenaline it stays high forever” “The type 3 is very similar to the type 1a from a genetic perspective. Both have poor methylation, both have slow COMT, they don’t clear out adrenaline fast” “Carbohydrates control adrenaline” “The 1B is only aggressive under high adrenaline… they will be super chill until it counts” “The 1B if he fails he will just try again. The 2A, looking foolish is destructive, because what others think of him is super important” “Anxiety is nothing more than your brain firing too fast for you to control it” “That person (who has high muscle tone) always has high adrenaline. To me that person has slow COMT, he doesn’t break down adrenaline fast” “9 times out of 10 what we call overtraining is a desensitization of the beta-adrenergic receptors” “If the athletes has a normal muscle tone and all of a sudden he walks in and his muscle tone is low, he may be underloading, but in most cases it’s because they desensitized their receptors. One sign of overtraining is that the muscle feels softer” “The higher the muscle tone is, the more stimulated the adregeneric receptors are, or the greater the adrenaline activity in your body, so someone with low muscle tone means that your baseline adrenaline level is low” “Athletes with lower muscle tone are often more laid back, harder to motivate, more chill. Athletes with higher muscle tone are more aggressive, bigger mood swings, more jumpy, they will have a higher heart rate at rest” “If you have low muscle tone, of the best signs you are doing too much is that you have high muscle tone” “The better your receptors respond to adrenaline, the stronger, faster, and more motivated you are going to be… that is why when you deload for a week, your performances will go up!” “You don’t supercompensate neurotransmitters, you can recover normal neurotransmitter levels” “Cortisol increases adrenaline directly. The more cortisol you release, the more adrenaline you produce. When we deload, we want to decrease any variable that would increase cortisol, there are 6: Volume, Intensiveness, using RPE scale (not intensity), psychological stress, neurological demands (coordination demand), density, and competitiveness” “When I train athletes, I prefer to stick to the same exercises for a long time (as to not increase coordination demand and increase cortisol and adrenaline)” “If you include a lot of new exercises in the program, you had better decrease volume and intensiveness to compensate” “Carbohydrates can be a great too to decrease adrenaline. They help you control adrenaline by decreasing cortisol. When you have a lot of carbs readily available in bloodstream for fuel, you don’t need to mobilize stored glycogen, so you need less cortisol” “People with excessive muscle tone, these guys will need carbs to bring it down” “I will have carbs pre-workout if the athlete has high muscle tone or high cortisol… if the person is normal baseline I’ll have carbs after the workout” About Christian Thibaudeau Christian Thibaudeau has been involved in the business of training for over the last 18 years. During this period, he worked with athletes from 28 different sports. He has been “Head Strength Coach” for the Central Institute for Human Performance (official center of the St. Louis Blues). His specialty: being a generalist. He assists his athletes to develop the necessary qualities to increase their performances (eg: muscle mass, power, explosiveness, coordination). His work method enabled him to lead several successful athletes in a multitude of different disciplines. Christian is a prolific writer with three books published, each of which translated into three languages (The Black Book of Training Secrets, Theory and Application of Modern Strength and Power Methods, High Threshold Muscle Building). In addition, Christian is co-author with Paul Carter in a new book, which will soon be released. He is also the author of two DVDs (Cluster Training, Mechanical Drop Sets). Christian is also a senior author and head writer for the E-Magazine T-Nation his articles are read by over 200,000 people every week. He competed in weightlifting at the national level as well as bodybuilding, He was also a football coach for 8 years. As a lecturer, he has given conferences and seminars in both the United States and Europe, to audiences ranging from amateur athletes to health professionals and coaches of all types. Christian Thibaudeau popularized the Neurotyping system. Neural optimization supersedes hormonal optimization because the neural response affects the hormonal response. This is essentially the founding principle and inspiration behind Christian Thibaudeau’s Neurotyping System. The bottom line is simple: you are more likely to train hard, be focused and stay motivated if you like the type of training you are doing, and a training that goes against your nature causes a greater stress response that hinders optimal progression. “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein