Articles
Understand the concepts behind your training and nutrition plans
Taper for powerlifters
Before a meet or a test day, we will normally do a tapering phase in order to recover and be at the best of our abilities. There are several ways to approach this phase, but what are the rules to follow and is there a protocol applicable to all?
Francis Martineau |
Montreal Powerhouse Fundamentals
A Montreal Powerhouse virtual seminar on periodization, training and nutrition, as well as a Q&A session (french only).
Quentin Weber, Louis-Alexis Gratton & Mathieu Doré |
How Mickael Cloutier totaled 2000lbs
In september 2019, Mickael Cloutier became the first lifter in the Quebec Powerlifting Federation and one of the very few Canadian lifters to total 2000lbs in drug tested conditions, without equipment. His determination and work ethic got him there first and foremost, but we thought we’d offer some insight into how we reorganized his training since he started working with us.
Louis-Alexis Gratton |
A Brief Overview of Strength Physiology
Most people know that to get stronger, you need to gain muscle and lift heavy weights, and that is really the gist of it. However, for those of you interested in the physiological underpinnings of strength training, or, to put it more simply, in understanding what are the changes happening within our body that make us stronger when we lift weights, we’ll offer a brief overview here.
Louis-Alexis Gratton |
Conditioning for Powerlifting: What is Necessary?
Two factors mainly determine powerlifting success: maximal strength and hypertrophy. And then again, hypertrophy only matters because the amount of muscle mass an individual possesses influences the potential he has to develop absolute strength.
Louis-Alexis Gratton |
Accessory Work for Powerlifting: What You Should Be Doing
We can define accessory work as everything you do within a training session after the completion of the main exercise or exercises, which will usually consist of the competition lifts or close variations. Traditionally, accessory work can be understood as higher repetition ‘’bodybuilding’’ exercises, or, sometimes, as conditioning training.
Louis-Alexis Gratton |
Potential in Powerlifting
Athletic potential has been particularly studied in recent years in the field of training theory. What makes a great athlete? Is it possible for anyone to reach high levels in sport? To what extent do genetics play a role?
Louis-Alexis Gratton |
Exercise Variation and Training Transfer
Exercise variation is used by all coaches. Very seldom will you see an athlete performing exclusively competitive movements during the training process. Most trainees use a wide variety of exercises in their preparation, especially beginner to intermediate athletes.
Louis-Alexis Gratton |
Fatigue Management in Powerlifting
Fatigue Management is often misunderstood and ill applied in self trained athletes. Muscular failure is reached often and lighter work is disregarded. While training hard is an absolute requisite to get better, knowing when to back off at the appropriate time will definitely help you reach your goals in a faster and safer manner.
Louis-Alexis Gratton |
Periodization for Powerlifting
In previous installments, we’ve exposed the concept of periodization, first through its classical model and then its more recent and refined block model. With the basics in place, it’s now time to tackle on periodization specifically for powerlifting.
Louis-Alexis Gratton |
Directed Adaptation
For the training effect to be substantial as well as durable, stimuli of the same type should be presented in sequence for a meaningful period of time (i.e. every week, for several weeks).
Louis-Alexis Gratton |
Block Periodization Model
Today we will look at a more recent model that takes into consideration the evolution that sports and training has undergone since the early theorization of periodization: the block periodization.
Louis-Alexis Gratton |
Classical Periodization Model
Proper programming is crucial to sports progress. A vital component of adequate programming is periodization, which is simply defined as a “method by which training is divided into smaller, easy-to-manage segments that are typically referred to as phases of training”.
Louis-Alexis Gratton |