BASE TRAINING & STRENGTH BLOCK: POLIQUIN'S 6/12/25 METHOD - JULY 2021

Welcome to the summer time, hypertrophy and body recomposition focused months. We're shifting gears, increasing the volume and intensity of our strength training programming to elicit metabolic and hypertrophic effects on your body. We'll be building on top of the programming we completed in June and challenging you in different ways all with the focus of getting you to be as efficient as possible with your energy expenditure.

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BASE TRAINING

What is BASE Training?
​Getting strong doesn't need to be complicated but it also requires a solid base. Base training is a stripped-down way to build lean muscle, solidify movement patterns, and get the most ROI from training. It simplifies the number of barbell movements, incorporates more kettlebells, and focuses on time tested, scientifically proven strength building exercises.
 This is a 3 day training split.

What to expect during a BASE Training session:

• Mobility Development (FRC)
• Corrective Exercises
• Breathing and Posture
• Balance and Proprioception
• Strength Training
• Cool Downs and Stretches (ELDOA, PRI)

We highly encourage all clients to make time for BASE Training in June. It doesn't matter if you're on your 7 Day Trial or if you've been with us for 3 years, it will help sharpen up your technique and train better.

* New Members will be required to complete at least one month of BASE Training prior to re-assessment qualification for Strength. Safety is our priority. *

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STRENGTH BLOCK: POLIQUIN'S 6/12/25 METHOD

This is a 3 day training split. Advanced clients can include BASE Training sessions into their weekly calendar but we encourage appropriate rest and recovery.

​What does accumulation mean and what is the goal of an accumulation training block?

Accumulation is just getting as much volume as we can. The difference from intensification is we’re deliberately trying to work body composition, such as improving our fat-mass to muscle-mass ratio, to get more muscle. It’s okay to say that we want to look better, as well as perform better. This accumulation block will build muscle mass and set a foundation for the heavier lifts to come.

This accumulation phase will transition nicely into our later intensification phase where we’re going to be in better condition to handle higher weights more frequently. We will also have greater tensile strength of our joints and ligaments to handle these higher intensities and these heavier loads. We’re going to push through a threshold that we potentially didn’t have before, especially when we’re doing multiple sets of intensities above 80% when your legs are feeling a little tired. 

Let’s dive in a bit deeper on what an Accumulation Block actually is.

There are a couple of central themes behind Accumulation Blocks: Functional Hypertrophy, Hypertrophy, and Muscular Endurance.

This block’s focus is Muscular Endurance. We’re  looking to tax some of the fatigue resistance muscle fibers. Also known as type 1 muscle fibers.

You know those "SPICY" shirts that you see people wearing around our gym? This is the infamous spicy strength block.

That should scare the hell out of you in a good way. You're going to get everything that you've ever wanted to accomplish in one training block. June's French Contrast Method strength programming introduced everyone to the Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat (RFESS) and we're going to build on that by introducing more unilateral exercises to accompany our axial loading with barbells (barbell front and back squats). Unilateral loading allows us to train a little more asymmetrically so we can get everything lined up again and focus on isolating any muscular imbalances or compensations. Also, when you train one leg, you're getting twice the metabolic demand as you would with training two legs at one time so your conditioning / work capacity improves too.

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6/12/25 burns load a shitload of fat.

From a program design standpoint, we're using a higher rep scheme designed to burn fat for the energy we use during the session. We specifically start the training sessions with 6 reps of fast twitch muscle fiber movements like front squats, bench press, bent over rows or deadlifts. Beginning the session with these movements first fatigues fast twitch muscle fibers and leaves the more fatigue-resistant muscle fibers to finish the task. This design burns more glycogen at the top of a session and sets us up to burn more fat throughout the session.

A key concept to understand for this block is Size Principle.

“This Size Principle is a naturally occurring process to prevent overexertion. Essentially, we utilize slower twitch muscle fibers at the start of an activity to defer the use of faster twitch muscle fibers later. The sequence is important because it impacts our response to training.”

In this block, we’re reversing the Size Principle by utilizing higher threshold motor units at the top of the session in our compound lift of 6 in our 6/12/25 rep scheme. When we transition to 12 and 25 reps, we’ll utilize lower threshold motor units and intermediate/slow twitch muscle fibers.

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And what’s the goal of taxing all muscle fibers to the extent of their capabilities?
The goal is to maximize our response to training;  making our bodies respond to what we’re going through. Which brings us to our next point: Hypertrophy.

There are essentially two different types of hypertrophy: Sarcoplasmic and Myofibril Hypertrophy.
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The “pump” sensation is what comes from sarcoplasmic. When you do higher-rep, lower intensity work it causes increased blood flow to an area. This increased blood to the area helps with long-term recovery by removing waste post exercise and inflating of mTOR pathways that repair broken down tissues.

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“When you do higher-rep, lower intensity work it causes increased blood flow to an area. This increased blood to the area helps with long-term recovery by removing waste post exercise and inflating of mTOR pathways that repair broken down tissues.”

A second key component of hypertrophy is using all energy stores in the muscle.

In this case, specifically glycogen. When glycogen is burned for energy during training, it’s called glycolysis. Glycolysis usually occurs during anaerobic exercise where we need immediate energy for work but we don't have a lot of oxygen present.

So in hypertrophy, we first use available glucose and then glycogen stores. When we continue the duration of training, we exhaust glycogen stores and look for different types of fuel to burn. In our case, we are hoping for fatty acids.
In our training program, by structuring a combination of higher threshold motor units in our set of 6 and lower threshold motor units in our sets of 12 and 24 we can hopefully burn glycogen faster and subsequently utilize more fatty acids for fuel during the session.

In conclusion, the goal of this block to use higher rep schemes that tap into burning fat for energy.
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We’re starting with high-threshold, motor-units and fast twitch muscle fibers to get more out of our higher rep schemes than if we would if we just went into higher reps. This structure will burn more glycogen and lead to better utilization of other fuel sources.

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 Resources:

• https://shreddedbyscience.com/henneman/
• https://codycordeiro.com/2014/10/19/the-low-down-on-hypertrophy-sarcoplasmic-vs-sarcomere-aka-myofibrillar/​