The Quick and the Dead

by Pavel Tsatsouline

  A student doing jump squats at a Strong Endurance™ seminar.

  Power training is also a key to staying young; testosterone is only a part of that picture.

  As we age, speed goes first, strength next, and endurance last. Prof. Yakovlev pointed out that you will never see a 70-year-old burning rubber on a 100-meter sprint, while countless folks of the same vintage casually cover 15–20k while hunting or picking mushrooms. As for strength, its dynamic component declines first (jumps, throws, quick lifts), while static and slow strength stick around much longer.

  In aging, there is a preferential loss of type II fibers; a sedentary 80-year-old man has lost half the fast fibers he had as a 30-year-old. Even grandmas and grandpas whose lifestyles do not involve anything more dynamic than bingo should be concerned. “The ability of muscles to produce force rapidly is vital and may serve as a protective mechanism when falling,” emphasize Profs. Vladimir Zatsiorsky and William Kraemer. They add that while this decline cannot be prevented, it looks like it can be reduced with power training, as witnessed by performances of master power and strength athletes.

  With age, the intensity of oxidative processes also decreases. At rest and per pound, 70-year-olds consume 40 percent less oxygen than 20-and 30-year-olds, with a resulting reduction in work capacity.

  A World War II vet not prone to babying himself or others, Prof. Yakovlev prescribed accelerations as the number one exercise choice for the elderly to stimulate both the plastic and the energetic processes (in other words, muscle building and aerobic). Beefing up one’s mitochondria and fast-twitch fibers with power training is a great prescription for turning back the clock.

  On to endurance.

  The maximal tissue respiration rate refers to the amount of traffic one’s aerobic power plants, the mitochondria, can handle. Naturally, dedicated endurance training was first—but power came in a very close second.

  This is especially awesome once you consider that these stamina gains were “free”—made without sucking wind or muscle “burn.”

  Sprinting is nothing like “high intensity interval training;” it is ultra-short dashes with decadent rest periods. Legendary Canadian sprint coach Charlie Francis had his athletes start with a 15-minute rest after the first sub-eight-second sprint and increased the rests from there. Power training is not “metcon,” but sets of low reps with generous breaks—at least two to five minutes.

  In summary, with fatigue being the antithesis of power training, the endurance adaptations the latter produces are pure WTHEs. Moreover, once you arrange these power sets in a special manner to maximize mitochondrial adaptation, as we will do later in the book, they will be a game changer for your conditioning.

  David Rigert at his “dry fighting weight.”

  From the fat loss perspective, scientists conclude that speed training improves aerobic oxidation of carbs but not of fats. Nevertheless, per Prof. Vladimir Platonov, “When training at high speeds, there is a greater decrease in fatty tissue as compared to training at low speeds.” I could drone on about improved insulin sensitivity, but since it would bore me out of my skull, I will not.

  At StrongFirst, we never focus on fat loss—and get it anyway as a side effect of our strength and power pursuits. Geoff Neupert, a former Master SFG instructor and an accomplished Olympic weightlifter, points out how lean weightlifters are, all without the dishonor of aerobics. Indeed, the Soviet national team had a standard of six-to seven-percent body fat for everyone but the heavyweights—David Rigert, one of the greatest weightlifters of all time, had four-percent body fat at a bodyweight of 200–220. He called it a “dry fighting weight.”

  Of course, eating clean helped. Here is Rigert’s typical breakfast: two raw eggs, two steaks with no side dishes, almost half a pound of sour cream, a cup of coffee, and mineral water.

  Acid, the Enemy of the Quick

  Over 200 years ago, Swedish scientist Jöns Berzelius discovered lactic acid in the muscles of an exhausted stag that had just been hunted down.

  Acid is the enemy of both tension and relaxation, drawing one into the stiff no-man’s land in between. It muffles the brain’s commands to the muscles, inhibits all three energy systems, and interferes with contraction and relaxation—read: strength and speed—in many ways.

  As your speed goes down, you are moving to the right on the quick–dead continuum.

  Max Dedik, Kyokushin karate champion and accomplished coach, is an enemy of metcons for fighters: “I often see prescriptions like 50 or 100 burpees in one or two sets. Go ahead, do it, but you will definitely lose speed.”

  Dedik suggests comparing the speed exhibited during tournaments in full contact styles, like his own, and noncontact ones. “Point fighters avoid significant acidosis in training, as they know it ruins speed. And speed is their end-all…Compare the speed of their champions and ours. Any questions?”

  Both speed and strength take a dive in acid, but power suffers the most. In fatigued muscles, speed and strength decrease by a similar percentage. This compounds the power drop-off, since power is an offspring of both. For instance, if the force and the velocity each go down by 20 percent, the power will tank by 40 percent. Feel free to add an exclamation mark.

  Correlation between lactate concentration in the working muscles and the power output.

  When your burst of effort is any longer than the magnificent first cat’s hunt or if your rests are too brief—as in HIIT or metcons—power goes down. Way down. For instance, by the end of an all-out 30-second bicycle or velo sprint, power drops by up to 50 percent.

  Contemplate that: In just half a minute, acid cuts your power in half.

  No longer able to contract quickly and powerfully, fatigued muscles compensate with longer and weaker contractions. This messes up movement coordination. It could mean failing to catch dinner—or becoming dinner yourself. Even if you have avoided such a fate, you are learning slowness and poor form for the next time.

  Accustomed to always pushing through a sticky mud of muscle congestion, an athlete develops a particular movement stereotype. His allegedly explosive movements are anything but—as exemplified by burpees in metcon gyms. Sensei Dedik has seen it time and again: Fighters who abuse metcons lose speed and sharpness in their strikes. Instead of practicing to be quick, they are practicing to be dead.

  Even if you survived your HIIT session today, you might become dinner tomorrow or the day after, drained of energy and crippled by soreness.

  Old-school coaches knew what they were talking about: Lactic acid makes you sore. Today’s consensus is it is the fault of the microtrauma caused by eccentric contractions. Without questioning the latter, I insist that the former is just as guilty.

  Conduct an experiment. Leaf through your training log and find some less-than-brilliant workout that made you very sore. Say, you did as many pushups as you could, rested for a minute, did it again, and then a third time. Recall how your shoulders and triceps felt for days.

  Now, match the number of pushups, using the identical technique—but spread them throughout the day into sets of five reps done every 15 minutes.

  After a couple of days of feeling great, you will never roll your eyes at an old-timer with a whistle and a stopwatch telling you that lactic acid makes you sore.

  The acid does not literally burn holes through your muscles—but it triggers various processes that do.

  Within your muscles are tiny bubbles, lysosomes, containing enzymes that dismantle and dispose of the components that are damaged or no longer needed. Lysosomes operate exclusively in an acidic environment. When acidity is moderate, they do what they are supposed to do, and even help muscles grow. But when the “burn” is out of control, lysosomes go on a destructive rampage that you feel a day or two after.

  “We want—in sports and health training—to develop and renew cells, while some defective structures need to be destroyed,” comments Prof. Victor Selouyanov. “The ‘game’ is a slight acidosis to enable the cell to renew but not se
lf-destruct. Overly active lysosomes can lead to cellular death.”

  Although some lactic acid is needed to promote muscle hypertrophy through several mechanisms that are outside the scope of this book, its excess is destructive. Russians did a study to evaluate the anabolic and catabolic effects of different types of exercises and loads. Among those tested was a typical HIIT workout, 3x60 seconds on a veloergometer with two-minute rests. It was the most catabolic of all types of exercise; the anabolic phase was not reached even on day four.

  To put things into perspective, another one of the tested loads was 10 sets of 20 frog jumps. This was also very catabolic—but less than the one before, in spite of the severe eccentric loading! And the anabolic phase finally did kick in after two or three days. These results are even more striking once we learn that the subjects were speedskaters—athletes accustomed to metcons, but not to eccentric loading.

  Another way acid contributes to tissue damage and soreness is by stimulating the production of free radicals or reactive oxygen species (ROS).

  Like lactic acid, in moderate quantities free radicals perform many useful functions. In excess, they destroy performance, health, and life itself. The dose makes the poison.

  Metcons are custom made for maximizing ROS generation. You may have heard of glutathione (GSH), “the mother of all antioxidants” produced by our bodies. Scientists measure the concentrations of its “used up” version to assess oxidative stress. They found a linear relationship between its concentration and lactate concentration after exhaustive exercise.

  A linear relationship between lactate concentration and oxidative stress.

  Leading researcher Prof. Maya Pshennikova concluded that ROS are a major destructive factor of various muscle fiber structures. It has been suggested by other Russian specialists that free radical hyper production in soft and connective tissues may cause degenerative changes and a loss of elasticity leading to injuries. It is very likely that by breaking your acid habit and implementing Q&D protocols, you will improve the quality of your soft tissues. This is what Peter Park, a strength and conditioning coach of champions, keeps hearing from the therapists who do bodywork on his elite athletes from a variety of sports. And this is one of the many reasons Q&D is a perfect choice for those whom Senior SFG instructor Alexey Senart calls “older model Terminators.”

  Leave metcons, exhaustion, stiffness, and soreness to prey. Stay fresh to hunt another day.

  Peter Park coaching JJ Muno.

  Speaks Peter Park, strength and conditioning coach of Giancarlo Stanton, Lance Armstrong, Justin Verlander, Ken Roczen, Diana Taurasi, and other high-level athletes:

  I train the entire spectrum of the population, ranging from professional baseball and football players, motocross riders, cyclists, triathletes, golfers to high-end CEOs and high school athletes. I have not only seen incredible “what the hell” results with Pavel’s Quick and the Dead, everyone I work with reports better energy, great recovery, and improved body composition. In this book, Pavel reveals a minimalist program that will benefit any human.

  Adrenaline, the Hormone of Prey

  “…the blank serenity of the invulnerable.”

  Novelist Peter Benchley’s depiction of a barracuda is a good lesson in how to approach your training. An impassive face. Violent power without psyching.

  Prey is stressed. Predators are not.

  Stress and adrenaline exacerbate the free radical damage initiated by lactic acid. Welcome to the “high intensity interval training” class! Amateurish treatment of every workout as a competition—often jacked up on some “energy drink”—makes the bad worse.

  Damage caused by ROS intensifies during stress, regardless of the nature of the stress. And adrenaline bridges the physical and the psychological causes of the metcon-induced oxidative damage. This hormone inhibits synthesis of the earlier-mentioned antioxidant GSH—and a high concentration of adrenaline almost doubles the mitochondrial damage by free radicals. The body is efficient; if you are about to become lunch, why worry about accelerated aging?

  Both adrenaline and noradrenaline are mobilizing hormones, but their effects are different and their ratio varies among individuals and species. Adrenaline appears to be associated with fear and noradrenaline with aggression. In case you believe that going full “Sparta” is hardcore, consider the following:

  Adrenaline-to-Noradrenaline Ratios in Different Species

  Which do you aspire to be?

  Should you argue that “everyone psyches up for their workouts,” know that baboons and other social animals prone to peer pressure also have a high adrenaline-to-noradrenaline ratio—just like rabbits.

  But what about world-class powerlifters? Don’t they work themselves into an adrenaline frenzy?

  Lions on the platform: Dan Austin and Hideaki Inaba. Austin’s world deadlift record, 705.5 pounds at a bodyweight of 148 pounds set in 1992, is still untouchable over a quarter of a century later.

  Yes—twice a year, at the Nationals and the Worlds. They know that the rabbit is more motivated than the lion and it is worth acting like you are fighting for your life when a title or a record is at stake. These lifters also know that once they have used up their adrenaline charge on the competition platform, they will be walking dead for three weeks. So, the remaining 350 days of the year, they spare the rabbit hormone and stay in the lion mode when training: focused and not hyped.

  An aside that will appeal to the well-rounded reader: A creative high that increases physical and mental work capacity is accompanied by noradrenaline secretion. Perhaps this explains why the samurai were equally proficient at war and poetry.

  Noradrenaline also appears to be secreted in situations with a certain outcome, and adrenaline in uncertainty and anxiety. Not surprisingly, whales beat even lions in their noradrenaline prevalence—no threats or uncertainties for them. Ditto for elite lifters. They know exactly how many reps they are going to do. There is no doubt and no possibility of failure. Throughout an extraordinary career that spanned decades and over a hundred world records, Ed Coan never missed a rep in training! Always calm and unperturbed, you could swear Ed got Botox.

  The powerful are skilled at relaxing. Did you know that leopards purr like house cats?

  The Quick and the Dead

  In the South American jungle, a jaguar hunts a prey that bites back, a caiman. In a show of absolute superiority, the cat makes his kill on the dangerous dinner’s turf. The jag jumps into the river and snatches the wriggling toothy reptile by its neck.

  A caiman or a gator may be fast, but if he misses, he is in deep trouble, as he just shot a musket—a single-shot muzzle loader against a warm-blooded predator’s six-shooter that can be rapidly reloaded. A reptile’s weak aerobic system and reliance on glycolysis puts it at a great disadvantage against warm-blooded predators whose aerobic systems enable them to rapidly recover from their lightning strikes.

  A gator needs many hours of rest and sucking wind to clear the acid produced by a single spurt of activity. Scientists believe that dinosaurs—reptiles’ cousins—had similar metabolism, which made them vulnerable to mammal predators whose aerobic systems were far superior and that enabled them to sustain their attacks.

  Enter the home of the aerobic system, the mitochondria, our cells’ power plants.

  This book did not start out as a power-centric guide to total fitness with a health twist. The original intention was to write only about improving endurance for high-power applications by training the mitochondria.

  As it turns out, the state of one’s mitochondria determines much more than the outcome of a rowing race or a judo match. The mitochondria are, in Dr. Nick Lane’s words, “the masters of life and death.”

  The alternative of being “quick” to being “dead” in the African savannah or the old American West only scratches the surface of the inspiration behind the book’s title.

  “Who shall give account to Him who is ready to judge the quick and the dead.” ~ 1 Peter 4:5


  In the Bible, the word “quick” does not describe being quick on the draw. It means “alive.” The goal of the Q&D regimen is not just to get you to perform at a high level, but to do it in a way that does no harm to your health—and hopefully improves it a great deal.

  The Old English word “quicken” meant “to come to life.” The unborn child’s first movement in the womb was called “quickening.” Fittingly, we get our mitochondrial genes from our mothers.

  Healthy, strong, and abundant mitochondria make one much more resilient to a variety of stressors: cold, heat, altitude, infection, poison, radiation, etc.