The common misconceptions are that players should not lift weights for the fear of becoming too big which makes them slow or that they should not train too close to games because the muscle soreness will impair their performance on the pitch. Neither of these are true, however after the first few sessions the initial muscle soreness decreased and Mark could see that training four times a week did not impair his performance. To improve Mark’s body composition I employed a couple of Charles Poliquin’s favourite routines, the first 3 week phase consisted of a routine called 6, 12, 25’s. This is a brutal programme that creates serious lactate build up in the working muscles and gets you shredded. The theory is that the more lactate that is produced, the more the blood pH drops causing the body to produce growth hormone. The liver then turns the growth hormone in to IGF-1, which preferentially burns stored body fat as a fuel. Here is a sample day:
