👋 Hey.
Welcome to issue #9 of The Everyday Athlete Newsletter. Thanks for being here!
Here are my 3 favourite ideas, learns and resources to help you improve your performance this week (5.5 min read):
💪 Tailoring training programs to your neurotransmitter profile
Slightly longer one today, strap in...
Charles Poliquin is known as one of the best strength coaches that did it. He coached Olympic gold medalists and world champs in a heap of sports.
His methods have been widely adopted.
But there's one (lesser known) strategy he considered critical to his athletes' success.
He worked out:
Our neurotransmitter profile influences the type of training programs we respond best to 🤯
Neurotransmitters are chemicals flying around the body. The nervous system uses them to communicate with itself.
These chemicals affect how we think, feel and behave.
There's different types of neurotransmitters. All with different functions.
The big 4 are:
- ⚡️ Dopamine (energy, motivation)
- ⚡️ Acetyl-choline (memory, focus)
- 💤 GABA (mood, stress response)
- 💤 Serotonin (mood)
We all have different ratios of these chemicals 👆 in our bodies depending on our makeup. Most of us are either dominant in 1 specific type or balanced across all 4.
The Braverman test (done online in 15-minutes) is the most simple and effective way to determine your neurotransmitter profile:
- 📈 You're dominant in a specific type if you score above 40 in that section
- ⚖️ Less than 40 in all sections, you're balanced
*These tests are never conclusive, just a helpful indicator
🪄 So our mate Charles went full wizard mode and worked out that different profiles respond better to different programs...
Before we dive in:
- Intensity = high effort or heavy weight
- Volume = high reps, sets, exercises
- Variety = a mix of the two
🏋 Dopamine-dominant, respond best to intensity
- For strength: low reps, heavy weight, exercise variety
- General fitness: Short max efforts (10 seconds) with short rests
🤹 Acetylcholine-dominant, respond best to variety
- For strength: Mix of low reps, heavy weight and higher reps, lower weight, with lots of exercise variety
- General fitness: Vary intensities, volumes, training and exercise types
⚖️ Balanced, respond best to volume (less than 40 in all sections)
- Strength: High reps, sets, exercises, lower weight
- General fitness: Longer efforts (lots of super high-intensity work will quickly burn you out), structure, consistency
Charles rarely came across GABA or Serotonin dominant individuals who wanted to get strong.
But, if you are...
- ⚖️ GABA-dominant: respond best to the balanced style
- 🧘 Serotonin-dominant: will likely want something more chill, like yoga
Even though Charles used it for strength, I feel like it can be helpful to know for other areas of performance.
E.g. Knowing I'm balanced and respond best to volume, means lots of HIIT training is gonna burn me out quick. But I can do the same sessions on end without spending time looking for variety.
And more broadly:
- 🗓 Routine is gonna be helpful for me
- 🔁 I'll learn better with reps, and that
- 😴 Rest is crucial after work-sprints
... is useful to know.
I definitely didn't need a personality test to tell me that 👆. But it's been cool to understand why. And it's made me comfier leaning into those behaviours (a good thing cause I respond better to them).
If you're interested, do the Braverman test. It might give you some useful info to help your performance.
(If you want to dive into the weeds of the specific programs, exercises, reps and sets that suit your profile to improve strength, this is a super-detailed resource.)
💡 Idea: Our approaches are only preferences
Love that 👆
Great reminder that all the things we do to improve our performance aren't requirements.
They're just preferences 👌
🤸 Getting flexy in 5 mins a week
1 minute per day. 5 days per week.
That's what the research says is the minimum effective dose for improving the flexibility of a muscle group.
1 minute of static stretching, broken into 2 x 30-second sets. Monday to Friday. That's it.
How does flexibility help our performance?
- 🤸 Movement (balance, stability, pattern of movement, efficiency)
- 🩼 Injury prevention (similar to above 👆 + for certain sports getting into funky positions can keep us from breaking)
- 💪 Recovery (restores muscle length)
- 💥 Pain management (headaches, stiffness)
Other things to note:
- 🔥 It helps to be warm > stretch post-exercise/training (this is what's worked for me, now it's a habit)
- 📱 Even 1 minute is hard to adopt > link it with something you already do like TV or scrolling IG
- ⏰ Flexibility generally has slow adaptations (progress can take months)
One of those things that we all know makes us feel better when we're consistent. But barely do. Hopefully 1 min/day can make it more achievable!
That's it!
- If you've got a mate who'd enjoy this, please pass it on
- Is there a specific topic you want to see in future issues?
- Also, if you have anything interesting to share, I'd love to hear about it.
Have a great weekend 
Matt
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