Subscribe now

The best shortstop in baseball has been on the injured list since April 22nd.

Francisco Lindor—Gold Glove defender, perennial All-Star, the heartbeat of the New York Mets—went down rounding third base against the Twins, limping home as his left calf gave way mid-sprint. An MRI confirmed the strain was more severe than his teammates’ recent calf issues, and manager Carlos Mendoza made clear: “He’s going to be down for quite a bit.”

The coverage has been sympathetic. Bad luck. Freak injury. Wrong place, wrong time.

We’d like to offer a different explanation.

This isn’t bad luck. This is a pattern. A Bottom Up Reactive Strength Deficit.

Lindor is 32 years old. He has played over 150 games in seven of his eleven MLB seasons—one of the most explosive, high-output players in the game. Elite range, elite first-step quickness, elite base-running instincts. Everything about his game demands that his neurology outputs fast and outputs hard.

He strained his right calf in 2019 with Cleveland and missed the start of that season. Now, seven years later, the left calf. Same athlete. Same tissue type. Different side.

When you see a pattern like this—a high-output explosive athlete, bilateral calf history, injury occurring during a high-force dynamic movement—it isn’t randomness. It’s a signal. And the signal is pointing at something the mainstream injury conversation almost never identifies correctly.

His neurology outpaced his biology. Lindor has a bottom-up reactive strength deficit.

What that actually means

At Absolute Sport Science, our framework for both performance and injury management centers on Point B—the optimal internal physical state of the athlete—which conjugates four trainable capacities: Absolute Strength, Speed-Strength, Joint Function, and Reactive Strength.

Reactive Strength is where Lindor’s injury lives.

Our inside-out mental model of Reactive Strength has two components that must develop concurrently:

Top-down: the neurological and CNS drive that generates force. In elite athletes, this is typically well-developed. Years of explosive training, sprint work, and competition have built a neural network of absolute strength that can output enormous forces rapidly.

Bottom-up: the connective tissue architecture of the posterior leg: the inter and intramuscular connective tissues, the Achilles complex, and their collective ability to absorb, transmit, and dampen forces during dynamic movements like sprinting, cutting, and high-speed base running.

Here is the problem no one is naming: when top-down neurological output scales faster than bottom-up connective tissue resilience, you get a volatile system. The CNS can demand more than the tissue can deliver—not in one catastrophic moment, but through repetitive maladaptive loading that accumulates across hundreds of games, thousands of reps, over years.

Until one day, rounding third base, the bill comes due.

This is not a muscle strain. This is a reactive strength deficit. And it is entirely predictable.

Why the posterior leg is uniquely vulnerable

The calf is not a simple structure. Most athletes—and most treatment + training programs—treat it like one. Calf raises. More calf raises. Maybe some eccentric heel drops if you’re being progressive.

This is insufficient. And understanding why requires looking at what the posterior leg actually is.

The posterior leg has three distinct muscular layers, each with its own fiber orientation, its own mechanical role, and its own contribution to the connective tissue architecture that makes reactive strength emergence possible. The direction of those fibers—and how load is applied relative to them—determines whether you are actually building the biological foundation Lindor needs, or simply creating the illusion of preparation.

Most return-to-sport protocols never get to this level of specificity. They train the output. They ignore the architecture.

As of mid-May, manager Carlos Mendoza confirmed Lindor was moving into “the strength part, in the weight room, before he starts his running progression.” Building strength in the tissue is a necessary step. But strength is not architecture. And architecture is what determines whether Lindor returns from this injury and if this injury happens again.

This is where most programs stop. It’s where ours begins.

Paid subscribers: below the fold, we break down the full tissue-specific management strategy through the Absolute lens—layer by layer, fiber direction by fiber direction—and what a Conjugate strategy to Lindor’s return would actually look like at the Level of Adaptation.

The Architecture Problem—What the Posterior Leg Actually Is

Read more

Anti-motion drills. Bracing cues. Hip hinge patterns. None of it develops what the spine actually needs.

The things are missing in almost every Reverse Hyper program:

1. Joint function: each segment moving independently, not the spine as one rigid unit.

2. Reactive strength: the tissue’s ability to absorb force, not just produce it.

3. Strength endurance: the capacity to sustain output across a full game, round, or season.

Louie Simmons figured this out in his garage in the 70s. He built the tool that brought us to where we are today. What he never published was the full progression—the journey from a broken spine to the pendulum. We took what Louie built and went further.

Yesterday we ran a live webinar walking through the origin of the Reverse Hyper and demonstrating Exercise 1 of the complete progression. John Quint—who treated Louie personally as his neuromuscular therapist—brought the original Powerlifting USA article where Louie described exactly what he was doing on that wooden platform before the machine ever existed.

You can watch the full 30-minute webinar above.

The Reverse Hyper Program is now live. Point B for the lumbar spine. The complete programming guide is 29 pages.

Early bird pricing ends tonight at 11:59pm EST. After midnight it goes from $299 to $399.

Get the Program

Welcome to the monthly roundup for Absolute Sport Science! If you’ve been busy programming treatment and training, analyzing Point A → Point B data, or just busy with the pace of life in 2026, this is your one-stop to catch up on everything we covered in May. We’ve got summaries and links to all our Tuesday written posts and Sunday video deep-dives (exclusive to paid subscribers). This is your monthly highlights—straight to your inbox.

Whether you’re a free subscriber or a paid member, these recaps are designed to keep you informed and inspired—to keep you getting better at becoming a programming strategist!

🚨 Reverse Hyper Program Launch + Free Zoom—May 29

Two things happening on May 29th that you don’t want to miss.

First: Join us for a free 30-minute Zoom session—Reverse Hyper: How Louie Actually Used It—at noon EST. We’re covering exact setup, loading, and programming before the program goes public. Save your spot here.

Then: Immediately after the call, the Reverse Hyper Program goes live. Everything we’ve been building toward this month—the history, the asymmetry, the gap in programming—lands in a complete, actionable program. Stay tuned.

Tuesday Posts: Programming Insights

Tuesdays are all about actionable, evidence-based articles to level up your programming knowledge. Here’s what we explored this month:

• May 5, 2026: The Conjugate Edge #08: Concurrent Is Conjugate → The Soviet Edge

  • There are only two programming philosophies: linear and concurrent. When you program concurrently andstructure the four Soviet methods of strength training inside that framework, you’re no longer just training concurrently — you are training conjugately.

  • Louie Simmons took the neurological aggression of the Bulgarians and conjugated it with the systematic method rotation of the Soviets. The result wasn’t a compromise — it was a synthesis. At Absolute, we’ve taken that method-based foundation and translated it into the language of capacities, giving today’s programmers a clearer framework to consciously manage the Multiplication Principle across all four fundamentals of Point B.

  • Programming Shift: Linear programming is additive and predictable — and it has two destinations: neurological stagnation or biological accommodation. Conjugate programming is multiplicative. Absolute Strength × Speed Strength × Reactive Strength × Joint Function = High Performance. Neglect any one variable and the product collapses. Improve all four simultaneously and the gains compound in ways a linear roadmap can never produce.

• May 12, 2026: Conjugate in the Clinic: Leveraging Point B Neurology to Restore Cervical Function + Reactive Strength

  • A live clinical case featuring elite grappler Dante Leon—who has graciously allowed us to share select elements of his treatment for educational purposes. His extensive training history places him at a high-functioning Neurological Point B, and we’re leveraging that existing neurology to simultaneously improve joint function (segmental control + arthrokinematics) and reactive strength—the two elements of Biological Point B.

  • This is the conjugate clinical approach in action: treating and training concurrently, in real time, with the athlete’s own neurology as the accelerant.

• May 19, 2026: The Asymmetry That Broke Louie Simmons’ Back...Twice

  • Everyone knows Louie broke his back. Everyone knows he built the reverse hyper to rehab himself. What nobody talks about is why his back broke in the first place. This piece makes the case: the neurological-biological asymmetry. His nervous system wrote a check his spine couldn’t cash.

  • The asymmetry is what happens when the neural network of absolute strength scales faster than the connective tissue that has to transmit the force it generates. When the athlete and programmer don’t know it’s there, injury risk trends up—every time.

  • Key distinction: This is where the Absolute Conjugate Strategy diverges from Louie’s Westside system. We value reactive strength over absolute strength and constrain the strategy accordingly. Go Bulgarian on the biology—not the neurology.

Sunday Paid Subscriber Video Posts

Sundays are reserved for our premium video content—in-depth breakdowns, Q&A sessions, and practical demos that bring the art and science to life. If you’re not a paid subscriber yet, these are a great reason to upgrade!

The Gap in Reverse Hyper Programming & Training May 3, 2026 — Dr. Michael Chivers & John Quint

The Reverse Hyper is far more than a back machine. Most people start where Louie finished—heavy pendulum swings—skipping the foundational steps that rebuilt his spine after a career-threatening injury. The gap is reactive strength: the ability to absorb, stiffen, and transmit force through a healthy, segmented spine—and the damping effect that makes it possible. This episode traces the origins of the machine, how Louie actually programmed it, and where Absolute’s approach becomes radically different from anything else you’ve seen on the Reverse Hyper.

Baseball as a Special Strength May 10, 2026 — Dr. Michael Chivers & John Quint

The Inside-Out Special Strength Model flips traditional programming by using real-world competition data—exit velocity, sprint times, on-field performance—as a direct feedback loop into the athlete’s neurological Point B. Exit velocity isn’t just an outcome. It reveals whether the neural network of absolute strength is fully expressed or being shielded by underlying joint dysfunction and a reactive strength deficit. Most coaches chase surface-level skill fixes when the nervous system is already in protection mode. We reference Pittsburgh Pirates Co-Director S&C Coach Alan Burr and apply the model to a Fernando Tatis Jr. case study to show what neurological shielding actually looks like in the data.

Acute Low Back Herniation Case Study: Rapid Relief Using Specific Reverse Hyper Programming May 17, 2026 — Dr. Michael Chivers & John Quint

A former professional athlete. An acute L5-S1 herniation with clear MRI findings, compression, and motor deficits in the foot extensors. Two days of targeted Reverse Hyper work—open-chain, sacral-driven segmental motion and lat isometrics, no external load — and motor function returned with significant symptom reduction. This case study shows exactly how to program the Reverse Hyper in an acute back presentation, and why starting with the pendulum is almost always the wrong call.

Become a Programming Strategist: Master “The Art and Science of Programming”

If you’re enjoying the content and getting good transfer of training and want to take your programming skills to the next level, dive into The Art & Science of Programming.

This self-paced learning module is packed with actionable insights on the prerequisites for programming in 2026:

• Point A

• Point B

• The neural network of absolute strength

• Understanding reactive strength from the inside-out

• And much more!

You’ll learn how to programs to win—whether you’re a strength coach, therapist, athletic trainer, or chiropractor, you are programmer.

Built from years of real-world skin in the game knowledge, it’s made for busy professionals who want to become programming strategists.

👉 Enroll now and start the process of becoming a strategist.

Next Founders Meeting

We’ll focus on the programming variable of load with a focus on resistance:

• We will go over how the Soviets graded out resistance in the sport of Olympic Weightlifting

• Show how that graded resistance was utilized by Louie Simmons in his Westside Barbell Conjugate System

• Advance the grading out of resistance for today in 2026 and what that means in programming resistance optimally for not just the athlete but also the special strength that is desired for treatment or training

If you have any other topics worth discussing at a Founders Meeting, leave them in the comments below.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

The Big Takeaway

Treating reactive strength in the clinic is a game-changer. Most practitioners stop at joint function assessments and basic manual therapy, missing the reactive layer that drives neurological shielding. Absolute’s Inside-Out approach uses specific isometrics and oscillatory damping to engage the neural network, reduce shielding, and then address specific connective tissue issues (reactive strength deficits). This progression dramatically improves clinical outcomes by restoring the nervous system’s confidence in the tissue and allowing true biological Point B restoration.

What We Cover in This Episode

• Why Reactive Strength Must Be Assessed & Treated: Most clients/athletes are not at biological Point B and present with reactive strength deficits. Assessing only joint function is no longer enough—you must specifically test and treat the reactive component.

• Clinical Framework (Top-Down + Bottom-Up): A strategy for prompting the neural network of absolute strength to assess the bottom up connective tissue behaviors and using OIMAs to conjugate the two and stimulate reactive strength development clinically.

• Real-World Case Example: Powerlifter with suspected lat tear during deficit deadlifts. Neurological shielding prevented normal assessment. After specific reactive work, shielding dropped, allowing tissue specific palpation and treatment of the actual issue (epimysial space between teres major and lat). Tissue was intact—rapid resolution.

Continue reading for paid subscribers →

The real paradigm shifter—and what almost everyone in the clinic misses—is using the Internal Isometric Continuum and …

Read more

Louie Simmons broke his back—twice.

Most people in the strength world know the story. He told it a lot. But the story everyone tells is about the reverse hyper—the machine he innovated and built (literally) to rehab himself. The story nobody tells is why his back broke in the first place.

Bad luck? Maybe. Technical error in the good morning? He told me himself he lost focus at the bottom of the lift, so possibly—maybe neurological stagnation intra-set?1 But there’s a third explanation, one we’ve been building the language for since the inception of Absolute: the neurological-biological asymmetry.

Operationally the asymmetry is what happens when the nervous system generates more force than the biological matter can express. Neurology and biology are different. Layer the Law of Specificity on top of that difference and the logic is unavoidable—the program must train each one specifically. Concurrently. In conjugation.

When the neural network of absolute strength scales faster than the connective tissue that has to transmit the force it generates, the asymmetry is alive and breathing. If the athlete and the programmer don’t know it’s there, the risk of injury trends up. Every time.

Now think about Louie.

Share Absolute: The Art and Science of Human Performance

Point A: Louie’s Training History

When we do case studies, the intent is to learn. Get the Point A. See why the athlete wasn’t at Point B. That gives us bits of information about why the injury occurred, and—more importantly—how we learn how to program our way to Point B and stay there.

Programming is the Hidden Layer that links Point A to Point B. It’s how we leverage treatment and training work. Select, sequence and organize the work in a conjugate strategy.

Louie’s Point A is legendary. He ushered the Soviet training methods into the West—thanks, Louie. Two methods in particular: max effort and dynamic effort. Dr. Zatsiorsky, the former Soviet sports scientist and author of Science and Practice of Strength Training, says explicitly that these methods exist to stimulate the nervous system. Translated into our programming language: they scale the neural network of absolute strength. More nodes get added and interconnected which enables the athlete to generate larger magnitudes of force, expressed at higher speeds, actualized into + through the biology.

Louie’s nervous system ran those methods for decades. His neural network of absolute strength was elite—not opinion, fact. He was an elite powerlifter for decades. And when you’ve got that kind of skin in the game, you get scars in the game. There is a cost. A toll that gets paid when your standard is breaking all-time world records.

All Gas, No Brakes

Here’s the thing about an elite Point B neural network of absolute strength: it generally means you’re running all gas, no brakes. Literally.

It’s a fun ride. But you need to program some brakes while you’re concurrently hitting the gas. See how that itself requires a conjugate strategy?

The Soviet methods scale the nervous system—rapidly, and we emphasize the rapidly. That means the biological tissues lag behind. The biology is constantly playing catch-up. That’s exactly why in our conjugate programming strategy we teach you to go Bulgarian on the biology—not on the neurology. This is a key difference from Louie’s Westside Conjugate System to the Absolute Conjugate Strategy. We value reactive strength over absolute strength and constrain the strategy accordingly.

So what happened to Louie?

His nervous system wrote a check his spine couldn’t cash.

This has been happening to athletes at Neurological Point B since the dawn of the asymmetry. At the time of Louie’s injuries—and every injury like it before him—we just didn’t have a formal name for it.

Now we do.

The rest of this post is for paid subscribers.

Below the paywall:

• Why the reverse hyper isn’t a “back exercise” — and what it actually is

• The inside-out model that makes Louie’s injury almost inevitable in hindsight

• How to stop programming the reverse hyper like an accessory and start programming it like a special exercise

• What all of this means for how you program your next training block

The Reverse Hyper: A Biological Tool (Special Exercise) Born from a Neurological Problem

Read more

The Big Takeaway

Even with a visible L5-S1 herniation, significant compression, and motor deficits (foot extensors), rapid improvement is possible when you address segmental joint function, decompression, and neurological shielding early. In this acute case of a former professional athlete, simple open-chain Reverse Hyper work with sacral driven segmental motion + lat isometrics restored motor function and reduced symptoms in just two days—without using the external resistance + pendulum. This spotlights how potent the reverse hyper can be in acute back cases.

What We Cover in This Episode

• The MRI findings. Clear L5 herniation with localized compression and loss of normal lordotic curve at that segment. The client presented with pain, discomfort, and notable motor deficits in foot extensors.

• Client background. Former professional athlete with high training history and access to a Reverse Hyper. Injury occurred after prolonged squatting/static position while working on a vehicle (not a heavy lift).

• Initial programming strategy. Immediate FaceTime-guided session on the Reverse Hyper: ASIS positioned on the pad so the entire spine is supported and stable. Legs hanging freely for open-chain decompression via gravity at the L5-S1 segment.

Want to See How We Do This Live?

Join us Friday May 29 at noon EST for a free 30-minute Zoom session — Reverse Hyper: How Louie Actually Used It. We're covering exact setup, loading, and programming before the Reverse Hyper Program goes public.

Save your spot.

Continue reading for paid subscribers →

The real value is in the specific coaching cues and progressions used—and how quickly they produced results in a real acute case.

Read more

Dante Leon has graciously allowed us to share select elements of his treatment for educational purposes. We will only discuss what is observable in the video and previously disclosed information.

Point A Assessment
Dante’s extensive training history and elite competitive level place him at a high-functioning Neurological Point B. From this advanced baseline, we are leveraging his existing neurology to simultaneously improve joint function (segmental control + arthrokinematics) and reactive strength. The two element of Biological Point B.

What you’re seeing in the brief video is a live example of this conjugate clinical approach in action.

Cervical Segmental Intervention

Read more

The Big Takeaway

The Inside-Out Special Strength Model flips traditional programming by using real-world competition data as a direct feedback loop into the athlete’s neurological Point B. Exit velocity, sprint times, or on-field performance aren’t just outcomes—they reveal whether the neural network of absolute strength is fully expressed or being shielded by underlying joint dysfunction and a reactive strength deficit. Most coaches chase surface-level skill fixes when the nervous system is already protecting the athlete. Closing this gap with specific inside-out training (especially reactive strength) restores unrestricted output and high-performance emergence.

We reference Alan Burr (AB), Co-Director Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates—check out his Founder’s Meeting where he discusses Point A and Point B for the baseball athlete.

What We Cover in This Episode

• Inside-Out Special Strength Model: Training and treatment start from the internal neural network of absolute strength and work outward to competition demands. This enables precise, data-driven programming instead of guessing.

• Level of Adaptation vs. Level of Competition: Nested ecological structures. The Level of Competition (the diamond, field, court) serves as the ultimate feedback mechanism for what’s happening at the Level of Adaptation (inside the athlete). High-level organizations now use on-field KPIs to drive training decisions.

• Neurological Point B: The ideal state where neurology and biology are unconstrained. Measured indirectly through behaviors like exit velocity (baseball), Nord Board isometric outputs, or sport-specific velocities. Drops or plateaus in these metrics signal the nervous system is not fully expressing capacity.

• Feedback Loops in Programming: Positive (keep going), Negative (change something), Reiterative (maintain). Coaches like AB (exit velocity), the Steelers’ Tusz (Nord Board), and Indiana’s Derek Owens (player availability + velocity) compress these loops for highly specific programming.

• The Tatis Jr. Case Study: Historic elite exit velocities (110+ mph) have dropped (still elite at 104–105 mph) alongside reduced production and positional issues in the swing. Hypothesis: not pure neurological regression, but neurological shielding from compromised joint function, spinal positioning, and reactive strength.

Continue reading for paid subscribers →

The real paradigm shifter—and the bit of information that almost everyone misses is…

Read more

Concurrent Is Conjugate

There are two fundamental programming philosophies: linear and concurrent. Operationally defined, linear develops one quality at a time. Concurrent develops multiple qualities simultaneously.

When you program concurrently and structure the four Soviet methods of strength training (or some variant of them) inside that framework, you’re no longer just training concurrently. You are training conjugately.

Most programmers of training and treatment for the performance never learned this distinction—because their education of strength training methods was Western, not Soviet. Their programming is linear, not concurrent and definitely not conjugate.

Embracing Uncertainty—and What It Unlocks

When you step onto the conjugate roadmap: you are no longer managing an additive strategy. You are managing a multiplicative one.

Linear programming is predictable. Train one quality in each block. Progressively overload. 1+1=2. The logic is that you can add one block to the other block and they magically add up. In real life it does not work that way. A linear programming roadmap has two destinations. One road leads to neurological stagnation, the other to biological accommodation. The athlete, even untrained athlete will get to one or both of those destinations with linear programming—just depends on the time it takes to get them there.

Conjugate programming is different. In our strategy you are now simultaneously managing Absolute Strength, Speed Strength, Reactive Strength, and Joint Function—the four fundamental capacities of Point B. And these capacities do not add. They multiply.

Absolute Strength × Speed Strength × Reactive Strength × Joint Function = High Performance

Our conjugate strategy brings alive the Multiplication Principle. And it changes everything about how you program. (For a deeper dive into this concept, see The Conjugate Edge #07: The Multiplication Principle.)

When capacities multiply rather than add, neglecting any single one does not just reduce that quality—it collapses the entire capacity. If any variable approaches zero, the outcome approaches zero. The math is unforgiving. But the inverse is equally powerful: modest improvements across all four capacities simultaneously produce disproportionately large gains in performance. Small, consistent, system-wide inputs compound—and over time, the product becomes unmistakable.

This is why conjugate programming requires embracing uncertainty. You cannot predict the exact output of a multiplicative strategy. You can only steward it—protecting the integrity of all variables, sequencing treatment and training inputs intelligently, and trusting that the compounding effects will emerge.

That uncertainty is not a weakness. It is the condition that makes the multiplication principle possible.

What Louie Saw

Louie Simmons saw this before most of the field had language for it.

The Bulgarians were David. Neurologically dominant. Their system was built on one core idea: lift maximally, lift often, and let the nervous system adapt specifically. Near-daily competition lifts. Stimulating intensity. Low variation. Brutally efficient. For the athletes who survived it, extraordinarily effective at the Level of Competition. But it remained a single-variable programming strategy—neurologically aggressive and biologically negligent.

The Soviets were Goliath. A vast scientific architecture built over decades in state-funded labs. Max effort, dynamic effort, repeated effort—multiple methods rotating deliberately across the training week. They weren’t just training athletes. They were building them systematically, layer by layer—the process of attaining sporting mastery.

Louie took the neurological aggression of the Bulgarians and conjugated it with the systematic method rotation of the Soviets. Multiple methods—programmed simultaneously at stimulating intensities, week after week, in true conjugation. The result was not a compromise. It was a synthesis of the best of the Bulgarians and Soviets.

For the full story on this Bulgarian vs Soviet contrast and its influence on modern conjugate thinking, read The Conjugate Edge #02: David Beats Goliath.

At Absolute Sport Science, we have taken that method-based programming foundation and translated it into the language of capacities. This gives today’s programmers a clearer framework to consciously manage what Louie never fully mapped: the Multiplication Principle operating across all four fundamental capacities of Point B.

What happened next changed how we understand the human nervous system entirely.

🔒 This post is for paid subscribers

The neurological big bang, what it revealed, and how Absolute evolved the code—that’s what’s on the other side. Upgrade to continue.

👉 Subscribe to Absolute: The Art & Science of Human Performance to keep reading.

Upgrade Your Subscription

The Neurological Big Bang

Read more

The Big Takeaway

The Reverse Hyper is far more than a “back machine.” Its real power comes from understanding its origins and using the pendulum for reactive strength training — something traditional programming completely misses. Most people start where Louie Simmons finished (heavy pendulum swings), skipping the foundational steps that rebuilt his spine after a career-threatening injury. The gap is reactive strength: the ability to absorb, stiffen, and transmit force through a healthy, segmented spine. Closing that gap turns the Reverse Hyper into one of the most potent spine-training tools available.

What We Cover in This Episode

• The origins of the Reverse Hyper. Louie Simmons created it in the 1970s after a severe back injury during a good morning. Doctors recommended fusion; instead, he built a simple elevated platform in his garage for open-chain leg hanging and sacral drive movements. This allowed safe segmental flexion/extension without closed-chain irritation.

• Evolution from platform to pendulum. Started with basic tailbone-driven sacral motion on a flat stable surface. Progressed to leg swinging and hip extension. External loading began with a carpenter’s belt and plates (cumbersome), leading to the invention of the pendulum for practical resistance.

• Louie’s original programming. Focused first on normalizing joint function, then high-rep strength endurance (25–35+ reps). Later linked loads to box squat percentages for powerlifters. Excellent for absolute strength, speed strength, and endurance in that context.

Continue reading for paid subscribers →

The real paradigm shifter—and the bit of information that almost everyone misses—is how to use the pendulum for reactive strength. That’s where Absolute’s programming becomes radically different from anything you’ve seen on the Reverse Hyper.

Read more

Subscribe now

Case Context: Bottom Up Reactive Strength Injury

This athlete is post reactive strength injury to the hamstrings. The programming intent of this input is: synergize the neural network of absolute strength with the newly cultivated connective tissue network.

Understand the context: the bottom-up element of reactive strength—connective tissue—ruptured. Since then, we’ve used our Bulgarian strategy to stimulate the development of new tissue architecture and actively control the post-injury tissue remodeling process to mitigate suboptimal tissue formation.

This new architecture isn’t yet integrated with the neural network. This input is designed to entangle—you know conjugate the neural network of absolute strength with the connective tissue network we’ve been cultivating.

Share Absolute: The Art and Science of Human Performance

Input Explanation

In the video, we take the hamstring tissue into its shortened/regressive length and palpate the region of the rupture. If you look closely, you’ll see the deficit in the tissue—this is the exact location we’re pressing into.

From here, we initiate an IsoRamp1—a non-directional force generated from the hamstrings. Once the ramp is live, we add band tension to introduce a north-south directional force vector. The band tension creates a resonance2 that amplifies neural output into the tissue.

Conjugate in the Clinic means a conjugation of force vectors compressed into a single input.

Read more

The Big Takeaway

Load management isn’t just about playing guys less. It’s about asking why they can’t play more—and whether your programming is solving that problem or just working around it. Two undefeated teams, two opposite strategies. One prioritized rest. The other prioritized availability.

Indiana—the team with no five-star recruits, the team Vegas didn’t favor, the team that ran a full game’s worth of more plays—went 16-0 and won the national championship. They didn’t need to rest because they had athletes at Point B who could sustain the full season.

Load management is a programming problem.

And this past college football season just gave us the clearest case study we could ask for.

Ohio State and Indiana both finished the regular season undefeated. Both have highly competent staffs. Both intended to win the college football playoff. But they got there with opposite strategies — and now we know how it played out. Indiana beat Ohio State 13–10 in the Big Ten Championship, then ran through Alabama 38–3, Oregon 56–22, and Miami 27–21 to finish 16–0 and win the national title. The availability strategy won.

What We Cover in This Episode

• Ohio State’s load management strategy. OSU is intentionally slowing the pace of play to preserve players. Ohio State averaged 62.4 plays per game this season. By the end of the regular season, the Buckeyes will have run 86.4 fewer plays than Indiana—essentially one full game fewer. They also ran 128 fewer plays than Georgia and 74 fewer than Texas A&M. The strategy is clear: pace the season, build in a bye week’s worth of rest through play-calling alone. Fresh legs for the playoff run.

• Indiana’s availability strategy. Indiana is number one on the availability tracker—meaning they have more of their top players available more frequently than any other team in the country. And they’re doing it while running significantly more plays. Their metric isn’t fewer snaps. It’s: if you’re available, you’re playing.

• Two strategies, same goal—one outcome. Both teams were trying to win. But one managed load by reducing exposure. The other managed load by keeping players healthy enough to sustain full exposure. Indiana’s approach—availability first—carried them to a perfect 16-0 season and the program’s first national championship in history. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a fundamentally different programming philosophy proving itself on the biggest stage.

• The real question: Why aren’t they available? If Ohio State needs to pull starters to keep them fresh, the question isn’t whether that’s a good strategy. The question is: why can’t those athletes sustain 12 games at full volume? The answer lies within the athlete—which means it lies within the program and environment. That’s a training and programming problem, not a play-calling problem.

• The Usain Bolt principle. Louie Simmons used to say that when you watched Usain Bolt run, what you were actually seeing was Bolt maintaining his acceleration while everyone else slowed down relative to him. Now stretch that over a football season. Performance enhancement isn’t always about getting faster or stronger—sometimes it’s about getting to a level and being able to maintain it while everyone else declines.

• This shows up on film. There’s a point in every season where you start to see guys who maybe couldn’t have started early on now playing really good football. Not because they got better—but because they stayed the same while everyone else decreased. Bubble guys. Late-round picks. Now they’ve won a job. The best ability is availability.

• The youth sports parallel. The same principle applies at every level. When you have a young athlete who has two days a week for training outside of practice and games, the goal isn’t to chase numbers in the gym. It’s to maintain what they have so they’re constantly available for the next game or practice. You can only generate the emergent behaviors of the sport by playing it. That means you need iterations at the level of competition—which means you need to be available to get those iterations.

• Load is a maxim in the Absolute strategy. In the FRS Internal Strength Model and the Art & Science of Programming learning module, load is one of the maxims that constrains intensity. Load determines how you sequence treatment and training. And understanding load from the field—dynamic, chaotic loading—informs how you load clinically, which is predominantly static. That’s why this matters beyond just football. It’s a programming principle.

Key Concepts

Read more

Welcome to the monthly roundup for Absolute Sport Science! If you’ve been busy programming treatment and training, analyzing Point A → Point B data, or just busy with the pace of life in 2026, this is your one-stop to catch up on everything we covered in April. We’ve got summaries and links to all our Tuesday written posts and Sunday video deep-dives (exclusive to paid subscribers). This is your monthly highlights—straight to your inbox.

Whether you’re a free subscriber or a paid member, these recaps are designed to keep you informed and inspired—to keep you getting better at becoming a programming strategist!

Speed Strength Programming is Live

Developed with Colton Razo, Strength Coach at Ohio State University Track and Field the much anticipated speed strength program is live! It’s a 12-week, three-phase training program built on the Absolute Conjugate Strategy—designed to develop Speed Strength as a neurological capacity, not just a training quality.

Tuesdays with Tusz

We’re launching a new live series starting today!

Every other Tuesday at 2PM EST on Instagram Live — we’re sitting down with Phil Matusz for 30 minutes of unfiltered conversation on elite strength development.

Phil has built strength programs at Ohio State, Boston College, and most recently served as Head Strength Coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. He’s been inside the rooms where championship athletes are built—and he’s bringing that experience here.

First session is TODAY at 2PM EST. Follow us on Instagram and tune in live.

The Art and Science of Programming: Zoom Meeting

If you’ve purchased the Art and Science of Programming learning module before March 31st and successfully completed the final exam, we’re hosting a live Zoom call this Friday, April 24th from 12:00–1:00 PM.

Submit your questions in advance. Or come with them.

Zoom looks will be sent out to those who qualify (purchase date + exam completion). See you there!

Tuesday Posts: Programming Insights

Tuesdays are all about actionable, evidence-based articles to level up your programming knowledge. Here’s what we explored this month:

• April 5, 2026: Programming Hypertrophy Biceps Training with Justin Compton

  • Conversion with IFBB Pro Justin Compton on how he programmed his biceps training to stimulate the development of 24.5 inch arms.

  • The link below gives you Justin’s programming code—that he was generous enough to share with us and all the nuances.

• April 7, 2026: The Conjugate Edge #07: The Multiplication Principle

  • Point B is built on four interdependent capacities—Absolute Strength, Speed Strength, Joint Function, and Reactive Strength—that are programmed (trained + treated) simultaneously each week.

  • The Conjugate approach links all elements so they behave as one system, generating Matthew-like compounded advantages where small, consistent gains across every capacity drive exponential performance growth.

  • High Performance = Absolute Strength × Speed Strength × Reactive Strength × Joint Function. Because capacities interact non-linearly and multiplicatively, neglecting any one drags the entire system down, while balanced gains across all produce disproportionately large results.

  • Programming Shift: Move from linear maximization of single qualities to system stewardship—protect the product of all capacities through intelligent sequencing, maintain minimum thresholds, and rotate emphasis while keeping constant contact with every element of Point B.

• April 14, 2026: How Ohio State Track’s Strength Coach Programs Speed Strength

  • Colton and Paul went on Instagram live on the program launch day to break down the new Speed Strength program. If you missed the livestream, the full replay is available here and on Absolute’s Instagram.

    In the discussion, they cover:

    • What makes this Speed Strength program different from typical approaches

    • The biggest mistakes coaches make when training speed strength

    • Who the program is designed for and how it fits into Absolute’s Conjugate Strategy of Absolute Strength + Speed Strength + Reactive Strength + Joint Function

Share Absolute: The Art and Science of Human Performance

Sunday Paid Subscriber Video Posts

Sundays are reserved for our premium video content—in-depth breakdowns, Q&A sessions, and practical demos that bring the science to life. If you’re not a paid subscriber yet, these are a great reason to upgrade!

Become a Programming Strategist: Master “The Art and Science of Programming”

If you’re enjoying the content and getting good transfer of training and want to take your programming skills to the next level, dive into The Art & Science of Programming.

This self-paced learning module is packed with actionable insights on the prerequisites for programming in 2026:

• Point A

• Point B

• The neural network of absolute strength

• Understanding reactive strength from the inside-out

• And much more!

You’ll learn how to programs to win—whether you’re a strength coach, therapist, athletic trainer, or chiropractor, you are programmer.

Built from years of real-world skin in the game knowledge, it’s made for busy professionals who want to become programming strategists.

👉 Enroll now and start the process of becoming a strategist.

Next Founders Meeting

We’ll focus on the programming variable of load with a focus on resistance:

• We will go over how the Soviets graded out resistance in the sport of Olympic Weightlifting

• Show how that graded resistance was utilized by Louie Simmons in his Westside Barbell Conjugate System

• Advance the grading out of resistance for today in 2026 and what that means in programming resistance optimally for not just the athlete but also the special strength that is desired for treatment or training

If you have any other topics worth discussing at a Founders Meeting, leave them in the comments below.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Resistance Is Not Load: A Programming Distinction That Changes Everything

In programming, resistance and load get used interchangeably. They shouldn’t. They mean different things, and once you understand the distinction, your ability to program with specificity goes to another level.

This episode is a brainstorming discussion between us on how to more accurately define these terms within the Absolute strategy—with historical roots and real-world application.

What We Cover in This Episode

• The Soviet grading system for resistance. The Soviets were the first to grade resistance based on how many repetitions a given weight permits. One rep = maximal. Two to three = submaximal. Four to seven = heavy. All the way up to 25+ = very light. This grading system was foundational to their programming of Olympic weightlifting—and it’s still foundational to how we program today.

• Why the Soviets needed this system. They weren’t just training—they were practicing the lifts. They needed to constrain resistance so they could get the neural output they wanted: optimal bar path, bar speed, and technical mastery. That’s Perlipin’s chart. That’s the logic that eventually got them beat by the Bulgarians, who cared less about technical mastery and more about scaling up the nervous system.

• Louie Simmons blended both approaches. Louie combined Soviet and Bulgarian logic. When programming speed strength, he’d use submaximal resistance (two to three reps) with the intent of highest attainable velocity. The resistance was submaximal, but the intent was maximal. That distinction matters.

• Resistance is external. Load is the total output. Resistance is what you put on the bar — straight weight, band tension, chains, or any combination. It constrains the lift. Load is what the neural network actually outputs: resistance multiplied by the total volume of work. Three sets of six at 50 pounds = 900 pounds of load. That’s the cumulative demand on the tissue and the nervous system.

• Accommodating resistance changes the game. Once you introduce bands or chains, the resistance is no longer just plate weight. You might have 50% straight weight and 20% band tension for a total of 70% resistance — but the composition of that resistance changes the output. This is where programming gets creative, and where avoiding neurological stagnation becomes possible.

• Resistance as strain rate. Here’s the key reframe: resistance determines the strain rate the lift imposes on the athlete.

  • High resistance = high strain = skewed toward the neural network.

  • Lower resistance = more repetitions = skewed toward the biological network.

    • This gives programmers a direct lever for biasing training effects.

• The NFL lineman example. An offensive lineman blocking a 400-pound defensive tackle 60–70 times per game—the resistance is the opponent’s mass and force output. The load is 60–70 reps times that resistance over four hours. In offseason programming, you need to build the neural network’s capacity to output that load while managing the biological strain so the tissue doesn’t break down. That’s where the neurological-to-biological asymmetry shows up—the nervous system can keep outputting, but the biology can’t keep up.

• Programming on the conjugate edge. The goal is to ride the line between neurological and biological demand. Higher resistance biases top-down neural output. Lower resistance with specific intent (like punch-and-dampen drills at 19–25 reps) biases bottom-up tissue adaptation. The programmer’s job is to fluctuate along that edge—what we call the conjugate edge—so the neural network and biology are synergizing, not stagnating.

• Practice vs. training through resistance. When a lineman does punch drills into a bag for 19–25 reps with damping intent, the resistance is very light by Soviet standards. But the intent — pressing isometric into the bag, tuning connective tissue — creates a unique load that’s biologically skewed. That’s technically practice, not training, and it falls on a recovery or deload day. But it’s building the bottom-up tissue architecture that makes the top-down output more efficient over time.

Key Concepts

Read more

The result? Inconsistent transfer of training, neurological stagnation, and athletes who are strong in the weight room but are weak and fail to actualize their speed strength potential when it counts. That changes now.

Developed in collaboration with Colton Razo, Strength & Conditioning Coach for Ohio State University Track & Field, the 12-Week Speed Strength Program is live.

This is a specific, three-phase strategy built around the four fundamental elements of Point B—designed to stimulate the development of Speed Strength as a true special strength, not just a training quality. We program the training from the inside-out: improving the nervous system’s ability to organize its biology to express force at the highest attainable velocities.

Who This Program Is For

• Coaches who need their athletes to be noticeably faster and more explosive

• Strength coaches ready to move beyond guesswork and program Speed Strength with at the highest levels of specificity

• Anyone who wants to properly integrate—that is conjugate, Absolute Strength, Speed Strength, Reactive Strength and Joint Function instead of programming them as separate blocks.

Share Absolute: The Art and Science of Human Performance

What You’ll Get Inside the Program

• 3 progressive phases of programming delivered in clean, ready-to-use Excel files

• Supplementary PDF guide that breaks down the art, the science, and the full programming strategy

• Whiteboard sessions with Colton Razo—detailed breakdowns of exercise selection, technique, and why each piece fits the Absolute Conjugate approach

• In-depth program overview video with John and Colton walking through the entire system

After 12 weeks, you’ll have a repeatable framework that develops real Speed Strength—better Rate of Force Development, improved explosive power transfer, and athletes who actually express their absolute strength dynamically at the Level of Competition.

Why This Collaboration Matters

Colton works daily with elite sprinters, jumpers, and throwers at one of the top collegiate track programs in the country. This skin in the game shaped a program that respects the demands of high-level competition while staying practical for coaches at every level.

We didn’t just slap together some workouts. We built a strategy that treats speed as the special strength it is.

The Speed Strength Program is available now at launch pricing: $299.99 (regularly $399.99—pricing ends in 5 days).

Instant digital access—download the Excel files, PDF, and videos immediately and start programming this week.

→ Get the 12-Week Speed Strength Program Here

Leave a comment

Why Nobody Talks About the Pendulum on the Reverse Hyper

The reverse hyper has a pendulum on it. That sounds obvious — but the implications of that pendulum, from a physics and programming perspective, have gone almost entirely undiscussed.

The pendulum is not a free weight. It’s not a cam. It’s not a cable. It behaves differently than all of them. And once you understand how it behaves, you unlock a level of programming specificity on the reverse hyper that most people don’t know exists.

What We Cover in This Episode

• The pendulum is the stimulus. Not the load. Not the range of motion. The pendulum—and the physics that govern it—is the primary training variable on the reverse hyper.

• Damping as a trainable quality. How do you take force out of a swinging pendulum? That’s damping. And the rate at which you dampen the pendulum determines the training effect.

  • Fast damping (taking force out rapidly) = larger energy transfer = more top-down (neural) demand.

  • Slow damping (taking force out over time) = sustained energy transfer = more bottom-up (tissue/biological) demand.

• Reactive strength on the reverse hyper. Nobody has programmed for reactive strength on the reverse hyper before. Historically, the reverse hyper has been paired with squat volume and classical powerlifting. But if you understand the Inside-Out mental model of reactive strength—with its top-down and bottom-up components—the reverse hyper becomes a tool for cultivating reactive strength across the entire lumbopelvic hip complex.

• Why the historical definition of reactive strength is incomplete. From the Soviets to Louie Simmons, reactive strength has been treated as an observable quality—something you see during a stretch-shortening cycle. That observation led everyone to plyometrics as the default training means. But you can’t do plyometrics for your low back. Our model defines reactive strength as something programmable through PIMAs, HIMAs, and OIMAs—anywhere you have tissue that needs stiffness and a neural network that can output to it.

• The reverse hyper is not just a low back exercise. When you program the pendulum with this framework, you’re training the entire backside—every tissue associated with the lumbopelvic hip complex. That’s the epicenter of all athletic performance.

• Clinical applications. This same framework enables clinicians to cultivate reactive strength in a clinical setting—using isometric variations to integrate the neural network with tissues that have abnormal connective tissue architecture.

Key Concepts

Read more

This is an inside look at what we built.

In this clip, Colton Razo—Strength Coach, Ohio State University Track & Field—walks through Day 1 of the Speed Strength program.

Not the exercises alone. The programming logic behind them.

Why each exercise was selected. Which Point B elements it’s targeting. How the four days of training fit together as a complete conjugate strategy—and why that structure matters more than any individual session.

This is the level of detail inside the full program.

What You’re Seeing

Most programs give you a list of exercises and loading parameters. That’s training.

What Colton is walking through is programming—the regulation of training contents in accordance with specific physical objectives.

The difference is everything.

Exercise selection without programming logic is guesswork. You might hit the right stimulus by accident. You might not. Either way you don’t know why it worked or how to replicate it.

Speed Strength is a behaviour of the neural network. Not a percentage. Not a protocol. A behaviour. And like any neural network behaviour—it requires the right inputs, applied with the right intent, at the right frequency.

That's what this program is built around.

Day 1 is where it starts. And that's what Colton is breaking down.

The Speed Strength Program Drops this Sunday

Complete programming logic. Exercise selection mapped to Point B elements. Built for coaches and clinicians working with athletes who need to develop Speed Strength without outpacing their biological capacity.

Early bird pricing: $299 at launch. Goes to $399 the following Sunday at midnight.

Want to follow Colton or inquire about coaching?

• Instagram: @razo_strength

Share Absolute: The Art and Science of Human Performance

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Point B exists as Four fundamental Capacities: Absolute Strength, Speed Strength, Joint Function and Reactive Strength.

All need to be managed by the programmer and trained by the athlete at various levels simultaneously each week. This is the nature of our Conjugate Strategy—all elements within the system are linked and due to the linkage they will behave as if they are all joined together. This is what creates Matthew like effects—compounded advantages leading to (stimulating) exponential growth as a result of small increasing changes in all fundamental capacities.

No one physical capacity exists in isolation. As a matter of fact if they are thought to exist each on their own it costs the system as managing just one or two fundamental capacities comes at the expense of the others. Even with optimal intentions, if all resources are dedicated to the expansion of one, the rest will decrease as the inter-dependent interacting effects will be negative.

from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away

Outcome Effects Are Multiplied

When considering Point B, understand that all capacities influence each other in non-linear ways. This non-linearity is not predictable per se by the programmer but can be understood in a multiplicative fashion.

Point B is a product of both neurological and biological capacities.

Neurological Point B x Biological Point B = Matthew Like Effects

More specifically:

Absolute Strength x Speed Strength x Reactive Strength x Joint Function = High Performance

Share Absolute: The Art and Science of Human Performance

Multiplication Principle & Programming for Point B

Programming for high performance must account for the Multiplication Principle. With the goal being high performance for the athlete, the outcome of any program is dependent upon the interacting combinatorial effects of the training inputs that occur within each training session, within each week of the program over the course of time of the program that leads to the acquisition of multiple of the fundamental physical capacities of Point B. Inherently, this is part of the reason why, the sequencing of each daily input to the system must be considered in real time by the programmer and the athlete so as to attempt to maximize the product of the training.

The central idea of the multiplication principle as it relates to systems is that:

If any one event can happen in M ways, and another event can happen in N ways, then both together can happen in M x N ways.

If this were considered as numbers and M was represented by the numbers 1-10 and N was also represented by the numbers 1-10, it would be easy to see that at the top end (ie 10 X 10) the outcome would equate to a larger product than the lower numbers, even if one of either M or N had a high number. If M was represented by a 10 and N was a 0, the product would be nil—this is the potency of the multiplication principle.

Using a simple practical example of the multiplication principle consider choosing a meal from a small menu at a restaurant. Considering that there may be five appetizers, 10 meal options and five desserts, using the principle it would lead to a potential of 5x10x5 = 250 possible meal options.

In the view of programming, the application of the principle aligns well within the conjugate strategy. Using the acquisition of Reactive Strength as an example, we know that there is a top down and bottom up component of this behaviour that cannot be fully trained using inputs of one sole means. Embedded within the top down component would be the capacities of Absolute Strength as well as Speed Strength which should be accounted for at certain levels within the program. From the bottom up, Joint Function and Connective Tissue Stiffness must be layered into the program at various levels creating a multiplication grid that includes four capacities that have multiple levels and even more inputs within each level. It is evident to see how the multiplication principle is at work creating the ultimate product of any treatment or training session.

In attempting to maximize the product in each training session, an example for an athlete that requires more neurological output may look like this:

The Programming Shift → Linear to Conjugate

Programming with this in mind leads to a fundamental shift away from linear thinking and toward system stewardship. The programmer’s role is no longer to maximize a single variable, but to protect and enhance the product of all variables simultaneously. Because the output is multiplicative rather than additive, even modest improvements across all capacities yield a disproportionately large increase in performance, while neglect of any single capacity disproportionately suppresses the final outcome.

In practical terms, this means that programming decisions must be evaluated not by how much they improve one quality in isolation, but by how they influence the entire system product. A small gain in Absolute Strength that degrades Joint Function, or an increase in Speed Strength that erodes Reactive Strength, may result in a net loss at Point B—even though one metric appears to improve. The program may look successful on paper while the athlete’s performance ceiling is quietly lowered.

The Multiplication Principle therefore enforces a hierarchy of priorities:

Read more

We sat down with IFBB Pro Justin Compton and recorded the full conversation breaking down exactly how he built his arms from 20 inches to 24.5 inches.

This week subscribers got in their inbox the exact 5-exercise program Justin walked us through. If you missed it, you can find the complete sequence and details here:

In this conversation, Justin goes deep into the programming logic behind the his training—why each exercise was selected and sequenced, how deliberate training intent needs to be, and the training intensity that needs to be elicited to stimulate muscle tissue hypertrophy.

He also shares one non-negotiable principle: consistent nutrition is just as important as the training itself. Training + nutrition together is what unlocks your full genetic potential.

Justin flew into Columbus, Ohio back in 2016, the same year he won the Arnold Classic Asia, and even Louie Simmons wanted to sit down and talk programming and training with him.

Want to follow Justin or inquire about coaching?

• Instagram: @justinrcompton

• Official site: justincompton.biz

Become the Programming Strategist

Learn how to program to propagate your clients toward Point B—neurologically and biologically unconstrained, with the capacity to do what they want to do.

Explore our Absolute Conjugate Strategy inside the Learning Module: The Art & Science of Programming.

Share Absolute: The Art and Science of Human Performance

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

No, the image you’re looking at isn’t AI-edited—that was the real size of Justin Compton’s physique and arms in 2016. He flew into Columbus, Ohio for treatment. At the time I was treating Louie Simmons every Friday and when I let Lou know that Justin was coming into town Louie wanted to meet to talk training and programming.

We just sat down with the 2016 IFBB Arnold Classic Asia champion bodybuilder and got the full breakdown of how he actually programs his biceps training from start to finish with all the nuances. That conversation was recorded and will be out soon.

Before it gets to subscriber inboxes, we wanted to give you the exact program Justin walked us through—the sequence of special exercises he used to stimulate every last inch of growth out of his arms.

20-Inch Arms →24.5 Inches Arms

• Justin hit 20-inch arms by age 21 with basic training. Starting around 23-24 he switched to these specific programming principles and took his arms to 24.5 inches.

• He emphasized one non-negotiable: nutrition consistency is just as critical. Training + nutrition concurrently is what actualizes your full genetic potential show up.

• Before you start the program, measure your arm girth today. Justin recommends re-measuring after one full year of running this program.

The 5 Special Exercises

Justin trains biceps using five specific exercises that each target a different aspect of the biceps anatomy. The exercises are listed in order of sequence that will be performed. Do them in this order, every session.

1. Preacher Curl—Full Range of Motion

• This is your opener. It’s the easiest on your joints and gives you the most control. Keep your back still, don’t let your elbows drift forward, and squeeze hard at the top.

2. Overhead Cable Curl—Shortened Position

• Arms elevated above shoulder height. This is Justin’s most highly recommended movement for arm growth—the bicep is fully contracted in the shortened position. If you don’t have a dedicated machine, pull a preacher bench up to a high cable pulley.

3. Incline Dumbbell Curl—Lengthened Position

• Set the bench to 60 degrees (not 45). Let your arms hang back behind your body, keep your elbows pointing down and back, and use light resistance—25 to 45lbs max. The goal is a deep stretch through the entire anatomy of the biceps. Do not let your elbows come forward.

4. Hammer Curls—Brachialis + Forearm

• Neutral grip, palms facing each other. Essential for building thickness across the whole arm and developing the brachialis muscle underneath the bicep. Skip this and your arms will look flat.

5. Reverse Grip Curls—Brachialis + Forearm

• Use the EZ bar to not irritate your wrists. Keep your wrists locked straight throughout. This hits the top of the forearm and recruits the elbow flexors.

Sets & Reps

• 3 working sets per exercise (15 total sets)

• 8–15 reps per set

• If you hit 15+ reps easily, increase the resistance

• If you can’t complete 8 reps, decrease the resistance

• On the incline dumbbell curl, don’t go below 8 reps

Warm-Up (First Exercise Only)

Do 3–4 warm-up sets on the first exercise to prime your nervous system— but do not pre fatigue the biceps!

• Warm-up 1: under 50% of working resistance 12–15 reps

• Warm-up 2: ~65% (e.g. 70 lbs) 10–12

• Warm-up 3: ~80% (e.g. 90 lbs) 8-10

How to Actually Train Hard

Most people stop 3–5 reps before true failure. Don’t. Take every working set to momentary failure—the point where you physically cannot complete another full rep. After your last rep, try one more partial and hold a static isometric contraction in the biceps anatomy then lower back down..

5 all-out sets beats 30 half-effort sets every time.

Rest 2–3 minutes between sets so you can actually give each set full effort.

Form in Plain English

• Slow on the way down (3–4 seconds eccentrics), explosive on the way up

• Keep your elbows in one place the whole time — they should not move forward

• No swinging your lower back

• Drop the ego and use a resistance you can actually lift with your biceps anatomy

How Much Volume Do You Need?

This depends on you. Justin’s personal range is 15–21 total working sets per session. Here’s how to figure out where you fall:

• Natural lifter → stay closer to 15 sets, never go above 21

• Physical job (construction, nursing, etc.) → you’ll need more recovery, so fewer sets

• Older lifter (38+) → volume tolerance drops with age, adjust accordingly

• Recovering slowly or always sore → reduce volume, not effort

How to Find Justin Compton

Want to follow Justin’s journey, see more of his training breakdowns, or inquire about coaching?

• Instagram: @justinrcompton

  • IFBB Pro, 2016 Olympian, 3x Champion—he posts training tips, client updates, and DMs for direct coaching inquiries.

• Official Coaching Website: justincompton.biz

Share Absolute: The Art and Science of Human Performance

Leave a comment