Over the past weekend I had the pleasure of attending a seminar hosted by Christian Thibaudeau on the topic of hypertrophy. I have been following Christian’s work for many years now, probably since about 2009/2010 and have his books, so I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to learn from him in person, especially with it being his first time to Australia.
The reason why I like Christian Thibaudeau’s methods and approach towards training is because he likes to train for performance. Even if he is training for hypertrophy he still uses explosive movements, big compound movements, and combines some more typical type bodybuilding work into his programs. This is the same approach that I take with my athletes. There is no point getting them bigger if they don’t increase size or power whilst doing so. The goal of the added size is to increase performance on the field. Christian comes from an Olympic lifting background so this is why he likes this type of approach.
Over the two days spent learning from him I picked up many great tips. Some I knew already but hadn’t really been implementing as much as I probably should have, others were knew to me, and the rest was a deeper understanding of exactly why and how a certain method works. This really helped me understand who, and in what cases I could use certain methods for and gave me many new ideas that I will use in my programs.
Christian Thibaudeau is a very smart many who can explain the science behind how the body responds to training in great detail but the best part is he can explain complex things in relatively simple terms. He also has a pretty basic approach to programming and doesn’t get too complex with it. He focuses on the detail of each and every rep and makes sure it is all quality work you are performing.
I appreciate every Christian taught us over the weekend. Like all of the great coaches I have learnt from over the years, Christian is a great bloke, who to me, seems to have remained humble even after all of his success as a coach and is willing to give his time before, during, and after his seminar to help everyone out.