How To Get Strong Using The Creatine-Phosphate System

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:02]Hey guys, I'm going to get a quick video about how to get really strong really quickly. And basically it's going to entail Pavel Tsatsouline's method using the creatine phosphate system within the human body. So when you work out you have basically three systems that your body uses for energy. You have fat oxidation, so think about a long walk on the treadmill. Uh stuff that's uh very low intensity, long duration. Body likes to use fat cuz fat is a slow moving fuel. Uh it doesn't uh break down and enter the cell very quickly, not like glucose does.

[00:00:39]Glucose is that fuel, so when you're doing reps uh let's say you're doing eight to 12 reps trying to build muscle, whatever it is, or you're jogging you're using glucose for fuel, right?

[00:00:50]Lactic acid is coming from your glucose burning.

[00:00:56]But there is a third source of fuel that most people don't know about. It's called your creatine phosphate system.

[00:01:05]So when you are doing something like high intensity cardio, hit training, or you're left lifting a super heavy load talking two to three, four, maybe five reps, your body has to use your creatine phosphate system. What is that? That's basically the system that rapidly recycles ADP into ATP, right? So your cells are using adenosine triphosphate for energy.

[00:01:33]What happens is you're creating a huge demand, a huge demand for that when you uh go through rapid exertion.

[00:01:43]Your body cannot convert that glucose through the Krebs cycle into NADH right? Into ATP, right? That's a whole process it has to go through your Krebs cycle.

[00:01:54]And and it has to go through your e- electron transport chain, and then now you have ATP. So, it has to go through two processes. And so, your body has a system to bypass that called creatine phosphate. And what does that do? It takes that spent ATP, which is adenosine diphosphate, ADP. It takes that and just adds a phosphate group to it. Boom, now you have ATP.

[00:02:18]Now you have energy, right?

[00:02:20]So, Pavel Tsatsouline was on Joe Rogan.

[00:02:23]Uh I'll probably leave a link for that in the description below. And he was talking about how the Russians and him personally like to train athletes using this system and how they were getting insane strength gains by doing this because they kept training the system in the body to do it. And then this is how I got super strong and I got myself to do a two-rep one-arm pull-up basically just doing this system. I didn't train calisthenics much at all.

[00:02:53]I've barely trained calisthenics in my life.

[00:02:55]To get to the the one rep, it took two to three days of practice. And then to get to the two rep, uh it took maybe uh two or three weeks. I forget exactly how much, but it wasn't a lot. And it was basically just lat pull-downs got me there, uh to be quite honest.

[00:03:11]And so, just to quickly break down Tsatsouline's method, he has a book called The Quick and the Dead.

[00:03:16]And he breaks down the training routine.

[00:03:18]It involves a lot of rest because your creatine phosphate system needs time in between sets to reset. It's about 3 to 5 minutes between every set. And every set entails about uh 30 s 30 seconds worth of exertion.

[00:03:34]So, that's about four [snorts] heavy reps uh two to three times followed by a three to five-minute rest. And you could do that for a uh for five cycles.

[00:03:48]And that's your that's your creatine phosphate system. And a good way to gauge this, uh if you don't want to follow the hard rules, is how much exertion am I able to put out?

[00:03:58]If I could put out a lot of exertion, it means I'm doing it well. If I can't uh produce that, it means I need to rest now. So, the idea is you're always uh pushing the maximum amount of intensity without the lactic acid build up. So, that's why this system works so well is cuz you don't create tons of lactic acid because that's what ends up uh destroying your strength gains. It it wears on your tendons, your muscles, and it does not produce the same results.

[00:04:26]So, uh you're doing that, and then you can also you can and should take days between your workouts off. You got to take days off, like 2 to 3 days off sometimes because uh your muscles just lose that uh the the power. And they don't they don't seem to recover, and uh it sucks because you're trying to create a routine for yourself, too.

[00:04:49]And when you don't do things every day, you fail to create habits for yourself, and I understand the detriment of that and why it's important.

[00:04:57]But, that's just been my experience. And he he says in his book that two two to three days a week is about as much as you really need or want um to help promote that system.

[00:05:11]Uh I'll also say that C60 oil, this is a bit of an off note, but C60 oil is also incredibly helpful. It's just works really well on your muscle mitochondria.

[00:05:21]It's a It's a within an olive oil tincture. You take 5 to 10 ml before your workout, and uh that can help as well.

[00:05:30]Also, I recommend cold showers. They help a lot before workout. They really get your adrenaline moving like crazy.

[00:05:37]And uh they just lower inflammation temporarily. So, it's a cold showers are a hack in general in that sense cuz you could just basically drop your inflammation down a ton uh for a uh period for a period of time.

[00:05:53]So, that and then I also like fasted workouts. It works for some people, not for others.

[00:06:00]I feel like I'm stronger when I'm working out fasted. But that's just me.

[00:06:05]Some people like to eat first. I'm weaker in the morning, some people are stronger in the morning.

[00:06:10]You know, I like to work out in the evening, you know, different things for different people, different strokes for different folks.

[00:06:15]Uh working out and uh keeping an empty stomach during an intermittent fast is probably one of the fastest ways to just jack up your androgens like crazy. So, if you work out and I'll leave a study for this, I learned this from Thomas DeLauer, if you know him on YouTube, if you work out on an empty stomach and you don't feed yourself for several hours following, what will happen is that as a man, and I guess maybe as a woman as well, your androgens will start to climb.

[00:06:54]They'll continue climbing. And with this, you're also getting stressed to cortisol as well, but uh your your androgens will increase.

[00:07:04]So, you got every you have a time under tension kind of thing.

[00:07:08]And so, I like to eat on an intermittent fast and then wait 3 to 4 hours before I actually feed for my one meal a day. And I feel that's been very helpful for my strength gains.

[00:07:19]And so, those are just a couple of things that I've done to help make myself stronger. Again, I have I have some of the strength stuff on my Instagram. And so, I thought I'd make a video about it and what I like to do for myself and my clients. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed.

[00:07:36]Thank you for watching.