Strength Training for Women

Women make poor choices in gyms. They are attracted to trends (what they've read in magazines or heard from a neighbor, which is why the menu changes so often), to equipment that displays caloric expenditure or to group classes. Rarely do they choose the thing that will make the greatest improvement in the least amount of time - proper strength training. It's not attractive. Properly performed, it's hard work; and hard work builds muscle. Look at the men.

But we've heard that before. It's a matter of education, something generally ignored by trainers who could and should steer clients in a responsible direction. It's hard to believe that the increase in educational institutes, certification agencies and general knowledge has done nothing to remove myths - only added to the already large pile of nonsense.

The best thing a woman can do in a gym (to reap all the potential benefits of proper exercise) is lift weights. Body weight can provide a start, but not an end. Free weights are better as far as resistance is concerned, but they cannot supply direct nor full-range exercise. Machines can. Properly constructed, machines provide muscles a safe environment and a level of intensity unknown with other equipment. Good Form + High Intensity = Results.

Unfortunately, trainers have put machines on the back-burner if not dismissed them totally. A poor choice. Giving clients what they want instead of what they need has all but destroyed the field of exercise.

If your favorite restaurant fed you what you needed instead of what you'd like, you probably wouldn't return. Restaurants would close. And so with exercise, ladies, if trainers satisfy needs instead of desires, they'd go out of business. The extensive menu has strayed so far from basics that no one knows what basics are. Enough.

Shift your focus away from pointing your toes, ladies, and dig in your heels. Demand proper strength training with the best available equipment. And above all, plug in HARD work. Brief, hard, infrequent. Anything less will waste your time. As Nautilus inventor Arthur Jones put it, "You can swim to Hawaii or take a jet." Quit swimming.

Muscle Stimulation and Recovery Time

A famous CEO recently scheduled several different trainers in our facility to exercise everyday while in town. Halfway through his 7th workout, he ran out of gas by his own admission. It was lecture time.
"A muscle needs two ingredients for growth," I started, "stimulation and recovery ability." He at least had the courtesy to hear me out.
Muscle cannot grow without stimulus and will not grow without opportunity - time between workouts. Every muscle has a threshold of stimulation, that is a level of intensity (not amount of exercise) that must be reached to trigger change. It is probably a high percentage of a full-out effort, if not 100%; and, like a light switch, it's either "on" or "off." Once "on," you don't need more exercise - you need energy to recover from what you accomplished. Nautilus inventor Arthur Jones equated muscle stimulation to starting your car. Once you turn the ignition "on," you don't keep trying the key - you'll ruin the starter. Stimulate change, then go home.
Recovery time? A minimum of 48 hours and more if you are advanced. The body can perform any amount of exercise (as illustrated above), but is not capable of recovering from any amount of exercise. Whenever professional bodybuilders got "stuck" in their workouts, Jones reduced the amount of exercise and the training frequency (sent them home a few days between workouts because systems couldn't recover from their efforts). Worked every time.
You can't start a race until the gun goes off. You can get away with it for a while, but too many trainees are trying far too often to win a race they don't know how to run.

Be the Best - Use the Best

In 1986, Arthur Jones sold Nautilus Sports/Medical Industries* to two brothers in Dallas, Texas - a pair that ran the company into the ground by trying to save pennies along the way. As part of the deal, a number of employees from the company were sent to Dallas to facilitate the transfer. After a year, many returned (by agreement) to Arthur's new company, MedX Corporation in Ocala, Florida. One of those employees, a design engineer who came to Venezuela to set up my MedX facility, told me the following:

"I was required to present three estimates for each and every part purchase in Dallas. When I needed a specialty bolt for a particular project in Ocala, I approached Jones out of habit."

The reply was swift.

"Scott," said Arthur, "just go out and find the best g.. d... bolt you can and put it in."

No discussion, no concern for cost. The best, only the best. MedX hasn't changed, years after Jones' death.

Suggestions:

1.) Recall this incident next time you sit on a tin can being passed off as an exercise machine (tough when neither machines nor quality are in vogue).
2.) Demand the best tools in your training environment.
3.) Don't get overpassionate about latex tubing recommended by certified experts.

* Nautilus was eventually repurchased by a group of 'old' employees who restored machine quality to former standards. Kudos.