A Cryin' Shame

The more things change the more they stay the same.

In 1986, MedX Corporation introduced a Lumbar Extension machine that was up for a Nobel Prize in medicine. Fourteen years of research and development, 3,000 prototypes, $88 million invested and extensive research that proved beyond a doubt the effectiveness, cost efficiency and reliability of the machine should have assured its place in the field of exercise and medicine. A decade of research conducted at the University of Florida concluded that the MedX device was the ONLY meaningful way to access the muscles that extend the spine from a strength perspective. Add to that - eighty percent of chronic low-back patients responded to the machine by having a reduction in pain perception after a 12-week protocol; 30-33% became pain free.

The machine should have been a hit, but was rejected by the medical community. According to Dr. Michael Fulton, an orthopod who worked with MedX inventor Arthur Jones, the device threatened them (doctors). . . would have put many out of business. Sad, but true.

Since then, MedX Corporation has introduced a gym version of the same, a machine you can use without help, giving more people access to an effective treatment for chronic back pain. Almost as restrictive, equally effective, fairly expensive. The result? Much the same. Few gyms have it. They won't spend the money for something better. "We have a back machine already." Yeah, you sure do. Good luck.

So, the same thing has happened. The MedX device has been perceived as just another machine, in an era when machines are out. It has resulted in the following scenarios:

1. A friend from Florida to whom I introduced the MedX Lumbar Extension machine, tried to locate one near his home. He had to travel 45 minutes to the nearest place. When he arrived, no one knew anything about the machine that sat in the corner covered in a mantle of dust. The instructor didn't know anything about it, so my friend proceeded to use it alone. He still makes that lonely 45-minute voyage once a week or two to a dusty corner of a gym that knows nothing about what it has. At least it has it.

2. A therapist was hired to head the rehab center where I once worked. The PhD was a self-described "hands on" therapist, didn't use machines. One of his first questions was, "How much can we get for the pair?" (Lumbar and Cervical extension machines valued originally at $120,000). I went to show him how to use the machines; ended up trying to convince him that they had exercise value. Luckily, several patients were addicted to the results they had received. He was forced to use them. I hope it's still the case.

3. There's a MedX Lumbar machine where I work in North Carolina - a private country club. Our director remains unconvinced of its usefullness despite my efforts. So, she's initiating a "Healthy Spine" program which amounts to a thrice-a-week exposure to an hour of core training. Twelve hours a month. I have used the MedX machine for 21 years - 90 seconds a month, two back operations, pain-free for 21 years. A lot of people could save a lot of time - 11 hours, 58 1/2 minutes per month - with better results, if they'd listen or read . . . or something.

As Arthur would say, "It's a cryin' shame."

High Intensity Training - The Safety Factor

High intensity training is not dangerous training. It is, in fact, the safest way to train, the safety factor built in - but only under the following conditions: good form; slow, controlled movement. As long as form is good, you can take a muscle to failure, where it can no longer move with a 100% effort, and NOT produce injury. A bold statement? Just the facts, ma'am.

Force produces injury. The higher the force to which a muscle is exposed, the greater the chance of injury. Therefore, the maintenance of low levels of force during exercise assures minimal injury risk. And high levels of intensity with good form assures low force levels.

The force to which a muscle is exposed during the first repetition of an exercise is potentially high because the muscle is fresh and capable of producing its highest level of exertion and greatest speed at that moment. If you initiate the first repetition with a jerk or excess speed, you invite injury. To avoid potential problems, slowly press into the resistance (bar, pad or other) with enough effort to barely allow it to move, then continue (throughout the range of motion) producing a force slightly greater than the weight itself. The effort should produce a slow, controlled movement.

The muscle fatigues as it continues through the second, third and subsequent repetitions at a rate determined by genetics. The average muscle (an average mix of fast- and slow-twitch fibers) fatigues at a rate of approximately 2% (strength loss) per repetition. Therefore after 10 repetitions, the exercising muscle will be down in strength by about 20%.

What does that mean? During the final repetition, when it feels like your limb will disconnect, the muscle cannot produce the potential force it could during the first repetition. It's tired. Even if you tried to jerk the weight through the final repetition (which you should not), you cannot produce enough force to create injury.

Therefore, despite the way it feels, the last repetition of a set is always safer than the first. Unfortunately, many trainees train by feel, quit before they should - somewhere short of muscle failure - and ruin the potential to stimulate tissue change. All because of fear of injury - a fear not supported by fact.

Work as hard as you can - the harder, the safer.

Muscle Mass - Get It

"Why add muscle at my age?" is a common gym question.

"For many reasons" should be the answer, but rarely is.

Nautilus inventor, Arthur Jones often criticized people who sought easy solutions to their problems. Why? He spent a lifetime seeking harder solutions to problems in the field of exercise, concluding, "There's only one way to the top, outright hard work." It appealed to few.

Jones took no short cuts - there were none - but his approach was the exception. Most clients enter the gym looking for the easiest 20 minutes - a little cardio, a few machines, light weights, Swiss balls, ab work. Few arrive with a valid plan - one that requires discipline, pushing the envelope higher, progress. They simply arrive; and that, for most, is enough. The slightest hint at physiology is countered with, "I know you have good intentions, dear instructor, but..."

The result of such a casual approach is a decline in the average result produced by exercise. As Arthur put it, "If you do 10 repetitions when you could have done 12 (if you had applied yourself or been pushed), you might as well stay in the parking lot. Don't come in the building. You'll get the same result - nothing." He didn't mince words.

Lack of effort is not the only problem, there's choice. Functional training is slowly replacing strength training. It sounds better (more "functional"); it's easier; it's popular (everyone's doing it; trainers, pushing it). The dumb leading the blind.

I have, of late, worked with an elderly population. They have concerns - mobility, balance, orthopedic conditions - that are generally accommodated by trainers, the approach bordering on rehab; the emphasis rarely on strength training. Where strength is incorporated, the choice is lousy - bodyweight exercises, skill training, balance work (general balance cannot be improved), core training - things that contribute little to the addition of muscle mass. It's not aesthetics or performance I'm talking about - it's health. Improved muscle mass has been linked to a decrease in the incidence of a plethora of common ailments associated with the aging process - diabetes, heart disease and (closing in on) cancer.

I've stated for decades, "Exercise is not a cure-all, but it's damn close." Research may one day prove me right (and not for my sake).

Work hard on a few basic exercises with a challenging resistance. Add muscle to your body. Build a base from which you can enjoy a healthy life, throughout life.

Speed of Movement During Exercise

I've always found speed of movement interesting. So did Arthur Jones. After experimenting for decades, the Nautilus inventor concluded, "It is probably impossible to lift weights too slowly." Hence the outbreak of slow and Super Slow protocols. More importantly, his influence spread through trainers who emphasized good form, of which slow, controlled speed was part.

Today's trainers emphasize form in the same way, but few pay attention. No one knows exactly how slow is best (if it exists); few realize the physics, the physiology, the rationale behind slow-rather-than-fast repetitions; and many have been influenced, or at least confused, by the recent surge in "performance" training which promotes the opposite - explosive, fast-as-you-can reps. "Activate the fast-twitch fibers," they say. "Train for power, to demonstrate power on the field, to prepare the body for what's to come." Genius. Pure genius.

They forgot one thing - logic. The body can move at incredible speeds - limbs as quickly as 1000 ft/sec. When you add resistance to a moving part, however, speed slows. Now, the limb moves as quickly as it can against the resistance, not as quickly as it ultimately can. If resistance is very heavy, the maximum generated speed will be, by necessity, slow. The heavier the weight, the slower the speed, nothing else is possible.

Point one: How can explosive training with weights help an athlete become more explosive (demonstrate more power) on the field? In other words, how can a slower-than-possible movement (because of resistance used) help one become faster? The same people who believe slow training makes you slow on the field are training slower than possible (if no resistance is used) and claiming it makes them faster. Hmmm.

Point two: The genii believe there's automatic transfer from gym to on-field activity. Few have read the literature. Four decades of motor learning research reveals that NO transfer exists, none. It's called specificity of training, and it's ignored.

The result? Wasted time, lots of it. Practicing something that doesn't transfer to sport and placing muscles in harms way to get there. Unfortunately, strength is general in its application. Any strength gained (even that by explosive repetitions) helps performance - thus belief in what they're doing. But strength can be obtained by safer means.

The sane approach, the logical approach - strengthen the muscles you need in a safe way independent of how they are to be used. Slow repetition speed doesn't mean slow movement on the field. Plug the new strength into the sport by practicing the sport.

We may never arrive at a conclusion about speed of movement during exercise - there are too many out there who believe that FAST has value.

Jones summed it up in the 1996 issue of Ironman magazine, "Ignore this warning at your great peril; move fast during exercise and you will eventually hurt yourself...Train properly and you will probably never hurt yourself."

"Properly," if I read Arthur correctly, means "not fast."