Training Intensity

Two factors influence the production of results from strength training - form and intensity. Both are abused in the general training environment. Intensity is simple: Work as hard as you momentarily can. Don't stop when you think you've had enough, or think you can't continue, or when you reach that magic number of repetitions. Stop when the resistance stops you, when muscles fail in the face of an all-out effort.

Intensity can be achieved by working harder, by pushing yourself, by being pushed. It can also be achieved by spending less time between exercises - reaching a level of systemic shock greater than the norm. This ultimate level of physical excellence was named "metabolic conditioning" by Nautilus inventor, Arthur Jones and defined as the ability to work at 100% intensity for a prolonged period of time. Impossible? Dichotomy of interest? Not so. Metabolic condition can be obtained through proper strength training.

1. Select a circuit of exercises (10-12) that cover the major muscle groups (large to small).
2. Perform the first exercise to a point of momentary muscle failure (use a weight that allows 8-12 repetitions) in good form.
3. Within seconds, start the next exercise.
4. Repeat - until the circuit is complete.

As simple as it sounds, the effort required is beyond the capacity of most (no athlete made it in his first attempt the first four years it became available under Jones' supervision). So, ease your way into the intensity part (learn to work hard) and gradually reduce time between exercises. If and when you make it, you'll be in your best possible condition . . .
. . . and the toughest kid on the block.

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.

Specific/General Response to Exercise

Arthur Jones was the first to identify a muscle's specific or general response to exercise. And he did it with significant tools - machines that totally isolated muscle function, machines checked for accuracy and reliability by research conducted at the University of Florida - so there was no doubt about the results.

Most of the 10,000 subjects tested (80% in the low-back extensors, 72% in the front thigh) demonstrated what Jones called a Specific response to exercise (Type S). That is, they experienced fatigue and/or results only in the range of motion where the muscle worked. Little or no results were produced in the non-work zone. The remainder of the subjects exhibited a General response to exercise (Type G) - full-range fatigue and/or results from partial-range exercise.

So, why all the hype about functional and performance training, and compound movement exercise? By their nature, none provide full-range exercise - exercise that provides an appropriate resistance throughout the entire range of motion. Which produces (in most cases, as above) partial-range results - athletes and housewives alike with great strength at some angles of movement and lousy strength at others. Terrific for performance, terrific for daily activities, terrific for injury prevention. Yeah.

It led Arthur to conclude, "Bullshit is rather easy to establish, and once established, impossible to irradicate."

Unfortunately, not enough trainers are aware of the facts.

Full-Range Exercise

I currently work in an exercise facility equipped with the finest tools available, MedX machines. Why the best? Best guarantee in the industry, lowest friction, smallest increments in weight-stack resistance and, most of all, they provide full-range exercise. By that I mean the machines provide proper resistance at every angle of movement throughout the entire range of motion. Big deal? You bet. Only full-range exercise provides: a strong resistance in full extension to increase flexibility and trigger a pre-stretch; resistance in a position of full contraction (to activate maximum muscle-fiber recruitment); injury prevention regardless of the angle at which force is applied; maximum size/strength benefits (because of its comparative difficulty); and the most efficient contribution to fat loss.

Despite the obvious, there are few instructors in this facility that use the machines at all, having been brainwashed into thinking that playing with rubber balls and bands is somehow superior. Ignorance - among those who should know better. What do you see?

Sport-Specific Exercise & Sports Performance Programs

Research related to skill training points to one thing - specificity. Training to improve skill (and ultimately performance) must be specific, that is, with the same equipment, the same motion performed with no deviation from the ideal path and no resistance other than the weight of the implement(s) used in the movement.

Research related to strength training points to another - maximum overload. Muscles must be challenged with heavy weights (for 8-12 repetitions) to stimulate the degree of change necessary to improve performance.

Skill training - no resistance: Strength training - maximum resistance. Simple enough.

Apparently not.

The flood of sport-specific exercise and performance programs around the country deny the apparent - they combine skill and strength training (train movement patterns in what is called "functional" training). The result? A compromise of both skill and strength - muscle groups that never reach their strength potential and movement patterns that are likely to interfere with the specificity required of skill training.

How should it be done? Separate the two. Strengthen the muscles involved in the movement independent of how they are to be used. Once they are as strong as they can be, plug them into the movement in the only way possible, by practice of the skill itself.

Anything else is insane, commercial or both.