Information or Misinformation?

I was just reading some of my daily e-mails and stumbled across a Men's Health e-mail sent out to present and past subscribers. A couple of the articles that caught my eye were "Exercise Machines You Should Never Use" and "Muscle-building Myths". Being curious I couldn't help but read them.

Wow. I've come to accept over the years that magazines like Flex, Muscle and Fitness, Muscular Developement, etc., are merely supplement catalogs posing as informative magazines. When I was younger, I enjoyed these magazines but then after severa years, I noticed something: I was spending much of my hard earned money on supplements that were highly recommended in the muscle mags, yet none of them seemed to do what they claimed to. I spent literally, thousands of dollars on supplements before I came to the conclusion that virtually the entire industry is a scam and built on lies. I also worked in a national health food store as well for nearly five years (at different locations) and saw young and naive weight lifters come into the store and spend most of their paychecks on protein powders and weight gain drinks. They would usually do this for a month or two and then suddenly disappear from the store never to be seen again. My theory was that they soon discovered that all of the supplements that they were spending their money on was absolutely worthless. They discovered that the the secret to building large muscles doesn't lie in the tub of protein powder that they just purchased.

Like I said, after several years I realized that the muslce mags were just cleverly marketed supplement magazines so I realized that I should abandon them in hopes of getting real, scientific information. Occasionally there would be some bright spots: sometimes Flex and Muscle and Fitness would publish articles by Mike Mentzer and IronMan magazine had a long-running column by Arthur Jones entitled My First Half-Century in the Iron Game. But aside from those few and frequent articles, most of the information in the muscle magazines were either focused on pushing supplement or giving ridiculous training information. You can only publish so many "Pec Pounding" and "Quad Killing" articles and the mags quickly realized that they needed to constantly change up the information in their articles, lest they have fewer subscribers. So they consistently crank out new training routines that the pros supposedly do. I'm not sure about you, but I could care less about what a genetically gifted, drug abuser does to get his biceps bigger. Whatever it is, it probably isn't going to work for me. I think this sort of attitude is what has made people move away from the muscle magazines and instead flock towards magazines like Men's Health and Men's Fitness.

The only people that still appear to purchase the mucle mags are teenagers who seek to attain the 300 lb. bloated look that these bodybuilders display. Well, teenagers and the extremely small minority of competitive amateur bodybuilders.

In walks Men's Health and Men's Fitness (and any other magazine of a similar nature). Just as women's figure competitions were borne out of the repulsion and backlash of to women's bodybuilding, so was the current crop of Men's Magazine was born out of disgust for the muscle mags.

You'll find most men's "health" magazines (a term I'll use to describe any non-muscle mag) have several informative articles that deal with nutrition, fashion, travel, and of course exercise. Your average guy is far more apt to be drawn to a magazine like this than one of the muscle mags. Even to your average housewife, they understand that anyone in a muscle magazine is taking growth drugs. When they see 15 year-old Jimmy pick up an issue of Flex and show interest, I'm sure there's a bit of concern.

I'll agree that a men's "health" magazine is far less harmful than any of the muscle mags, but don't make the mistake of thinking that all of their information is accurate. The men's "health" magazines have been around long enough that they're fishing for articles of anything that would be of interest to the general public. They're also searching for any possible angle when it comes to weight training and exercise. Just like with the muscle magazines, they're having to rehash and conjure up exercise ideas just to fill the space in the magazine. This is displayed quite prominently in their articles and e-mail posts.

Just a couple of snippets from what I read just today from their online daily articles:

1. According to an expert, it's dangerous to do leg extensions. His argument is that the added torque on the momvement makes it dangerous. True, there is a large amount of torque placed on the knee towards the beginning of the movement but this is not a cause of concern for anyone that has a healthy knee. If you have knee injuries, there may be reason to perhaps avoid this exercise but to proclaim in a blanket statement that the leg extension is a dangerous movement is utterly ridiculous. How do you hope to develop your quadricep to its fullest potential without directly training it?

Let's take a different example. Let's say that you want to make sure that your biceps are as fully developed as possible. Would you then relegate yourself to only doing pulldowns and rows? I doubt it. Even though these exercises certainly stimulate growth in the biceps muscle, they do not offer the level of development given by a isolation movement such as the bicep curl. If you want to truly develop a muscle to its highest capacity you have to isolate the muscle and train it in a high-intensity fashion...without aid from other muscle groups. The same goes for any other muscle group, including the quads. Without doing leg extensions, you're ignoring the utlimate development that can be achieved in that muscle.

And lastly, just because a guy has huge legs and doesn't not perform leg extensions or any other form of isolation exercise does not mean that he woudln't benefit from adding such an exercise. Even though his development may already be high, it would assuredly be even higher would he isolate the muscle and train it through a full-range of motion. Genetics play a large role as well. An individual may be able to do nothing but squats his whole life and, because of genetics, may display phenomenal development. That doesn't mean that all other leg exercises are rendered irrelevant because Mr. Genetics doesn't do them.

2. A noted author, in response to super-slow training says that the best way to perform a repetition is to perform the positive part of the rep as fast as possible (i.e., explosively) and then lower the weight under control. I first must say that I'm not a proponent of Super-Slow training. I've seen no evidence that lifting and lowering weights on a 10 seconds up/10 seconds down scheme is any safer or productive than 2 sec. up/3 sec. down scheme. The concept, that some seem to be missing, is that you should seek to remove momentum from the movement. No explosions. No jerking the weights around. No explosive change in directions. Simply raise the weight, without using momentum, and slowly lower the weight - under control. What I do may seem very slow to your average trainee but the Super-Slow protocol is much slower. They preach a 10 second positive and then a 10 second negative. Is this safer than what you normally see in gyms? In my opinion, yes. Is it any more beneficial or safe than controlling the weight without using momentum? Science hasn't shown that to be the case. I hate to put a number on the rep cadence but it's suffice to say this: raise and lower the weight with completely control and at no point in time use momentum. When you change directions, make sure it's a solid, fluid motion and not a jerking-quick change of direction. That is the safe way to train and to also to fully stimulate the muscles.

Back to the point: the author instead pulls the complete opposite stance and says that the positive portion of the repetition should be done as quickly (i.e., as explosively) as possible. He then goes on to say that the lowering phase should be done under control. He doesn't give any reasons for performing the movement explosively or as quick as possible. It's just another "Hey, I'm a trainer. I'm right." type of attitudes. Follow his advice and you'll get what you deserve: hurt.

I realize that the state of exercise has degenerated into a heap of "everything out there works, so just do it all and you'll succeed." See what this means? Do you see the ramifications? How do you think medicine would work if doctors thought along those same lines? How do you think science would progress if every theory was equally valid and that everything had truth to it? That's what we're faced with in exercise. Some high-intensity principles have, through some weird osmotic way, found their way into the modern training grimoire of personal trainers while much of it has been thrown to the wayside. In favor of what? In favor of bosu balance balls and group training. In favor of explosive movements with bands that supposedly increase one's athletic ability. So instead of someone saying, "That's ridiculous and won't work," now we hear, "Yea, that's part of our exercise program," along with a million other theories and ideas all mashed into a bastardized training philosophy.

That is essentially what you'll find in any men's "health" magazine and muscle mag. They need fodder to print so any concept, any training method, any gimmick, is quickly put to print and supported...well, because that's the nature of the exercise industry.

Answers to many of the questions people had about exercise were answered several decades ago by Arthur Jones. He spent millions upon millions of dollars on research in the field and has given us - still to this day - the most informative studies ever done on the subject of exercise and injury rehabilitation. His conclusions were simple: train hard and train briefly. You can either train hard or you can train long but you cannot do both. Train a muscle through a full-range of motion and give it resistance throughout the entire repetition.

Too many people wander into the gym without any clear objective. They don't actually have a concrete goal in mind. At most it's a vague idea of what they want to achieve but they don't know how to achive it. Like many others before me, I believe that productive exercise shouldn't be fun. That may turn a lot of people off but it's the simple truth. If you want optimal results, you're going to have to train hard and experience discomfort. The magazines don't tell you this. They will lead you to do a set, quickly and explosively, and stop short of failure and to then take a 2 minute break. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat, ad nauseum.

Train explosively? Why? Where is the research showing that's safe and/or productive? No answer.

Take a 2 minute break in between sets? Why? Where is the reserach showing that will build larger and stronger muscles? No answer.

Do 7 sets? Why? Where is the research showing that doing multiple sets is any more productive than doing a single set to failure? No answer.

The answer lies partly in the laziness of the ENTIRE exercise community. I've seen countless numbers of people who've devoted much of their spare time (if not lives!) to the subject of exercise and I've yet to really find anyone who seems to really be all that interested in the subject. Yet these are the people guiding you down the path. Picking up Flex magazine does not make one a personal trainer yet that's exactly what we have in our gyms. Having a conversation with most exercise devotees quickly degenerates into irrational concepts, baseless theories, and just plain stupidity. Most devotees seem completely oblivious to the subject of genetics and thus it doesn't figure into their training. They assume that since Mr. Olympia was able to achieve his current size then they most certainly should be able to get that big too...it just takes time...right?

My personal advice? Put down all of your magazines and don't listen to their propaganda. Everything doesn't work. You're not going build a physique like Steve Reeves or Frank Zane by doing 15 sets of pushups. Embracing the concept of "everything works to a certain degree" is tantamount to saying, "I really don't know what to do. I don't understand the subject which I'm studying so if I try a little bit of everything then something is bound to work." that's what you're doing when you accept that concept.

Start with this:
1.) Keep a training journal. The goal is to increase your strength as often as possible and a
journal is critical to achieving this goal. If you knew that you were no stronger this year
than last year do you think you would change your training? You betcha, so start with
a training journal so that you monitor and record your results. If you're getting stronger
then your're doing something right. If you're getting weaker, well...time to re-evalute
things.

2.) Perform your repititions under control and remove all momentum. There is no
reason to perform repetitions explosively or in a ballistic fashion. When changing
directions during the rep, do it slowly and under control. Additionally, training this
way will ensure that each and every one of your repetitions are similar. This is
invaluable if you count your repetitions because when every rep is the same, you have a
true measure of improvement. If you've done two more repetitions on a particular
exercise and you know that you've done them in a similar fashion, then you know that
you have gotten stronger. On the other hand, if you perform your reps like most people,
you will cheat a little bit here and there, use some momentum when it gets hard, and if
you do manage to do another repetition, then how do you truly know if you've improved
because the reps were not done in a similar fashion.

3.) Train to failure. Many people shy away from this because it is hard work and some feel
that they will injure themselves. It is indeed hard work but it is also the most rewarding. Training
this way will ensure that you've done everything possible to stimulate muscle growth
(becaues you can't train any harder than 100%, thus you've done everything possible
to stimulate growth) so just keep in mind that while this may be uncomfortable, the results
that you get will be the maximum possible. Also, if done under control and without
momentum, you will not hurt yourself. Injuries come from g-forces and rapid
movements, not from training to failure.

What is failure? Simply put: it's when you cannot, under your own volition, do another
full repetition. If you're doing squats and you cannot get another full
repetition, then you've reached momentary muscular failure. Most people stop way too
short of this range and give up right as it gets uncomfortable. When you get to the point
where you think you cannot do any more I can almost bet you that you have another
couple of repetitions in you. I find that most people hold back because they're so
conditioned to doing multiple sets that they know that they cannot train to failure on every
set because that would stop them from doing multiple sets. Once you've trained a muscle
to failure, you're not going to be in the mood to do a second set.

There are other high-intensity techniques such as negative-only training or forced reps.
Simply training to failure is a good way to start. Every once in a while, throw in some
forced reps and negatives but there is no need to pull out every trick in the book on every
workout. Do a single set until you cannot perform another full repetition and stop there.
You've done everything that you can to ellicit muscle growth in that muscle.

4.) Rest. Studies have shown that when training to failure, the entire body can be trained
several times during the week. The study Project Total Conditioning had test subjects
train their entire body three times a week. There seems to be differing ideas on how
often is appropriate but I also think that depends on how many high-intensity techniques
are used as well. If you go in and train to failure, you've reached a certain inroad and will
probably be recoved in 2 to 4 days. On the other hand, if you do forced repetitions and
negative-accentuated training, one could argue that recovery would take much longer
because you've made larger inroads into the muscles that you trained by using higher-intensity techniques.

My suggestion: start off with training your entire body three times a week and when
results start to diminish, reduce your training to twice a week.

Instead of uncritically accepting each and everything that you read in the health/muscle magazines, stop for a second and think about the logic behind it. Is there solid reasoning behind what they're advocating or scientific research? Just because it is printed on paper does not make it true. Does it seem sound and logical? If not, don't do it! There are many charlatans and snake oil salesmen out there. Question what they say and demand logical answers.

When Will They Ever Learn?

I'm a fitness junkie. Any articles related to fitness usually catch my attention and I try to read anything and everything out there. This morning I stumbled upon the latest from the powerlifting community:

http://elitefts.com/documents/failure_fixation.htm

The article is hosted on www.elitefts.com which caters primarily to the powerlifting community. Being an ex-powerlifter myself, I tend to scour the site lately not for any pearls of wisom but just to see what the latest training methods are.

The article starts of with:
"Did Arthur Jones have it right when he essentially devoted his life to convincing people they needed to train to failure? Or was the Nautilus inventor and High Intensity Training (HIT) pioneer just an angry, dissenting crank whose primary goal in life was to upset the order and sell more products? Time will tell, and maybe it already has."

Hmmm. Where do I start? I'll say that Arthur is probably best known for his introduction of Nautilus machines. Just as important, Arthur's contributions to exercise science have been immeasurable. Arthur didn't merely spend his entire life convincing people that they needed to train to failure. As a matter of fact, it wasn't until he was in his late thirites or early forties (from what I recall) that he completely developed his theory of high-intensity training. Prior to this, he spent many years trading in animals, traveling to many different countries and making films. To say that he spent his entire lifely merely convincing people about high intensity training is not accurate and a disservice to the man.

My answer to the quote above: look no further than Project Total Conditioning. This study was conducted at West Point academy in the mid 1970's and showed - quite conclusively - that single set, high-intensity training, one exercise after another, is extremely effective at increasing strength, muscle size, flexibility, and cardiovascular fitness.

Was the study rigged? The research was funded by Arthur Jones but was overseen by the United States Military and also employees of Kenneth Cooper, who at the time, was convinced that weight training was utterly useless. Where was Jones? He was no where in site for he had no intentions of being involved or influencing the study in any way. The current orthodoxy would've loved to have said that Jones fudged the numbers but that was quite literally impossible: there were too many objective, independent people involved. The results speak for themselves.

Or how about the studies that have been conducted recently (if you want the research, please feel free to e-mail me and I will send the studies to you) showing that a single set is just as effective as three sets? More and more research has come out showing that what your average trainee is doing is either dead wrong or simply inefficient.

To ignore this staggering research is to literally bury your head in the sand which, to no surprise, the fitness orthodoxy has been doing for well over forty years. One has to understand that the exercise industry is propped up by the sales of their magazines and supplements. I flipped through Flex and Muscular Development lately and they were comprised of at least 50% advertisements. Ads for what you may ask? Supplements. Virtually worthless, sometimes harmful, supplements.

Why have we been duped into thinking that we have to eat every three hours and that we have to have a high-biological value protein in every meal? The answer is clear - the magazines preach this idiocy and everyone listens to them. I mean, come on, Mr. Olympia takes these supplements so he has to know what he's doing, right? I would hope everyone reading this knows the answer to that question already.

These are also the same people who regurgitate "new" training routines every month. I long gave up on "muscle magazines" a long time ago as they tend to hurt much more than help. Every single month there is a new biceps-blasting, pec-pounding routine "guaranteed to give you unparalleled growth." Oh really?

It's the same old trash. Pick 5 exercises, have the person perform a random number of sets...let's say 5 and then prescribe a 100 gram, high-quality whey/casein protein powder with 10 branch chain amino acid capsules right after the workout.

Some things never change.

Back to the article above - you have to ask yourself you who you're dealing with. The powerlifting community has, to my surprise, sort of lept out of the shadows and appears to be the hot new thing. Many gyms nowadays have incorporated resistance bands, box squats, board bench presses, and many other things that you could say came out of the powerlifting community.

Just as in bodybuilding, the powerlifting community is rampant with drug use. How is one to be objective about effective strength training when you're chemically altering your testoterone levels 10 fold? You can take an average man and alter his testosterone levels in a similar fashion - without ANY weight training - and he will gain some amount of muscle and srength. Throw in the religious fervor that these people have for supplements and changing workout routines weekly, you have to ask yourself, "How you can you figure out what does and doesn't work when you have all of these ever changing variables?"

In the field of exercise, in order to gauge your results, you have to approach everything like a scientist; because that is really what you're doing. You're acting as a scientist in a study on yourself. You need to record your weights, repetitions, length of your workouts, etc. This is rarely ever done by anyone in the field of bodybuilding or powerlifting. How do I know? I've been doing involved in both groups for over fifteen years.

Let's say someone does record their repetitions. Are they making sure that each and every repetition is done in the same cadence? Not a chance.

Most trainees consider a full repetition and also a half repetition as one in the same. Are they performing the repetitions at a steady cadence? No way.

Do they record their total time training? Nope. As most people do multiple sets, do any of them ever record their rest periods in between sets? Nope. Is it any wonder that many scientists and doctors think the average weight lifter is an idiot? It should come as no surprise.

I will say that training to failure is something that is not often done in the powerfliting arena. See, what happens in powerlifting is that an unusually heavy weight is lifted for, generally, 2 to 5 repetitions. Being that the weights are generally so heavy, reaching a point where particular muscles have truly reached a state of failure is pretty rare. You think I'm wrong? If you can do multiple sets of bench presses for thirty minutes or more....well, let's just say that you're not training very hard. You may perceive that you are training hard but your perception of the situation does not affect reality.

Then you have the machismo factor. Many in bodybuilding and powerlifting take offense if you even dare to claim that they don't work hard enough. They'll say, "Hey! I'm in the gym six days a week and I'm in there for two hours at a time!" 'Nuff said. If you're training that much and that long, then the argument is over because you can do one of two things but you can't do them both: you can either train hard or you can train long but you can't do them both. They're mutually exclusive.

Ironically, even though many powerlifters and bodybuilders stake their claim on being tough and indestructable not very many can make it through a truly hard training session. The few that do don't normally come back. Ask Arnold Schwarzenegger.

If you've never experienced the type of training that Arthur Jones advocated and developed, then you simply have no point of reference.

Do you have to be motivated? Of course! Pushing yourself to failure is a painful process but a wise trainee will know that by doing such he or she will get the maximal benefits possible. Instead of approaching strength training in this mystical "I hope it happens" approach that so many people do, it's refreshing to know that if you go in and truly push yourself to your limits and then rest, that you'll get all the results that you're capable of producing.

Sadly, I don't think the world of powerlifting will ever pull itself out of the fog that it finds itself in and some of it is due to ignorance and the rest is due to marketing. People have demonized Arthur Jones because he created Nautilus machines and then sold them but the same people that demonize him have sold their own products but, I would argue, have done it in the most deceitful way possible. The difference is that Arthurs machines were true to his word and actually worked but the junk these other people sell are a complete sham. HMB pills? Weight gain powders? Dessicated liver tablets? Glutamine? Protein powders? After several years, you'll soon realize that the health/supplement industry has just played a big joke on you.

Arthur had volumes of information regarding his Nautilus machines (and MedX) and stating explicitly why they were better and why it was best to train his way. There was no deception or sleight-of-hand in what he did. If you're curious about his ideas, feel free to search his name in Google and then choose from hundreds of different articles that he penned. There certainly was no, "Just trust me. It works," coming from his mouth. His methodology was the exact OPPOSITE of what the experts do nowadays. They beg you to trust them. They try convince you that they're right. They tell you that they've trained Mr. Olympia or Ms. Fitness and that makes them an expert. Or - my favorite - they'll reference some russian manual from 1960 that you'll never see or read so you have to merely believe in them.

Anyone who questions Arthur's motivation should simply look at the work that he's done. I don't see a single one of these experts doing anything - anything at all - to advance the field of exercise science. Make no mistake, there is a science of exercise. There are fundamental facts that are not subject to change. What has Joe Weider done? What has Robert Kennedy done? Steve Blechman? These are all the same people that directly, or indirectly, have attempted to make a mockery of Arthur Jones yet what have they contributed to the subject? I'll tell you what: they've given us decades worth of monthly catalogs full of worthless drivel and garbage.

The powerlifting community should be celebrating right now because this is their moment in the sun. The exercise industry, being intellectually bankrupt, has sought some new trendy movement and powerlifting has fallen into the "golden child" status. We now see explosive movements, elastic bands, box squats, and strong-man movements being performed now more than ever. Not coincidentally, injuries are up as well. Am I making a blanket statement? I sure am and I'll tell you why. Training "explosively" and doing speed repetitions is a recipe for injury. This is basic physics here. Throwing weights around creates tremendous impact forces on the body and you can very easily turn 100 lbs. on a barbell into 300, 400, or 500 lbs. of force. The next time you get hurt - and you will if you follow conventional training - ask yourself what you were doing and how you were doing it. Don't say you weren't warned.

Focusing on doing single repetition maximums is, in itself, a dangerous activity. The powerlifting community is rampant with injuries. A great many articles deal with how to cope with injuries and how to avoid them. The only other sport that I see that spends as much time dealing with injuries is running. You can't pick up a running magazine without seeing page after page dealing with injury prevention, injury rehab, best shoes so that you don't get hurt, etc. When you're doing something that invites injury in the way that powerlifting does, don't be upset if you're crippled by the time your forty.

During my several-year stint in powerlifting, I was injured quite often. I had numerous lower-back injuries (the most tramatic of which I obtained while lifting at West Side Barbell doing explosive rack pulls), bicep injuries, and shoulder injuries. I'm sure this won't come as a shock to anyone who is involved in bodybuilding or powerlifting, but I had a shoulder injury that was so severe I sought medical help from a chiropractor (in hind sight, bad idea) and a massage therapist. I've even had x-rays taken of my lower back shortly after an injury. I know what it's like to be hurt.

Tired of being hurt? Then do something about it. Lift weights without momentum. Are you in the gym to throw weights around or are you in the gym to use your muscles through a full range of motion? Take the g-forces out. Take the momentum out and you'll see your injuries evaporate.

Will you be forced to use less weight? Of course. That's what happens when you remove momentum and actually use your muscles to move the weight. Anyone can take a barbell and load it up with weight and do rep after rep of cheat curls but think about what you're doing for a minute. You're now training explosively and throwing the weight around which means your asking for an injury and, just as important, you're not placing all of the stress on the biceps. You've degenerated the exercise into a massive convulsion so that you can move the weight from A to B. It's not just about "moving" the weight; it's about using the muscles in question. Anyone can load a barbell up with a lot of weight and do bench presses so that the weight crashes to their chest and then, using the momentum of the bar, heave it back up. If that happens to be you then at some point in time you'll be joining the numerous ranks of the hurt and crippled. Not only that but you've degenerated your bench press into a partial-rep movement and, at very best, you'll only get strong during that range that you train and the portion that gets untrained will fail to increase in strength. That creates a strength and muscle imbalance.

Before you start to place too much emphasis on what the powerlifting community has to say about Arthur Jones and his efforts, step back and look at the source. Who is this information coming from? Scientists? Haha. Hardly. These are guys that are typically genetically gifted and found that whatever they did, to some extent, gave them good results. The end result: they're now experts on the subject. I apparently missed this lesson in school but what taught nowadays is that good genetics = expert. Just because someone is unusually large or strong does not mean that their training got them there or that it's the best way to train. They may have had phenomenal genetics that allowed them to arrive at this point even though they did dangerous things and trained far too much. They may also be taking growth drugs (which is far too often the case).

The best piece of advise that I could give someone, and it still holds true to this day, came from Arthur Jones. He once said something to the effect of, "Go into your local gym and find the biggest and strongest guy that you can find. Ask him what he does to get his results. Next, do the exact opposite of what he said."

The article that I refefenced above does have certain points where it recommend straining to failure but how they define training to failure and everything associated with it is vague. Okay, let's say that you've trained to failure (what exactly is training to failure?). How long should I rest? Should I go ahead and perform 10 more sets, just like all of the experts recommend? Should I ever do isolation movements or is the holy grail contained only in compound movements like the powelifting orthodoxy claims? All you'll get are semi-answers, guesses, and half-truths. They don't know but they claim to. Sadly, no where is high intensity training more removed than in the powerlifting world. Heavy weights performed with random, vague rep ranges and done over and over are what they prescribe. Think about it: if you don't know how to train properly what is better than to recommend a little bit of everything? That's what the exercise industry has degenerated into now. Instead of openly laughing at Arthur Jones, the industry embraces particular concepts that he had but then claims that every other training concept out there is equally valid as well. Can you imagine if we practiced such madness in medicine or physics? I hate to tell you, but all ideas are not equally valid and claiming such does not make it so. What this degenerates into is your average trainee ends up performing a different training style each and every week because they're taught that there is no single best way to train. That equals into saying that virtually everything out there, no matter how ridiculous or dangerous, may somehow be of benefit to you.

Don't say you weren't warned.