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.
