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.
