Training Is Not Enough - Your Diet Is Important Too!

Most people realize that in order to reach their fitness goals, there are two factors that they have to get right: diet and exercise.

What I've come to realize is that training is perhaps the easier of the two to master. For lack of better words, when it comes to training, you do it hard and you do it briefly. After that you recover and then go back in when it's time to train again.

In regards to diet, I see a lot of people struggle. In part, I believe it's because training can be addressed in an hour or two a week. I'm an advocate of brief, high-intensity training, so I do not recommend spending hours a week in a gym. It simply is not needed if you're willing to put forth the effort to train hard. On the other hand, what one eats is a constant decision and requires more attention.

Put another way, you can spend one hour a week training and have that problem taken care of. Eating, on the other hand, is something that you have to deal with constantly; all the time.

You go into the kitchen to pour yourself a glass of water. Do you also open up the fridge to look and see what there is to eat? You make yourself lunch and finish your meal but then have the desire to eat more. Do you do it? You have a business lunch with clients. Do you have a healthy salad or opt to eat a high-calorie meal? All of these questions arise, for most of us, daily.

The way that I've looked at these situations is that they're small battles. Just face it: you're going to be faced with dozens, if not hundreds, of eating choices a day and you can choose to do what will further your fitness goals or what will sideline them. Every time that you make the right eating decision, consider it a small battle that has been won. A smaller step forward towards winning the war, if you will. On the other hand, every time you make a poor eating decision, consider that a small loss.

I use this concept because ultimately what matters is if you reach your fitness goal. If you make a couple of poor eating decisions, make note of it (either mentally or on paper) and figure out how you're going to remedy it. Perhaps you could be more active for the day or decrease your portion sizes for the remainder of the day.

Having a treat or "falling off the wagon" once or twice isn't going to derail your progress all that much. Remember: it's nearly impossible to lose much fat in a day and the same is true for gaining fat. It's not what happens in a single meal or a single day...but what you do for a period of time that matters.

Why is proper eating so important to one's fitness goals? It is commonly accepted that carrying an excess amount of body fat contributes to poor health. Hypertension, Type-II diabetes, high cholesterol, and high cancer rates have all been associated with unhealthy levels of bodyfat.

If you're in the gym training to develop strength and muscle size, you're not going to be very pleased if your newly developed muscle is being hidden under a thick layer of fat. Not only are you going to be much healthier with lower levels of bodyfat, but you're going to look far more impressive if you're lean.

Guys especially seem to fear losing much body fat for fear of becoming too small but once you become lean you'll realize that you look far more impressive than when you have a smooth, bulked-up look.

I see people on a weekly basis that train very hard. They likely have the training part of the puzzle figured out. But many of them will admit to not following a proper diet and overeating on a regular basis. Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because you've gone to the gym to train that you're now immune to the effects of poor nutrition. While it is true that exercising will allow you to eat more food without consequence, in reality the amount of calories that you're burning are relatively small. Look at it this way: a pound of fat is roughly 3,500 calories. Walking at 3 mph, for one hour, burns three hundred calories. You would have to walk over eleven hours to burn off one pound of fat! Likewise, if you go into the gym and have a hard weight training or cardio session, you may burn 400 calories, but that 400 calories is equivalent to a slice of pizza. In other words, that hard workout that you just put in can be nullified, if you will, by a single slice of pizza. So don't fall into the trap of thinking that you're immune to the effects of poor nutrition just because you exercise.

In regards to diet, I usually recommend that people follow one of two options: eat constantly changing variety of healthy food and count the calories in the food, or, find healthy foods that you like and stick with eating those same foods, in lieu of counting calories. Either way will work. I've found that it's easier for me to eat the same foods, at the same time of day. This takes away the math and the constant tracking of calories. But then again, I enjoy this so I've found that it's not a chore to eat the same foods every day.

If you're someone who likes constant variety, then I suggest having a big list of healthy foods that are allowed on your diet and simply adding them into meals until you've hit your caloric goal for the day. While this may seem like more work, it really doesn't take a considerable amount of time (most foods have nutritional information on the labels now) and gives you a considerable amount of freedom in your diet.

Ultimately what matters are calories. You may've heard the saying: calories in, calories out. The idea is that everyone requires a particular amount of calories, every single day, to maintain their current body weight. You are likely eating somewhere close to this number already. How do you figure this number out? Well, you can do a quick search on the Internet for a "daily calorie chart" of something similar. You plug in your sex, age, height, and activity level and the chart will likely give you a pretty accurate idea of how many calories you need per day to maintain your weight.

Another option is to track your meals for an entire week. At the end of the week, add up all of your calories and then divide that by seven. If you've not gained or lost any weight, this will give you your daily caloric needs.

Most people, instinctually, eat close to their caloric needs every day. We have a complex hormonal system that regulates such things. The problem is that most people tend to overeat a slight amount every single day. Let's say that you require 2,500 calories a day to maintain your current bodyweight. What happens if you eat 2,800 every day for an entire year? That equals out to be 109,500 excess calories that you've ingested over the course of a year. So what are the practical implications of this, you ask? It comes out to be 31 pounds of bodyfat.

Thirty one pounds of bodyfat is a large amount of fat to add...especially over the course of one year. You may ask yourself, "Eating three hundred calories a day doesn't sound that horrible. I may be doing that but I haven't gained that much weight. Why?" As I mentioned earlier, the human body is really an amazing thing. There are a cascade of homones that interact in the body to cause certain reactions. In most people, these hormones work as intended. You have ghrelin, leptin, and many other homones in the body that control our hunger (there are probably many more that we're not away of). If you change the level of one hormone, you're less hungry. If you increase the levels of another hormone, you're hungrier. In addition, it has been shown that the human body comes to expect the same volume of food per day. Your body becomes accustomed to saying, "Hey, we need a certain volume of food per day. If you don't feed it to us, we are GOING TO MAKE YOU EAT!" This is one of the reasons that dieticians have long advocated eating foods that are low in calories but high in bulk (think vegetables and fruits). These foods fill the stomach up (they fullfil the bulk requirement) all the while providing few calories.

The kicker is that our society has done an incredible job of making extremely tasty, high-calorie foods. These foods don't exist in nature and are almost always high processed. It's not secret that if you add salt, fat, and sugar to a product, we are going to want to eat more of it. These ingredients make the food taste better but they also cause us to eat more. By making these foods staples in our diets, you can easily see how we can bypass Mother Nature's built-in "stop eating" mechanism.

This is why I generally recommend natural, unprocessed food to eat. If you buy these types of foods, they are going to be relatively low in calories and also provide a high amount of bulk and nutrients. The bulk (water and fiber) is going to fill you up and cause your hunger mechanism to get switched-off.

How often should you eat? How many meals shoud you have? These are all questions that only you can answer yourself. Just remember, what is most important are the total amount of calories that you eat throughout the course of the day; not how many meals you have.

I have found that I function best by having three large meals a day with three small snacks in between. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are my large meals and take the longest too eat. Whereas my snacks are usually small portions of nuts, a piece of fruit, or a slice of toast.

The current trend nowadays is to eat every two hours. While I don't do that, some people do and have success at it. Just don't believe that you NEED to do this. The human body is a very adaptive organism and we certainly do not have to adhere to regimented eating times. Do what is convenient for you and stick with it. I will say that eating at very frequent intervals requires packing food with you everwhere you go and also having an atmosphere that will allow you to do such things. Some people may not have jobs that allow this type of schedule. If that is the case, simply eat when it is convenient for you. You have to make your dietary habits convenient for you, otherwise you'll never be able to stick with them. Remember: make it work for you.

Make a commitment to watch your diet for just two weeks. Track your food and calorie intake for just 14 days. Set a goal every day and stick to it. After two weeks you should see a noticeable improvement in how you look. Instead of telling yourself you want to lose thirty pounds, instead say that you wanto to lose four pounds in two week. Set small, achievable goals like that and as Clarence Bass (http://www.cbass.com/) says, "success breeds success." You'll feel a true sense of accomplishment and mastery over your body if you proceed like this.

Just as you can't gain much fat in one day, you can't lose much either. If you're trying to lose bodyfat, you have to accept that you're in this for the long haul and that this has to be a lifestyle that you follow. Don't be one of the countless victims that diet down in one or two months only to regain all of the weight, and then some, months later. Go slow. Go Steady. Set small, reasonable goals...and then achieve them!

While it may be tempting to go home at night and sit on the couch and eat, think about the reality of the situation: does eating really make you happy or do you feel depressed and guilty afterwards? At your current rate, what will your health and appearance be like in five years from now? Will you suffer from a shorter life-span and poorer quality-of-life because of your eating habits? Will you be around to see your grandchildren?

I'm not sure who said it but I believe in the old adage of, "Nothing tastes as good as looking good feels." If that saying doesn't make sense to you, hopefully it will soon.

What Does the Arnold Expo Really Exemplify?

I live in Columbus and recently made the yearly journey to the Arnold Expo. It is something that I do, without fail, almost each and every year. After leaving the Expo this year, I found myself asking just what does the Arnold Expo exemplify; what does it portray?

After doing a thorough sweep of the expo area, one can't help but notice that the vast majority of the booths are supplement companies. What are these companies selling you ask? Well, it's typically the same stuff just in different packaging - protein powders, thermogenics, various combinations of amino acids, and meal-replacement drinks and bars. As a science-based person who values objectivity, I couldn't help but feel like I was in the midst of the biggest group of scammers known to man.

Research has proven - over and over - that the majority of supplements, whether it's vitamins/minerals, protein powders, amino acids, etc., do absolutely nothing to improve performance or muscle size in humans. Just because you have a friend who said that he feels different or has gotten better "pumps" while taking something, does not automatically equate to something that is effective.

There is something known as the placebo effect and many, many people fall prey to this. If you're an individual and you've just spent $100 of your hard-earned money on some supplement, you're already making the assumption that it is going to work. One hundred dollars is a lot of money to spend on something, therefore you've already made the assumption that the supplement is going to be worthwhile - otherwise you would never have purchased it. So now you're taking a supplement that you're convinced is going to work and, more than likely, you're going to train a little harder and get a little more sleep. Do all of the extra steps that you may not normally due to ensure that you see the gains that this supplement is going to give you. Sound familiar?

Many times the trainee trains harder (which is the stimulus for muscle growth and adaptations) and this explains the results that he/she gets.

Think about it: if there was some special supplement that one could take that could noticeably increase muscle growth, strength, or lower body fat, don't you think the scientific community would stand up and take notice?

The one supplement that has stood the test of time and been thoroughly scrutinized is creatine monohydrate. While effective, it's not a wonder supplement. For anyone seeking additional size and strength, I recommend sensible doses of creatine monohydrate.

There are a handful of other supplements out there that are always on the fringe of legality. Pro hormones fall into this category. Do they work? Perhaps, but do you really want to be playing around with your hormonal system? The hormonal system is very, very complicated and your body has safeguards in place so that if the levels of one hormone become elevated, then other hormones will become altered as well. Ask yourself if you really want to screw up your own perfectly functioning body in an effort to add another two or three pounds of muscle. Additionally, ask yourself what happens when you stop taking that supplement. If the increase in muscle is because or hormonal manipulation, then once you stop taking that supplement/pro-hormone, then your gains will disappear as well. Lastly, many of these pro-hormones have been banned from being sold.

The research that is out there has clearly shown that the average American gets an excess amount of protein in their diet every day, yet the average trainee thinks that they need to overdose on expensive protein powders. There are several studies out there but they all show that between 60 to 90 grams A DAY for the average male trainee is adequate.

Muscle is largely water (in upwards of 70%) and the rest being fat and protein. Using the supplement company's logic, one should be gulping down gallons and gallons of water, right? Taking in additional protein does nothing for you and it simply gets stored as body fat. Poorly designed studies funded by supplement companies don't count as valid research. It counts as junk science that is designed to deceive you.

How much muscle are you adding on a weekly basis? If you're like most trainees, I would venture to say that you're gaining negligible to zero muscle on a weekly basis. Does it really make sense that one would need to ingest mega-doses of protein to merely maintain or to build very small amounts of muscle? Question what you read in the magazines for they will deceive you. They've been doing it for forty years. They won't be changing anytime soon.

If you doubt much of what I say, then just try to find research showing that ingesting protein levels above the RDA has any benefit. Like I said before, poorly conducted, flawed research conducted by TwinLab or Weider does not count. There is science and then there is pseudoscience. One must be aware of the distinction.

One more thing: look at the pictures of the weight lifters and bodybuilders back in the 1940's and 1950's. This was an era where supplements were non-existant. Don't forget that muscle-buidling drugs were not yet around either. The muscularity that these men displayed has to be seen to be believed. Great genetics, yes; protein supplements and drugs; no. As a matter of fact, anyone who trained in those days hardly ever read an article about nutrition. They simply ate three square meals a day and then trained. Simple as that.

The main issue that one misses in the supplement picture is this: it is not the supplement that is going to cause growth; an item added to one's diet is not going to cause an adaptive response like this. It is only high-intensity training that will stimulate growth sufficiently. Instead of wasting another $100 dollars on the latest supplement put out by some company, you should re-evaluate your training. Are you training hard enough so that you're stimulating muscle growth?

If you think that you are indeed training hard enough then are you getting enough rest in between workouts? Going in and blitzing a muscle with 5 or 10 sets and then doing it again in two or three days is overkill. Your muscles have to be stimulated and then given rest for the adaptations to occur.

Instead of looking to expensive supplements that have no scientific basis, instead look to your training and see what can be done to improve it. Are you doing 5 sets? If so, why? If you're doing 5, then why not 6? If 6, then why not 8? I will tell you, without any hesitation, that if you're doing multiple sets then you're not training as hard as you think you are. Don't deceive yourself: if you do a single set to failure then you will not be capable of doing another set. The research is out there - a single set taken to failure is just as beneficial as doing multiple sets. I would argue that it's superior because a single set takes less time and produces less wear-and-tear than multiple sets. I'll address that at a later time.

Don't forget how prevalent drug use is in the world of health and fitness. Just because a top athlete promotes something does not mean that it works (drug use and genetics are the primary reason that they are where they're at). Many athletes are paid for their endorsements. Don't assume that something works just because Mr. Olympia or some guy in a MuscleTech add says it does. Honesty and integrity are sorely missing in the world of health and fitness. Remember that.

After making the rounds at the Arnold Expo I couldn't help but feel that the industry as whole is completely rotten. When looking for training advice you're told that more is better and that if your current routine doesn't work...well, wait for the newest Muscular Development article and that will surely give you amazing results. When asking for nutritional advice you're barraged with tons of ads trying to sell you the latest whey protein and thermogenics. Common sense and decency has all but left the world of health and fitness.

People always ask why I don't sample the many supplements that the vendors are handing out. This answer is very simple: the amount of contaminants, carcinogens, and illegal drugs that are found in these supplements is shocking (http://www.supplementgenius.com/2009/09/15/top-25-worst-supplement-scams-2009/). Of course not all supplements companies have impurities but you would be shocked to find that many do. Lead, thyroid medication, anabolic steroids, anti-depressants are just a few that are routinely found in supplements. Wonder why the DEA has been raiding supplement company after supplement company lately? I certainly don't trust any of the fly-by-night companies that inhabit the Arnold Classic to watch out for my safety.

Aside from the unscrupulous vendors at the Arnold Expo (primarily talking about the supplement vendors) you're left with people walking around half-naked in 30 degree weather. One is left wondering what kind of self-esteem issue some of these people have where they force themselves to walk around uncomfortably for the sake of being able to show off body parts. I won't even begin to talk about the women who walk around looking like strippers. How proud their parents must be.

What could be something that epitomizes health and fitness has degenerated into a freak-show populated with she-males and men with so much muscle that they appear to be ready to drop dead at any moment - and they sometimes do. Thank God for the normal people that walk around the Expo, for if it wasn't for them it would truly look like a carnival side-show in there.

What does the Arnold Expo epitomize? Illegal Drug use. Cosmetic surgery. Pseudo-science. Charlatans. Unhealthy activities. Did I leave anything off?

Think Critically - Your Health May Depend On It

The next time your friends, personal trainer, or favorite magazine offer advice, ask yourself where it's coming from and is it scientifically sound.

If you've read any health or fitness magazine for more than a few months, you'll quickly notice the large amount of contradictory information being published. You'll also notice opinions being published as fact. But just because someone has an opinion does not make it true. Let's take training, as an example. One month, the best way to train your chest is with various exercises done for 8 sets. The next month, it's a variation of those same exercises but for 12 sets. The month after, it's a another variation of those same exercises but done for 6 sets, three times a week. Has anyone else noticed the utter random and abstractness of this type of training?

If someone prescribes 8 sets of bench presses to you, the first question that should come out of your mouth is, "Why 8? Why not 7? Why not 9? " You'll never get an answer to a question like that. And if you have, then please enlighten me because I've not heard anything even close to a satisfactory answer in all the time that I've been involved in the industry.

Simply put: it's complete randomness. Can you imagine any other discipline using similar techinques like this?

Can you imagine a doctor prescribing medication to you and then giving you random dosages? Dosages not based off of any scientific evidence?

The entire fitness industry (yes, that includes the aerobic enthusiasts as well) operates on the notion that more is better. A corollary to that is the idea that the more exercise that you perform, the more results that you see; that it's cumulative. As an example, using weight training, if one set is good, then a second set will produce more results. If two sets are good, then three sets are more productive. If it's running, then 1 mile is good but two miles is better. If 7 miles is good, then 10 miles are better.

Just as in medicine, taking more of something than what is needed often times will end up hurting the patient.

If someone suggests that you have to spend countless hours in the gym, ask them what evidence they have that one needs to do that in order to get the results that they want. Recent evidence regarding weight training has shown that a single set of an exercise is just as effective as multiple sets. Here is the link to the meta-analysis: http://www.asep.org/files/Smith.pdf

Additionally, a study was done in 1975 at West Point academy showing similar results. Not only that, but they showed that when trained three times a week, for no more than 30 minutes per session, the research participants had superior cardiovascular conditioning compared to the control group. The military conducted the study, it was overseen by Nautilus employees and also employees of Kennth Cooper, who at the time, were opposed to weight training. If you're interested in the study, go to any search engine and type in the phrase Project Total Conditioning, and you'll likely find information about it.

Don't Knock It Until You Try It

I've trained with weights for over fifteen years. I've read about different training philosophies and through trial and error, tried nearly everything out there. Several years ago, my interest in high-intensity training arose again and I was determined to attempt to reproduce the results that Arthur Jones achieved with his groundbreaking study "Project Total Conditioning." Having already practiced version of high-intensity training several months, I was ready for the next phase - I was ready to perform brief, high-intensity exericse in a circuit. After spending quite some time tracking down a facility that could accomodate me, let me tell you - it was a wake-up call.

When asked, most people will say that they train hard. I would've certainly told you that I train hard as well. Very hard. Well, having someone else, like a trainer, there to motivate you and encourage you truly makes a big difference in how much effort you're able to put forth. Even if you're a highly motivated person you will certainly train at a higher level of intensity and exert more effort if you have an intelligent trainer or partner to oversee your efforts.

I spend much of my time reading about exercise and nutrition and scoffed at the idea of needing a personal trainer, because I thought, "What is this guy going to teach me that I don't already know?" Well, it's not necessarily about being taught anything, but having someone there to supervise your workouts has enourmous potential. For instance, my workouts take no more than 30 minutes and during that time my trainer charts which exercises I'm going to do, the weight used, settings, and performance on each exercise. He makes sure the equipment is properly set up for me, which results in less time wasted. But most of all, his encouragement and coaching is able to coax an extra repetition or two out of me. These things together make having a personal trainer or coach invaluable. That is...if you value your workouts and want them to be as productive as possible.

Which brings me to weight training done ciruit-style. Most people don't really understand what this is and even fewer have actually done it. What I'm referring to is what Arthur Jones (famed Nautilus and MedX inventor) prescribed doing: one exercise performed at a high-intensity until you reach momentary muscular failure and then immediately moving to another exercise.

How many sets? One per exercise.

This does not entail talking. This does not include water breaks. It is exactly what I said - you move from one exercise IMMEDIATELY to the next. No breaks. Do this for ten to twelve exercises and you've completed an entire workout. Doesn't sound too hard? Think again.

Performing a workout like I described above is one of the hardest feats that you will ever do. First of all, training to momentary muscular failure is foreign concept to a great many people. To summarize: training to failure consists of moving the weight until you can no longer perform another full-range repetition. If you are physically capable of performing another repetition - then do it. Stopping short does not consist of going to failure.

There are many high-intensity techniques that can be employed but "training to failure" does not mean moving the weight until you cannot move it another centimeter or letting your sets degenerate into spastic convulsions. It simply means that it is physically impossible for you to perform another repetition, in proper form, with the given weight. This, in itself, is physically very taxing. A great many people stop short of training to failure and this is evident by looking around any gym. Why is this? Training to failure is flat-out hard work. There is no other way to describe it. It's unpleasant and can sometimes cause nausea.

At this point, you may ask, "Why do I have to train so hard? Why can't I go in and just train at moderate intensity?" In an effort to be brief, I will say that your body will not want to change unless you give it a damn good reason to. Your body must be convinced that you have a good reason to add more muscle to your body otherwise it will see no need to add more metabolically active tissue to your frame. Your body must be convinced that your life potentially may depend on adding more muscle. Do you accomplish this by picking up a 5 lb. dumbbell and doing bent-over biceps curls - in a zombie-like fashion, while watching TV? Or...do you do this by performing a very hard and demanding set? The answer should be obvious to many but sadly, it still is not.

Mike Mentzer, years ago, used a fantastic example: he said that employing low-intensity, high-volume training was akin to the sun-worshipper attempting to get a tan by going out at Midnight and laying under the moon for several hours. The stimulus is just not there. That person can lay under the moon for 1 hour, 3 hours, or 5 hours and the result is still going to be the same: no tan.

You have to push your body above and beyond what it normally experiences in order to entice the adaptations that you're after. Going in and doing set after mindless set in the gym hoping to get results will not work. It may've worked for you when you started training with weights in high-school but the reason that it worked - back then - was that your body had not performed any resistance training ever; it had hardly, if ever, been stimulated. In that situation almost anything will yield results for a short period of time.

Okay, back to training:

After your first set, move as fast as possible to your next exercise. The goal is to keep your heart rate high. Why exactly do we want to do that? Keeping your heart rate at a very high level for 15 to 30 minutes has many health benefits and does wonders for cardiovascular conditioning.

After I completed my first circuit I was amazed at how difficult and taxing it was. Remember, if exercise is easy then it's not going to be very productive. There is a dirct correlation in exercise - the harder it is, the more beneficial it is going to be. The easier it is, the less.

The combination of training to failure on every set and then doing it in a very quick fashion really opened my eyes to what hard, effective training is. Unfortunately, duplicating this type of workout in most commercial gyms is very difficult, if not impossible. In order to do this effectively, you'll need to know the settings for every machine that you plan on using (or, if you use free weights, have them set up before you begin). Additionally, you'll have to cross your fingers and hope that no one is using a machine that you need during your circuit. If this happens it can become extremely frustrating but you can work around it if need be.

It's in your best interest to give this type of training an honest try. Just because everyone else trains in an easy fashion and takes 3 minute rest periods does not mean that you have to. Give it a try. You have nothing to lose and only time, muscle, and better conditioning to gain.

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.

Enjoyable Vs. Hard

Should exercise be fun and enjoyable or should it be downright hard work? The old adage of "no pain, no gain," comes to mind. This question - I believe - has a very simple answer but there are also other issues that have to be factored in as well.

The short answer to the aforementioned question is that yes, exercise should be hard. It should be difficult. It should be challenging. Why do I say this and what evidence to I have to backup these claims?

First of all, you have to ask yourself: what am I trying to achieve with this exercise program? Am I trying to lose bodyfat? Am I trying to gain muscle and strength? Am I trying to improve cardiovascular performance?

If you take any of the above scenarios, a properly applied high-intensity exercise routine will give you the best results. Want to reduce bodyfat? The best way to do it is to control your caloric intake AND increase your muscle mass. How do you increase your muscle mass? Through a properly applied strength training program.

You want to gain muscle and strength? Same answer: a properly applied strength training program.

Want to increase your cardiovascular performance and endurance? Use a high-intensity strength training program done in circuit-style fashion. Don't think that you can get a good "cardio" workout from weights? If that's the case, then you've never tried performing ten or twelve exercises - all to momentary muscular failure - immediately after another, until you're finished. After a single 20 minute circuit, you'll be physically exhausted and have maintained a very high heart rate (my guess is that the average trainee would be between 80 and 90% HR Max during most of the training). Congratulations: you've just given your body one of the most efficient aerobic workouts possible. Oh, and you're building muscle and strength as well. Not a bad bang for your buck, right?

Remember: you don't have to fall into the trap of thinking that you have to do long, drawn-out exercise in order to build your cardiovascular system. For a very long time science has shown that is simply not the case. Enter high-intensity cardiovascular exercise.

Years ago, Dr. Tabata, published several studies (forgive me for not giving references but you can easliy find the research through Google) showing that very brief, very high intensity cardiovascular exercise produced superior results compared to the traditional steady state exercise that is typically prescribed by exercise experts. To summarize the results: collegiate rowers, who had already acheived a high level of fitness were instructed to ride a stationary bike for approximately 20 seconds at a high-intensity, all-out pace. After this 20 second period, they would then rest for 10 seconds. This process constituted one repetition. They completed eight of these repititions. I believe that they followed this routine three times a week for several weeks. The results: they had far better cardiovascular improvements than the steady state cardiovascular group. In essence, only an hour's worth of high intensity training yielded superior results as compared to the hours and hours of steady state exercise that the other group engaged in.

The fact that very high-intensity cardiovascular exercise could yield such good results -results superior to traditional cardio training - shocked many people out of their slumber. Even though I believe the research was done nearly ten years ago (with more recent studies showing similar results), other research, conducted in the early 70's came to that same conclusion and were largely ignored by the exercise community. These studes were known as "Project Total Conditioning" and they were conducted at the famous West Point academy with West Point football players. To make a long story short: the study clearly showed that an exercise program built around proper equipment, proper form, at a fast pace, and done brutally hard can produce phenomenal strength and muscle gains but it can also produce equally impressive cardiovascular improvements as well.

Based upon my observations, I see a many parallels in the Tabata training protocols and the research done by Arthur Jones back in the 70's and 80's. Jones hit the nail on the head with his training and, although his research was all but ignored by the academics, successfully showed that impressive cardiovascular benefits can be achived strictly by doing weight training.

This brings me back to my original topic of "Enjoyable Vs. Hard." Research dating back nearly forty years ago, has shown that to get optimal results (whether it's muscle/strength or cardiovascular improvement) one must train hard. There's no way around it. If it's pleasant, then you're not optimizing the benefits that you could be achieving. I know a lot of people don't like to hear that and feel that the cliche of "no pain, no gain" should be placed in the history books but research consistently shows that the harder you push yourself, the greater the benefits.

The only trouble is most people are not willing to push themselves very hard. I've been involved in the fitness/exercise industry for sixteen years and most people are just not willing to exert themselves to the levels needed to see optimal benefits. Getting someone to push themselves hard can sometimes be virutally impossible to do. This is especially difficult to do with people that just want to "tone-up" or just drop a few pounds. The way that I try to explain it to people is simply: "The harder you work, the better your results will be. If you hold back and don't physically push yourself to 100% then you're compromising your results. The choice is yours."

Think about it, you're already in the gym. You can either make yourself a little miserable for an hour and get mediocre results (if any) or cut your time in half and make yourself miserable and leave knowing that you've put forth 100% of an effort to build muscle/strength/conditioning possible. I don't know about you, but the discomfort that I feel after a workout is worth it knowing that I've done everything within my power to accomplish my goals. Anything less is a compromise.

Some may argue and say, "Well, true. We know that high-intensity training yields excellent results but it's hard to find the motivation to train in such a fashion. " That's fine but it doesn't change the facts of the matter: to get optimal results, one must train brutally hard. It's kind of like saying, "Well in order to score well on a test I know that I must study the material for eight hours. I can't really find the motivation to study that long. I'm only willing to study for two hours." What do you think will happen? Of course, you'll get compromised results. You may still get some type of results, but they won't be optimal results. For some people that may be enough but you're leaving untapped potential.

Think about that next time you're in the gym.