FITNESS 101
Click on the articles below for fitness tips.
• Exercise Science: Aerobics for Maximum Fat Burning
• Two Trains of Thought about Training
• Muscles are recommended...
• Strength Training for Children
• Training Techniques
• Destroy Fat Cells
• 7 Weight Loss Winners
Click on the articles below for fitness tips.
• Exercise Science: Aerobics for Maximum Fat Burning
• Two Trains of Thought about Training
• Muscles are recommended...
• Strength Training for Children
• Training Techniques
• Destroy Fat Cells
• 7 Weight Loss Winners
Two Trains of Thought About Training
Richard A. Winett's High Intensity
Anthropological Expedition
During any extended vacation I train at a number of gyms. I'm fanatical about my training, but I also find it interesting to train in different places, especially since I do most of my regular training at home. In fact, I find that visiting and training in different gyms is similar to being on an anthropological expedition. It's like entering a different culture with its own sets of mores, behaviors, beliefs and rules. As is true of any culture, everything seems to make sense within the culture but may appear nonsensical to an outsider. Here are some observations from my anthropological tour of West Coast gyms.
On this expedition 1 wanted to systematize my observations across settings, and as one of my current interests is rep speed, I focused on that factor. I simply waited for people to start a set, checked my watch and then counted their reps. Without exception the time to complete a rep was one to two seconds. That isn't one to two seconds for the concentric or eccentric portion of the lift but for the entire rep. Of the 30 or 40 people timed, no one took longer. The mean number of reps per set was l0, so the mean time under load (TUL) was 10 to 20 seconds. At that speed, however, a good deal of the movement is propelled by momentum, not muscle power, so the TUL is really less.
The mean number of sets performed per movement was three to four, and the mean number of exercises per body part was also three to four. Except for two men and one woman, no one was particularly strong or had an outstanding physique. So people who have an average genetic potential were performing nine to t6 sets per body part. since they took considerable time in between sets? They were doing long workouts, and while I don't know flow frequently they trained, a best guess is several times per week. Thus. I can assume that people are spending a lot of time In the gym, especially when you consider that they're doing long-duration, low-intensity cardiovascular work in addition to weight sessions.
I also made an interesting observation about exercise selection. Except for one man who was using 135 pounds, I never saw anyone doing squats, either the free-weight or Smith-machine version, and I saw no one dead lifting.
All the gyms covered a class that from the perspective of my foreign culture provides no benefits and is just plain silly- a 30-to-45-minute ''ab-burner.'' In the culture of the gyms the idea of spot reducing, a biological impossibility still reigns supreme. The basic notion is that by doing hundreds of lower-intensity reps for your abs, you can both strengthen them and make them smaller through the selective loss of body fat. Neither if possible.
You can't strengthen a muscle by doing hundreds of low or moderate intensity repetitions. The human body loses fat in genetically programmed ways primarily in response to a calorie deficit. Thus, if there's a. sustained calorie deficit, you will eventually lose fat from your hip: and waist. two difficult area: for both men and women, but the fact that you may have exercised those areas will make no deference. In fact, the best methodology for body composition change seems to involve high-intensity resistance training and high-intensity interval training for 15 to 20 minutes. If simply expending calories were the objective for facilitating fat loss, a brisk walk for 30 to 45 minutes would do more to than the ab class because it expends more to spur fat loss than the ab class, because it expends more calories. The fact that such classes are often taught by people who have certifications says more about the certification organizations than it does about the people leading the classes.
The same idea seems to be the reason that certain pieces of cardiovascular equipment are popular In gyms. Machines that emphasize major movement of the legs and flutes will help fat loss if you use them consistently because if you do the movement at a high enough intensity oblong enough, you'll burn up many calories. Even so, the machines will do nothing to selectively remove fat from your legs and glutes, as so many people seem to believe.
Within the culture of the gym: most of what I observed seemed to make sense. Unfortunately, from the perspective of my culture, very little of what I saw made much sense. I predict that many of the people I saw won't be training in six months because their workouts take a great deal of time and yet are yielding virtually no decent results.
I'd say that applies to most of those I observed. One of the sobering things about entering that different culture was seeing how well a few people thrive on whatever they did. I was abruptly reminded that some people are incredibly responsive to training, and it almost doesn't seem to matter what they do. Ten-second sets, lifting weights, 15 sets per body part, training every day-it just doesn't seem to matter.
A few of the men and several woman had tremendous physiques. It's unfortunate that the critical role of genetics in determining ultimate outcomes isn't appreciated in that culture. Consequently, it's the people who respond quickly and easily to menopause training-and can do almost anything and get results-who are emulated.
Another Take on High-Rep Squatting
In his classic Nautilus Training Bulletins, published almost 30 years ago, Arthur tones talked about the advent of his incredible new variable resistance machines and exciting scientifically based training programs. He also made it a point to emphasize what he believed was the single best exercise and exactly how it should be performed. The exercise was the standard free-weight squat. While few of us can squat as deeply as tones recommended, we can follow his other time-tested testosterone advice, which was to squat for high repetitions. In fact, for the average person, Jones noted, it's never necessary to use more than 300 pounds on the squat, and for a very strong person the maximum is 400. The key is to use high repetitions. When you can do 15 with good form, the next goal is 20 and so on, perhaps going as high as 30 or more.
High-repetition squats have been the mainstay of many programs over the years. Because you have to hold the weight on your shoulders and your quads, hips, flutes and hamstrings are so involved in the movement, squatting seems to have a good effect on the entire body there's probably nothing magical about 20 repetition squats, but when you use higher repetitions, you can use less resistance, your form is generally better, and so the movement is safer than squats performed for low reps-e.g., six to eight-with a typical rep cadence.
I have a new version for you to try. For countless years I did high-rep squats. I was quite good at it and enjoyed it, and I enjoyed the sense of mastery I got from some of my performances. I even got up to 300 pounds for 30 reps. Yet I never really did high-repetition squats.
How can that be? In today's parlance performing high-repetition squats requires a long TUL. I never did that. In fact, in order to write this article, I recreated my old style and cadence of doing squats. I did 20 reps in 50 seconds, or 2.5 seconds per rep. When you consider that for most sets I was so focused on moving quickly that I lost my count, some 20-rep sets were a bit short. So with rare exception I never had a long TUL on those high-repetition squats.
Using a slower cadence, however, brags an entirely different experience to the exercise. No, I haven't done 20 super-slow reps on the squat, but I recently did something that's reasonable. Using about an eight/four cadence, I worked my way up to 10 reps with 300 pounds. That's 120 seconds of TUL, and with the slower cadence and focus on form I can keep an accurate rep count. That's quite a set, and I now believe that whatever the benefits are of high-rep squatting, using slower reps is a safe way to achieve them.
As with any new exercise and goal, you need to start the process at a reasonable point and increase slowly over time. I suggest starting with six reps using the eight/four cadence (72 seconds) and a double-progression system. When you can do 10 reps with a given resistance and reach 120 seconds TUL. increase the resistance by about 5 percent.
With free-weight squats there's also no reason to be heroic and squat to failure. It doesn't matter that you may be inside a wonderful rack or cage, if you lose your position even slightly, you can incur a very serious injury. Do a good set, progress, but finish the set knowing you could have done one more rep.
Interestingly, I found it very difficult to progress with so much time under load. So perhaps I was never meant to be a high-rep squatter in the contemporary sense. As with many other movements and body parts, I found I could more readily progress with sets that involved 45 to 60 seconds under load. Ironically, that's about the time a set of high-rep squats used to take when I was doing very rapid repetitions but suffering some of the consequences, namely sore knees.
Richard A. Winett's High Intensity
Anthropological Expedition
During any extended vacation I train at a number of gyms. I'm fanatical about my training, but I also find it interesting to train in different places, especially since I do most of my regular training at home. In fact, I find that visiting and training in different gyms is similar to being on an anthropological expedition. It's like entering a different culture with its own sets of mores, behaviors, beliefs and rules. As is true of any culture, everything seems to make sense within the culture but may appear nonsensical to an outsider. Here are some observations from my anthropological tour of West Coast gyms.
On this expedition 1 wanted to systematize my observations across settings, and as one of my current interests is rep speed, I focused on that factor. I simply waited for people to start a set, checked my watch and then counted their reps. Without exception the time to complete a rep was one to two seconds. That isn't one to two seconds for the concentric or eccentric portion of the lift but for the entire rep. Of the 30 or 40 people timed, no one took longer. The mean number of reps per set was l0, so the mean time under load (TUL) was 10 to 20 seconds. At that speed, however, a good deal of the movement is propelled by momentum, not muscle power, so the TUL is really less.
The mean number of sets performed per movement was three to four, and the mean number of exercises per body part was also three to four. Except for two men and one woman, no one was particularly strong or had an outstanding physique. So people who have an average genetic potential were performing nine to t6 sets per body part. since they took considerable time in between sets? They were doing long workouts, and while I don't know flow frequently they trained, a best guess is several times per week. Thus. I can assume that people are spending a lot of time In the gym, especially when you consider that they're doing long-duration, low-intensity cardiovascular work in addition to weight sessions.
I also made an interesting observation about exercise selection. Except for one man who was using 135 pounds, I never saw anyone doing squats, either the free-weight or Smith-machine version, and I saw no one dead lifting.
All the gyms covered a class that from the perspective of my foreign culture provides no benefits and is just plain silly- a 30-to-45-minute ''ab-burner.'' In the culture of the gyms the idea of spot reducing, a biological impossibility still reigns supreme. The basic notion is that by doing hundreds of lower-intensity reps for your abs, you can both strengthen them and make them smaller through the selective loss of body fat. Neither if possible.
You can't strengthen a muscle by doing hundreds of low or moderate intensity repetitions. The human body loses fat in genetically programmed ways primarily in response to a calorie deficit. Thus, if there's a. sustained calorie deficit, you will eventually lose fat from your hip: and waist. two difficult area: for both men and women, but the fact that you may have exercised those areas will make no deference. In fact, the best methodology for body composition change seems to involve high-intensity resistance training and high-intensity interval training for 15 to 20 minutes. If simply expending calories were the objective for facilitating fat loss, a brisk walk for 30 to 45 minutes would do more to than the ab class because it expends more to spur fat loss than the ab class, because it expends more calories. The fact that such classes are often taught by people who have certifications says more about the certification organizations than it does about the people leading the classes.
The same idea seems to be the reason that certain pieces of cardiovascular equipment are popular In gyms. Machines that emphasize major movement of the legs and flutes will help fat loss if you use them consistently because if you do the movement at a high enough intensity oblong enough, you'll burn up many calories. Even so, the machines will do nothing to selectively remove fat from your legs and glutes, as so many people seem to believe.
Within the culture of the gym: most of what I observed seemed to make sense. Unfortunately, from the perspective of my culture, very little of what I saw made much sense. I predict that many of the people I saw won't be training in six months because their workouts take a great deal of time and yet are yielding virtually no decent results.
I'd say that applies to most of those I observed. One of the sobering things about entering that different culture was seeing how well a few people thrive on whatever they did. I was abruptly reminded that some people are incredibly responsive to training, and it almost doesn't seem to matter what they do. Ten-second sets, lifting weights, 15 sets per body part, training every day-it just doesn't seem to matter.
A few of the men and several woman had tremendous physiques. It's unfortunate that the critical role of genetics in determining ultimate outcomes isn't appreciated in that culture. Consequently, it's the people who respond quickly and easily to menopause training-and can do almost anything and get results-who are emulated.
Another Take on High-Rep Squatting
In his classic Nautilus Training Bulletins, published almost 30 years ago, Arthur tones talked about the advent of his incredible new variable resistance machines and exciting scientifically based training programs. He also made it a point to emphasize what he believed was the single best exercise and exactly how it should be performed. The exercise was the standard free-weight squat. While few of us can squat as deeply as tones recommended, we can follow his other time-tested testosterone advice, which was to squat for high repetitions. In fact, for the average person, Jones noted, it's never necessary to use more than 300 pounds on the squat, and for a very strong person the maximum is 400. The key is to use high repetitions. When you can do 15 with good form, the next goal is 20 and so on, perhaps going as high as 30 or more.
High-repetition squats have been the mainstay of many programs over the years. Because you have to hold the weight on your shoulders and your quads, hips, flutes and hamstrings are so involved in the movement, squatting seems to have a good effect on the entire body there's probably nothing magical about 20 repetition squats, but when you use higher repetitions, you can use less resistance, your form is generally better, and so the movement is safer than squats performed for low reps-e.g., six to eight-with a typical rep cadence.
I have a new version for you to try. For countless years I did high-rep squats. I was quite good at it and enjoyed it, and I enjoyed the sense of mastery I got from some of my performances. I even got up to 300 pounds for 30 reps. Yet I never really did high-repetition squats.
How can that be? In today's parlance performing high-repetition squats requires a long TUL. I never did that. In fact, in order to write this article, I recreated my old style and cadence of doing squats. I did 20 reps in 50 seconds, or 2.5 seconds per rep. When you consider that for most sets I was so focused on moving quickly that I lost my count, some 20-rep sets were a bit short. So with rare exception I never had a long TUL on those high-repetition squats.
Using a slower cadence, however, brags an entirely different experience to the exercise. No, I haven't done 20 super-slow reps on the squat, but I recently did something that's reasonable. Using about an eight/four cadence, I worked my way up to 10 reps with 300 pounds. That's 120 seconds of TUL, and with the slower cadence and focus on form I can keep an accurate rep count. That's quite a set, and I now believe that whatever the benefits are of high-rep squatting, using slower reps is a safe way to achieve them.
As with any new exercise and goal, you need to start the process at a reasonable point and increase slowly over time. I suggest starting with six reps using the eight/four cadence (72 seconds) and a double-progression system. When you can do 10 reps with a given resistance and reach 120 seconds TUL. increase the resistance by about 5 percent.
With free-weight squats there's also no reason to be heroic and squat to failure. It doesn't matter that you may be inside a wonderful rack or cage, if you lose your position even slightly, you can incur a very serious injury. Do a good set, progress, but finish the set knowing you could have done one more rep.
Interestingly, I found it very difficult to progress with so much time under load. So perhaps I was never meant to be a high-rep squatter in the contemporary sense. As with many other movements and body parts, I found I could more readily progress with sets that involved 45 to 60 seconds under load. Ironically, that's about the time a set of high-rep squats used to take when I was doing very rapid repetitions but suffering some of the consequences, namely sore knees.