Optimal Training Time: You’ve got about an hour…Music and cardio
Written on 16 July 2007 by Marty GallagherYouve got about an hour: I have a lot of folks ask how long an exercise session should last. Experience and science both converge on this one: for someone in reasonably good condition, after 45 to 60 minutes energy starts to nosedive and the point of diminishing returns set in. There are two types of resistance training; intense and effective and not so intense and not so effective. 99% of people who take up weight training fall into the later category. Not necessarily out of laziness or because theyre bad people but because they dont know any better. No one has ever taken them aside and said, Look unless you really press the limit in various exercises nothing of any real consequence is going to occur. Unfortunately going through the motions, i.e., using the same poundage in the same exercise for the same number of sets and repetitions is going to result in little if any change. Only by pushing the body to do that which is has not done before do we trigger the adaptive response. That makes sense. Just look around when you go to the gym: if simply doing what you are capable of, if simply performing the same number of reps using the same poundage in the same exercise triggered the adaptive response, the gym would be crawling with muscle monsters. The human body does not reconfigure itself in response to sameness. The body only grows muscle and becomes stronger as a result of being pushed into new territory. Those who go through the motions, staying within their respective comfort zone can train for a long time. Those who train intensely enough to trigger hypertrophy have about an hour before the sheer intensity of the effort causes them to run completely out of energy: physical energy and psychic energy. If they dont run out of gas after a solid hour of bust-ass weight training then theyre either a Lance Armstrong aerobic anomaly (doubtful since genetically gifted endurance athletes are one in 100,000) or a person thinks theyre giving 105%.
Tags:Archive Blog bodybuilding overtraining Training and Exercise training timePopularity: 77% [?]
Welcome to the NEW MartyGallagher.com!
Written on 12 July 2007 by paperboyFor the first time in over two years, MartyGallagher.com has gone through a major site re-design! I think we were due, don’t you think?
Among the changes:
- New template
- New back-end Content Management System
- Single sign-on for both the Forum and the Blog
- Web 2.0-compliant — Easy to bookmark to social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Technorati
- New domain (PurposefullyPrimitiveFitness.com) — we will use both domains interchangeably for now
- Easier search and navigation of older blog entries
- Support ticket system — you can fill out a form and check the status of any problems you encounter on the site
- And we’re not done!
More changes are coming, including reverting the header to the one we use in the Forum, as well as enhanced content features.
You might have also noticed that we have some things missing, most notably the Main sections of the old site (Pure Strength, Cardio, Riverhorse, etc.). We are holding on to this content and have plans to re-release them in another form. Stay tuned!
Here’s the best part…
All of this was designed to bring more traffic to our site and get the Purposefully Primitive Fitness word out to the masses!
“How can I help?”
Underneath every blog post, you’ll find a whole bunch of tiny icons. Each icon corresponds to a social bookmarking site, such as Digg. If you like a particular blog post, I highly highly encourage you to click on these buttons! The more people that click on them, the more popular that blog entry becomes, and the more people will see it. You’ll need to create an account at the particular site you’re bookmarking to, but a lot of us already have that. Please help us spread the word!
As always, your feedback is appreciated.
Also, if you have any problems with the site, please use our new Support Ticket system!
Marty and I would like to thank everyone who has been a part of this site from the beginning. Your continued support and generosity is greatly appreciated, and Marty will be back soon with all-new stuff. We have lots of things lined up, so make yourself at home and enjoy the ride!
Lee
Tags:Archive Blog Miscellaneous Purposefully Primitive People Website NewsPopularity: 95% [?]
28-Day Beach Blitz Part 4: Calories and Getting Started
Written on 7 May 2007 by Marty GallagherEstablish a caloric starting point by multiplying your current body weight times 15. By way of example, a 200-pound individual would be allotted 3,000 calories to commence the process. Take into account the caloric expenditure associated with exercise and eat another small supplement meal to replace and replenish calories burned through lifting and cardio. Rush restorative nutrients to traumatized muscle tissue immediately after the workout. Dousing muscles with high quality protein and a slow-release carbohydrate mixture right after a workout takes advantage of a physiological window of opportunity during which nutrients are absorbed at three times the normal rate. Each successive week for four straight weeks the plan calls for lowering the overall caloric intake and subtly tinkering with the percentage ratios of protein, carbohydrate and fat. By reducing calories and manipulating nutrients we cause body fat to oxidize while simultaneously retaining muscle mass.
GETTING STARTED:
Tags:Blog bodybuilding calorie counting carbohydrates carbs diet Diet and Nutrition fat loss Pure Strength Training Training and ExercisePopularity: 98% [?]
Kid Hercules & The Big Fish Incident
Written on 29 March 2005 by Marty GallagherKID HERCULES: I saw a sick story on the History Channel called The Strongest Kid in the World. It was a demented tale of Ukrainian parents who relocated to California and trained their baby, Richard Sandrak, to be a bodybuilder. His mother would forcibly stretch the boy from the time he was six-months old and the father was Hitler on wheels. They had the child lifting super big weights using a lot of forced reps and bodybuilding training and diet tactics early on. From the time the body was five, he was trained three to four hours a day, splitting his time between high intensity weight training, cardio, martial arts and dance oh yeah like a circus family in the old country the whole deal was about cashing in on the kid.
Pop never took a job, he was the coach. Mom never took a job; she prepared the perfect bodybuilding meals. They enlisted the services of a manager a fringe character in the fitness world who formed a little fitness troupe that featured a bunch of male and female bodybuilders who would go through tight little choreographed dance routines at The Arnold Classic, The Mr. Olympia and other assorted trade shows. The kid was the star of the show and Little Hercules would lead the bodybuilders through their Ziegfield Follies-like Vaudeville routine. They hit the big time and eventually took the act to Vegas. Little Herc would strut and preen, pose and dance like a little trained monkey. Hed incorporate martial arts moves and his incredible flexibility was on display the main attraction was his freaky little physique. It was all packaged and rolled up into one sick little revue.
He obtained a five-figure supplement deals and the troupe was on the road all the time. Everybody was starting to make dough on the 8-year old. Then the dad got a little too big for his britches and the entourage began to turn on one another. Rumors started to float that the kid was being fed steroids; the manager quit, pop took to beating the wife and kids and eventually he was arrested and given a three year suspended sentence after breaking moms wrist and nose. They divorced and pop was served with a restraining order. The whole kid herc universe came crashing down. But wait! Another manager appeared and got some relative of John Travolta to make a short film pitching the idea of the now 12-year old could star in a feature length movie called Little Tarzan. The gravy train is being resurrected as we speak. Oddly the 12-year old doesnt seem to be able to recapture the shredded and ripped look hed achieved when under Dads training and special nutritional regimen.
The kid obviously is as exploited as some third-world child labor worker in a shoe factory. Handling heavy poundage before puberty is a terrific way to stunt height forever and though both the dad and mom are average height, Id be damned surprised if this kid grows to more than 5 foot. The world of bodybuilding is full of strange individuals and this is one of the most outrageous and pathetic example Ive seen in recent years.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE: ONLY THE NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THE GUILTYEPISODE #207, THE BIG FISH INCIDENT
I trained with a certain nameless powerlifting champion for many years and this gargantuan guy would earnestly instruct his young and impressionable power students that beer was good for recovery. He sincerely believed this, Its based on science! Its an irrefutable fr*#king fact! He used to scream when challenged on this. Often, after a savage training session, he and I and a few other bruisers would head over to Chinatown for ‘Big Fish’ (whole crispy fish in sweet hot sauce) and while a whole fish was meant for a party of six, each lifter would order one exclusively for their own consumption.
We used to like to drink high octane booze drinks while decompressing from our savage training and waiting for the big fish armada to be bought out. These drinks were made with vodka, kaluha, coconut milk and 150-proof rum and they’d serve them in coconut shells and for dramatic effect would set the drink on fire and serve it flaming. My pal, who I loved like a brother, was a gigantic clumsy oaf and one afternoon after two power bombs in row he accidentally knocked over his third flaming drink.
The blue-flamed liquid rolls to the edge of the table and the flaming waterfall falls on him and he stands up like hes been shot from a cannon. His gym clothes are on fire and he is waving his flaming arms around wildly. The blue flames looked pretty waving in the darkened restaurant but I am afraid that he will start running through the restaurant like a rhino through a pygmy village, sending Chinese waiters flying and knocking civilians over right and left, all the while screaming at the top of his lungs….’FIRE BAD!!! FIRE BAD!!!’ Everyone else is stunned but thinking fast, I grab a giant pitcher off the table and douse him with ice-cold water…he was fine, we laughed our asses off and had another round. Just another minor incident in powerville….
Tags:Blog History Channel Kid Hercules Misc Pure Strength Strongest Kid In The WorldPopularity: 4% [?]
