Weight training reality check
1 November 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Youve got about an hour before the point of diminishing returns sets in
Assuming you train hard as you are supposed to during a serious progressive resistance workout (and thats a huge assumption) a normal person has about an hour before energy nosedives and the point of diminishing returns sets in. Train past this point and poundage plummets and reps fall off to such a point that further training is ineffectual and counterproductive. Working exhausted muscles past exhaustion is overkill that has no redeeming value. There are two types of training miscreant: the cruiser (who trains sub-maximally in order to train for long periods) and the abuser who shatters a muscle then flattens it further like an Italian chef pounding a scaloppini entre. When a person tells me that they train for two hours at a stretch, (assume that theyre not elite athletes) I immediately think theyre not training nearly hard enough. If you cruise while you train, you can stretch the session length but muscle hypertrophy is only triggered by the cellular equivalent of a cataclysmic event, not by some polite reshuffling of the deck chairs. The consummate Purposeful Primitive starts every session with a compound multi-joint exercise. Any leftover training time allotted for that body part is devoted to assistance or isolation exercise aimed at the target muscle. Train hard as you can in a particular exercise than move on to another exercise: intensity trumps duration.
On the big body parts, like leg and back, you can perform 3-4 exercises without too much overlap. Overlap hits contiguous muscles in a carpet-bomb attack strategy. Big exercises cause groups of muscles to work together in a syncopated muscular relay race. On muscle starts the exercise off then hands off to another muscle as the range-of-motion uncoils. A third set of muscles might be activated to finish off the rep stroke. Four free-weight compound multi-joint extended range-of-motion exercises form the bedrock foundation of Purposefully Primitive training methodology: squat, bench press, deadlift and overhead press. Think about workouts first and foremost in terms of available time: Okay, Im here at the gym, I have 50-70 minutes before my energy collapses. Im here to train chest and triceps so whats the best use of my time. Lets review some basic workout structural rules-of-thumb: always work the big muscle before a smaller muscle; ergo, pectorals are trained before triceps. Always start with a compound multi-joint exercise (or exercises) before shifting to assistance or isolation exercises. Therefore begin with flat bench barbell press or dumbbell flat bench before proceeding to incline bar or dumbbell press. The pectorals have two functions: to push away from the body and to squeeze as if hugging a tree. Two compound multi-joint exercises one for lower pectoral, one for upper pectoral might logically be followed by an isolation exercise, perhaps pec dec or dumbbell flyes. If you aint feeling it after flat bench, inclines and flyes, something is wrong.
How many body parts need be hit in the session? Divide the workout into time segments so that one muscle group doesnt monopolize all the available training time. You want to have some gas left for the second body part of the session, in this case triceps. Likely youve used 60-70% of the available training time for the first body part. One great way to segue from chest to triceps is to use dips or narrow-grip bench press as the transitional exercises. Both dips and narrow-grip bench press are compound multi-joint exercises that require pectorals to commence the rep stroke and triceps must activate in order to lock the rep out at the conclusion. After 2-3 sets of dips the elite might hit a heavy barbell tricep exercise (narrow grip bench press, nose-breakers) and finish with a few sets of a super-isolation cable exercise. (perhaps pushdowns or reverse-grip pushdowns) We seek to equal or exceed the rep or poundage limits on the top set of each exercise. Energy and available time should be exhausted simultaneously. If you are fresh and ready for more after 20th set of an hour-long session, than you are sir are either an elite athlete or a surface-skimming workout cruiser. We used to have a saying that if your hands werent shaking like a leaf when you went to put the car keys into the ignition for the car for the ride home from the gym, you hadnt trained hard enough.
Ideally you want to crack the muscle hard enough to trip the hypertrophy trigger. Any third exercise aimed at the same body part using the same rep stroke will be seriously degraded in terms of poundage-handling ability. Insist on doing a fourth exercise and lose 50-75% of fresh strength capacity. Assume its bicep day. Start off with 4 sets of 10 reps in the curl with sets of 60/70/80/90 pounds. Then onto 4×8 in the incline curl with a pair of dumbbells, 30/35/40/45-pounds. Next could be 4×10 in the preacher curl with 50/60/65/65-pounds. Had the preachers been done in the lead spot using fresh arms 85×10 could easily have been performed instead of a paltry 65-pounds a strength lose of 20%. Is there any physiological point, any progress to be derived from doing sets with 20% less than maximum using fatigued arms? I doubt it. So whats the point? First, sub-maximal training allows you to train longer but what physiological good is it? Extended duration in cardiovascular exercise (assuming the heat rate has been appropriately elevated) is a positive, a plus, a good thing but in progressive resistance training the name of the game is triggering hypertrophy. This occurs as a result of generating exercise intensity. To trigger hypertrophy we need be in close proximity to current limits. When arranging the contents of the workout box, play with the following variables: available time, exercise selection, sets, reps, frequency, pace and rep speed. If you want to work more than one muscle during a workout, please be aware that the 2nd exercise will be weaker than had it been done first. The deeper into a workout you go the more that strength degrades and fades. Comes a point and strength is so compromised that further training is a counterproductive waste of time. In progressive resistance training hard trumps long every time.
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