Youve got about an hour…Music and cardio
3 March 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Youve 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%.
Those savvy enough to continually cross the limit line safely and consistently encounter a reoccurring phenomenon: the exercises done at the beginning of the session are showcased maximally and attacked with the requisite gusto but those exercises placed at the end of the session inevitably suffer; these exercises suffer because available energy, a finite substance, has been depleted by the all-out effort expended in the beginning and middle sections of the session. Ever notice how exercises performed at the end of a long session suffer in terms of performance, compared to those exercises done at the beginning or in the middle of the training session? This is why I always advise attacking the most important exercises first. Classically the Purposeful Primitive weight trainer thinks in terms of muscle zones. The back consists of traps, lats, erectors, rhomboids, teres and rear deltoids; the legs are comprised of quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes and calves; the front torso consists of upper and lower pectorals, front and side deltoids, biceps and triceps. The abdominal region is called the abs. Typically the Purposeful Primitive will train two major muscle groups per session: back and bicepschest and tricepslegs and shoulders. We always start with the big, sweeping, compound multi-joint progressive resistance exercises at the beginning and in the middle of the session. We attack the critical exercises while energy is still available. The Purposeful Primitive knows the energy clock is running, the sands in the hour glass are draining and time is not on our side. Never compromise intense effort in order to artificially extend the session.
Hit the lead compound exercise of the session first than follow up with an isolation exercise or two. Move on to the next muscle zone and commence with the 2nd compound exercise for the second zone. We want to get to the 1st and 2nd compound movement (interspersed with the isolation exercises that back up the 1st compound exercise) done before the gas tank runs dry. We save the dink-oid exercises that back up the 2nd compound exercise for the end of the session. Often, we dont make the finish line before the well runs dry but if weve gotten the 1st compound exercise done, the backup isolation exercises for the 1st done and the 2nd compound exercise completed, then weve gotten in a great session. If were able to perform the isolation movement(s) for the 2nd exercise, then thats gravy on the mash potatoes. A good rule of thumb is if you train hard energy is going to start heading south at about the forty to fifty minute mark. There are a couple insider tricks-of-the-trade that will extend available energy. My favorite session-extending trick is to drink a smart bomb shake consisting of whey protein powder and malt dextrin carbohydrate powder halfway through the workout. I use dry powder and keep it in a small Tupperware bottle. When Im ready to activate the powder I take the bottle out of my gym bag, walk to the water fountain, add enough cold water to liquefy the mixture and drink it down. There is no smarter or more physiologically beneficial thing you can do following an intense workout than supply battered muscle tissue with exactly what it needs to heal and grow. My powdered concoction contains 50-grams of high biologic value whey protein and 80 to 100 grams of glycogen-replenishing carb powder.
By consuming my post-workout smart bomb during the workout I take full advantage of the window of opportunity that opens during an intense workout and snaps shut about an hour after the cessation of the session: while the window is open nutrients are absorbed and distributed at roughly 150% the normal rate of assimilation. This trick is used by the iron elite to allow them go longer and harder. I find drinking my shake during the workout dramatically forestalls end-of-workout energy nosedives. Do the important stuff first and drink a smart bomb halfway through the workout.
Invaluable Training Tool #1, Music! I love to listen to music when I train. I can get more focused and find I am able to invoke what Schwarzenegger called, The Heightened Arousal Zone much easier when I listen to tunes. I can get a little more psyched-up on those all important top sets when Im in the music zone. I carry an ever-changing selection of music and will rotate them freely and often depending on my mood. This applies to both progressive resistance training and cardio. Those who know me know that 80% of my aerobic activity consists of power-walking up and down the steep fire trails that crisscross the Catoctin Mountains. I can literally walk to the mountains from my house and my usual procedure is to listen to music while I take nature power walks. I wear my heart rate monitor and shoot for 75-85% of age-related heart rate maximum and a 10-15 calorie-per-minute oxidation rate. I get my best thinking done on these high intensity backwoods walks while listening to anything from Big Pink to Coltrane, bebop to hip-hop, Bach to Hendrix and all musical points between. I am hoping to make the move to the IPOD in the next few months.
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