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Foreword; This piece is not meant to be the final
word when it comes to training.
I do not claim to know everything there is to know about the
subject of exercise. I hope
you enjoy reading this and if you learn anything from it then great!
If you simply say This guy hasnt got a clue then thats
fine too,
.. such is life. Note for best results print off
& read as a booklet.
High
Intensity what does it mean? By
training to momentary muscular failure, or 100% intensity of effort, you
therefore would cross this threshold of an imaginary 95% and
stimulate growth
.in theory. Realise
that growth stimulation is directly linked to intensity of effort, so the
higher the intensity (within limits) the better the growth response should
be. However, as with volume and frequency of workouts, intensity must also
be regulated, as too much can cause a negative response (on a long term
basis, which is different to what you can tolerate on a short term as per
I.A.R.T Blitzδ cycle). Basically this means if you train too intensely, (long term) or
as you become more advanced, in terms of muscle mass and strength, the
likelihood of over training becomes ever more greater, as you are in
effect placing greater and greater demands on you bodys ability to
recover and grow.
Weight training is anaerobic in nature so in order for it not
to turn into aerobic exercise, which is endurance-based training it, must
be of a high
intensity or of a more demanding nature. As
an advanced trainee, there will & should be times when you will have
to increase the demands of your workouts. This can be done by
slightly increasing volume, frequency or intensity via the use of
variables such as force reps, strip sets, negative reps & static holds
etc. As mentioned previously what you can tolerate on a short-term basis
(generally 2-3 weeks) can far exceed what you can tolerate in the
long-term. See Apex by Brian
D Johnston, of the International Association Of Resistance Trainees for a
more in depth discussion on this principle. Also I would refer you to
The Stress of Life by Dr Hans Selye, which discusses his GAS theory.
While it is true that we are all
the same as humans physiologically, other wise modern medicine would not
exist. We are all different in terms of personality, skin texture, eye
colour, etc. Not do what works for you but How? should be the
underlying question. So the need for an individual exercise prescription
based on the above factors is essential to ensure optimum progress is
obtained in the gym.
..
This stands for Specific
Adaptation To Imposed Demands.
This means the body will adapt (See GAS) to a specific
stress or stimulus in a specific
manner. The body is effected by stress in a general manner, bit it
is always of a specific nature. Take a suntan for example. The suns
ultra violet rays are a specific form of stress to the skin. The body
recognises this and responds to this alarm reaction by the
production of a suntan, which is a defensive barrier. But the stress must
be of certain level of intensity, in order for the body to alter its state
or balance. Going out
in the weakest sunlight will not be enough of a threat to the body in
order for it to change the skin colour to protect it from further stresses
or in this case exposure. The
same is true for weight training. Larger muscles are the bodys form of
defence against stress, anaerobic exercise stress to be precise.
So how does this all fit together?
We know that we need to stress the bodys system with high intensity
anaerobic exercise. This will then send a signal saying to the body
saying,
adapt or change or this stress will eventually kill you or in
other words it sends a signal, that the bodys homeostasis (balance) is being threatened. It
adapts in the form of larger and stronger muscles (but not always, as the
body can adapt in other ways also, i.e. lifting proficiency) in order to
cope with the possibility of further attacks. This is why training to
muscular failure & beyond (where possible) is crucial, as the body is very
resistant to change. It likes balance and sees no real reason to
change unless it is demanded
to. This explains why a suntan fades when you stop going out in the hot
summer sun and why muscles shrink or atrophy when you stop exercising with
weights. The body does not want to become bigger, as the cost of
maintaining extra muscle mass is very metabolically expensive; i.e.
requires more energy to maintain. The body is LAZY! By
training to muscular failure & beyond (as per Blitzδ), you are asking the body to do the momentary
impossible, which it does not like.
.. Recovery Ability Recovery ability is something that
is very important, yet rarely addressed, when it comes to understanding
high intensity exercise. Whenever you train you make what is known as an inroad
or hole into your limited recovery ability. We do not know for sure just what the exact
amount of recovery ability we have and it varies from individual to
individual. But it is limited, for if it were not, you would be able to
train everyday all day with no signs of fatigue. Providing of course you
train with a reasonable level of intensity.
The first thing your body must do
after a workout, is replace what has been used up. It must first recover, before it can even begin to adapt or over
compensate in the form of larger muscles. Just how long it takes to recover
between workouts is an individual factor as we all have a different
tolerance to stress. This is solely dependant on genetic traits. Your
recovery ability does improve over time, but only to a certain extent. In order for the body to recover & grow, there must
be sufficient time in-between workouts.
If you train too often or with too much volume you place an
excessive demand on the body resources, which could result in over
training. The last thing it will do is get larger and stronger as this is
purely secondary. By
keeping your workouts brief and spaced well apart and providing you are training with a sufficient level of
intensity, you will be giving the body the required of amount of stimulus
and time for it to recover and grow.
Inroad Inroad, what is it, what does it
mean? Inroad (muscular in this case) is
key when training. In fact the main priority of when you train should be
to inroad (reduce/fatigue) your muscles strength levels as efficiently &
quickly as possible. It is not
to see how much weight you can lift, although you obviously need
resistance/overload to have a workout. But the idea is to reduce
your starting level of strength to a point, which is below the weight of
which you are lifting. Simply put, if your starting level of strength is
100lbs, you then perform repetitions, which progressively makes deeper and
deeper inroads into your strength, until it drops below 100lbs and at that
point you fail on the rep. Some people will make such a deep inroad, that
after a set of e.g.: 6 repetitions to muscular failure they cannot lift a
weight that was fraction of what they started with. Some people are in fact the
opposite and will be able to reproduce the first set and sometimes even
exceed it. This can be related to neurological efficiency, rates of
fatigue, fibres types, i.e.; fast twitch, slow twitch. Generally speaking,
the higher the neurological efficiency, the greater the potential to
recruit and use more muscle fibres, therefore the deeper the inroad the
greater the growth stimulation. However, like intensity, the greater the
inroad, the greater the
demands placed on the body.
So those with a potential to deeply inroad their strength may require
less overall exercise and have to train even more infrequently (than those
with more mixed fibres types) in order for them to progress. These people
in general will also have a higher level of strength relative to their
size, as they tend to have a high degree of fast twitch muscles fibres,
which produce a lot of force, but fatigue very quickly. This explains in
part why they cannot lift a fraction of the original weight they started
with. Such is the level of inroad/fatigue they have produced.
.. Time Under Load or Time Under Tension. Time under Load (TUL), is what the
amount of time that your muscles should be effectively loaded for. The general
opinion in the scientific training community on this principle, is
that for general muscle building and strength purposes a TUL of between 60
to 120 seconds of quality muscular loading should be performed. If one was
performing reps in the standard Nautilus guidelines this would equate to 8
to 12 repetitions performed in a 2 seconds up 4 seconds down manner. If
one is performing slower repetitions, the rep count should be adjusted
accordingly, i.e SuperSlowδ would be 3 to 5 repetitions or something very similar. However if one has a high rate of fatigue in a certain muscle
group, it will be necessary to determine what the ideal TUT is for THAT
particular muscle group, as it can & does vary from muscle group to
muscle group. Refer to
Prescribed Exerciseδ for the correct testing procedures. It has been argued that has one
gets stronger they may need to reduce their TUL/TUT & reps, as the
effects of a longer TUL/TUT could result in over training & overuse
atrophy, which would reduce progress at best.
This ties in with the premise that as one gets progressively larger
& stronger, more intense demands are placed on the body.
Realise that the body simply cannot tolerate a great deal of exercise or
stress (over the long term) and the greater the demands the less overall
it can tolerate. Also as strength increases recovery ability does not
increase to the same level. The purpose of the workout should be to
fatigue the muscles within a certain time frame, TUT/TUL as efficiently as
possible. So you can see that the performance of 1 Rep, high force repetitions is not the best method of building size & strength. To state it simply, BUILD STRENGTH DONT DEMONSTRATE IT or Weight TRAIN not Weight LIFT.
Metabolic Work Metabolic work is very important when it comes to high
intensity exercise. More important than how much
weight you lift is how you lift it.
. The action of the limbs to lift the weight is mechanical work, the
by-product of this work is metabolic work, or the work your body is doing
on a cellular level. As you perform your repetitions (assuming you are
training to muscular failure) you will begin to notice a more profound
metabolic effect and as your reps get harder, this effect will be felt in
the presence of laboured breathing, muscular burning, discomfort and a
elevated heart rate. In effect brutally hard work! Productive exercise is not meant to be fun its
meant to be hard, bloody hard, anything that is considered to be fun
is recreation, such as football, tennis, golf etc. Do not make the mistake of comparing your workouts to
recreational activities. Accept the fact that in order for you to get
progressively bigger & stronger, you are going to have to train with a
high level of intensity for best results. Such work is not fun, but if you
have the motivation and mentality, your results will be more than worth
the discomfort that this type of training produces.
Muscular Loading Why is muscular loading important? Surely the idea is
to simply lift as much weight as possible?
Remember you are weight
training not weight
lifting, of which
there is a big difference. The purpose of the workout should be to load
or work the muscles through a complete and as comfortable range of
motion as possible. You should, if possible try to load the muscle from
the start of the repetition to the finish. By doing this you will
effectively recruit and stimulate more muscle fibres. So just how is the best way to effectively load the
muscles? Simply
stated, perform your repetitions in a slow & deliberate manner with no
sudden jerks or acceleration. Jerking the weight in an explosive manner,
will increase the force generated dramatically and increases the
possibility of injury. No one knows for sure just what the tensile limit is of
the tendons, which are the sinews, which attach the muscles to the bone.
I for one wouldnt like to find out, would you? So avoid
explosive type lifting practises and this should hopefully never happen.
Injuries are usually caused through the use of excessive force & not
the actual weight on the bar itself.
So why do I train this way? I train
using a slow and smooth rep cadence, which is typically 6/6. I have used
10/10 in the past, which is the same rep cadence as advocated by the
SuperSlowδ
Federation. What is SuperSlow? SuperSlowδ
is a philosophy, whereby you perform all your reps in a slow & smooth
fashion to muscular failure and once positive muscular failure has been
reached, you attempt to inroad your strength further by
pushing against the resistance in a continuous manner for about 10
seconds. This method of
training is by nature a very intense form of training and not for the
faint hearted. You initially have to reduce the starting resistance by
about 40% less than what you are used to, but dont let this fool you.
As a 200 lb Squat will feel unbelievably heavy when you experience the
level of fatigue and inroad that this method of training provides. For
some it is just too much for their ego to take, they would rather demonstrate
just how much weight they can throw about, instead of performing the
intense metabolic work of developing that strength in the first place.
SuperSlowδ is also probably one of the safest ways to train. As by moving so
slow you reduce the amount of stress& force placed on the joints and
connective tissues. This was one of the
main reasons I was drawn to it. As I had become more & more concerned
of the long-term effects that heavy high force squatting was placing on my
lower back and spine. I was also not seeing a corresponding increase in
muscle mass in relation to my strength increase. I decided that a 500lbs
Squat was more than enough stress for my spine to take. Now I get a much more
effective workout with a weight that is significantly lower than I was
using before, yet it feels just as heavy such is the effect of
proper muscular loading as apposed to seeing how much weight I
could lift. Im also
experiencing some of my best size & strength gains for quite some time
and it could be said that I am not that far off my genetic size &
strength potential (at 5ft 10 and about 210 fairly lean lbs) in which size
& strength gains are slower to attain. Sadly like most things in life
size 7 strength are finite, other wise we would continue to get bigger
& stronger until we die! Slow rep high
intensity exercise, is not for everyone though. As some people comment
that they find it boring. How they come to this conclusion is beyond me. I
think it has something to do with what is known in SuperSlowδ circles, as the six
week rule, in that after
six weeks the trainee is just getting used to the exercises, weight
selection and routine etc. The
realisation that its now becoming damn hard work is more than they can
take, or are willing to admit. So they complain that its boring and
switch to something new & exciting with comments like
Yeah I tried it but it was
so boring, that it didnt work for me or words to a similar
effect. Motivation is important to progress & as an advanced trainee,
you will require some degree of variety to literally shock the muscles
into renewed growth. But this
should be used intelligently, not simply on a whim or the fact that a
routine is now becoming hard work. Believe me, if you do
SuperSlowδ or simply slow your reps down to 5/5 or 6/, the last thing you
will find it is, is boring, the level of intensity this training provides has
to be experienced to be appreciated. In conclusion I would like to say approach your training in a logical & critical manner, dont just simply accept what is so, just because some so called expert says that its the way to train.
Suggested Reading
Brzycki, M (1995) A Practical
Approach to Strength Training. 3rd Ed.
Masterpress:USA Darden, E (1990) The Nautilus
Book. Contemporary Books: USA Hutchins, K (1992) Super
Slow: The Ultimate Exercise Protocol. 2nd Ed.
Media Support: USA Johnston, B. D
Prescribed
Exercise Johnston, B D
Apex Johnston B D
System Analyses Johnston B D Individualism Johnston B D Metamorphose Optimus McRobert, S (1991) Brawn. CS Publishing LTD: Cyprus McRobert, S (1998) Beyond Brawn. CS Publishing LTD: Cyprus Mentzer, M Heavy
Duty Mentzer, M Heavy
Duty 2: Mind and Body Paul
Marsland Certified High Intensity Training Specialist Visit
my training board at www.pub40ezboard.com/bhighintensitystrengthtraining Also please visit &
support www.i-a-r-t.com
Artwork By Mark Collins Copyright 2002.Σ High Intensity Terms revised edition 2002.
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