Right, I acknowledge that you get the same blood sugar effects from any processed sugar, separated from its food source so that you can eat more of it faster and without anything else in the stomach to slow absorption. However, what is the form of sugar in the majority of our foods? What form of sugar is used in soda? What form of sugar is incredibly cheap due to subsidies and therefore taken in in larger quantities?
“HIT can be boiled down to intensity, form, and progression. How is that screwy at all?”
That isn’t screwy, but that isn’t HIT as it has been and currently is marketed by the most annoying crowd of nut swinger internet gun slinger type gurus and their mentally unbalanced followers who tend to call anyone who exercises more than one set and/or more than once a week a retard. Now, as I said, I’m not in gunslinging mode and couldn’t care less what retarded brand of HIT or other workout regimen you’ve devoted yourself to. There are a myriad of ways to workout that produce results vis a vi trainee goals that are not and would not be considered HIT. They are effective and that’s all there is to it. HIT is not ‘proper exericse’. It’s an annoying cult for the mentally challenged who feel insecure without a defined structure to lean on and espourse to others to make them feel superior. Whereas normal people just realize low volume high intensity work is appropriate for some trainees and their goals, and not for others.
I guess you believe what every econ PhD says, right? Hey guys, bring on the “stimulus” spending!
And you do realize that people who are champions are champions because they have unusual genetics predisposed towards their activity, right?
And you do realize that there are a few record holders, champions, PhDs, and MDs in the HIT camp too, right?
How about a rigorous experimental protocol that has been proven to increase strength, endurance, metabolic conditioning, and cardiovascular fitness in a study performed at West Point, under the supervision of the coaches there (some of whom were hostile to it), while the testing was performed by outside sources who didn’t even know who funded the study or trained the subjects? Oh right, you don’t like that study because its conclusions don’t fit your worldview. So much for “science.”
No, I don’t agree with every PhD. On the other hand, I don’t spend my time joking about how stupid and uninformed they are. I respect that someone with that level of education most likely has a reason for what they say, and I engage them rather than making jokes in my own circles at their expense. My objection to HIT, as I’ve said before, is not about the science, it’s about the conceptual framework and its application to the real world of training. To deny that the mind and pain-avoidance play a role is just silly. We can convince ourselves of all sorts of things. For instance, when the weight gets really painful around the 12th rep, regardless of what you have left in you, you can convince yourself that you’ve failed. Going to failure makes sense, assuming one can actually make sense of it in a real situation. In practice, most people will not do what you’re calling for.
You’re clearly trying to cloud the facts here.
First of all, the leg extension machine Jones invented was the only one around at the time which could accurately measure strength.
Secondly, the leg extension machine determined the strength of the quadricepetes only (duh).
Thirdly, squats, especially the ways powerlifters “squat,” involve the hamstrings and glutes to a great degree. It’s possible to perform a heavy squat with weak quads, given the right joint angles and strong hams and glutes.
Fourthly, you’re saying that if you don’t like the results of a study or test, that you should perform it over and over again or tweak the method being used until you get the results you want. You sound like a mainstream economist or exercise scientist. “Rigorous experimental protocols.” LOL!
No, I’m talking about obviously absurd results when the basis of the test hasn’t been verified first. What makes more sense - squatting 1000+ with weak quads, or a mistake in machine design or conceptualization?
So everyone has the potential to be Ronnie Coleman. Haha, okay buddy.
No, it’s not that there’s no such thing as genetic potential, it’s that something unquantifiable, and only known after the fact, is not a valid tool of analysis. You can’t tell me ahead of time who can grow and who can’t. All you do with the concept is say that your method is the best, and if someone doesn’t grow on it, he has poor genetic potential. This is question-begging.
Again, powerlifting is a sport, and like every other sport, it requires a lot of skill. Of course you have to be strong to do the powerlifts, but you also have to be strong in order to perform well in other largely anaerobic sports like amateur wrestling. That doesn’t mean that the best heavyweight wrestler in the world is the strongest person in the world. In any case, I’ll play your game for a little. Paul Brodeur, trained in a heavy duty, high intensity way and squatted 1,000 lbs at 318 lbs with 10% bodyfat.
The essentials of what you’re doing are as follows: First you claim that, with a particular training method, you can make 50% per month gains. When it is pointed out that this is problematic, to say the least, you invoke genetic potential as a reason that you shouldn’t have to deliver on your claims. You can bring one person who lifts a heavy weight after using your training method. I’m not limiting the question to powerlifts, choose any lifts you want and HITers should be setting records left and right if they’re gaining 50% per month (which for some reason you extrapolate geometrically.) There aren’t, so you invoke ideas that you never bring up when looking at how other methods work. For instance, another poster mentioned using 3X10 and you asked him if he was gaining. If he wasn’t, what would the conclusion be? Why not that he reached his genetic potential? Because you only invoke that when HIT doesn’t work.
Haha, I know you aren’t serious right now, because if you were, you’d be de facto mentally retarded. But, c’mon, don’t confuse AJ’s hectic and sarcastic writing style with the results he was capable of producing.
And I’m guessing you’re referring to “The Colorado Experiment” which was conducted by Dr. Elliot Plese at Colorado State University? Oh what? Another study that doesn’t confirm your worldview? Shun it!
Locking two people in a room is not a study. If AJ doesn’t want the world to judge him by his published writings, he shouldn’t publish them.
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In order to stimulate growth in as many muscle fibers as possible, you need to recruit as many as possible. You can only do that by taking your sets to failure with proper form.
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If you’re not getting stronger each and every work out, that means that you’re not giving your body enough time and/or resources to grow. Thus, if you’re already running a caloric surplus on a balanced diet, you have to cut the volume of your workouts by either performing less sets per workout or giving your body more rest days per workout, or both.
That’s the bare basics of HIT. Do you disagree with either of these two, logical points?
The first, as I’ve said before, is assuming we have a decent notion of failure. As for the second, why not instead say that you’ve reached your genetic potential? Or that you are not stimulating the muscles enough?
Pain resistance has nothing to do with failure. If you’ve recovered from your previous workout, you will have the same amount of glycogen, if not more. If you’re feeling tired, you shouldn’t be working out. I only work out on days that I feel good and energized.
Again, this is ridiculous, and assumes that somehow you have to shut off all the survival mechanisms your brain uses in order to work out.
You’re saying that it’s possible for 99.9% of people to become as big as Casey and as strong as Paul. Not gonna happen buddy, sorry.
No, I’m saying that you’re making claims that can’t possibly be delivered on, then invoking genetic potential as an out.
It absolutely is measured in an objective way. When you can’t move the bar no matter how hard you push or pull, that’s failure. It’s a very simple formula that you seem to be incapable of wrapping your head around. You’re insisting that only because a lady partially moved a car upward a few inches at most, that disproves “failure.” Bullshit. You have yet to formulate a logical argument as to how this is.
What you’ve shown is that you can type up a definition. You haven’t shown that there’s some connection between what people actually do in the gym and failure. I can convince myself at any point in a set that I’ve failed. You’re expecting a person to be objective about their muscular ability while they’re laying under a weight. The real world doesn’t work this way.
So you should start with 45 lbs and slowly move up on the squat? Again, bullshit. If you do that, you’ll spend an inordinate amount of time just increasing your intensity while doing absolutely NOTHING for size or strength. People following such a program won’t be doing anything for size or strength until they do hit failure. And I don’t mean “oh, I’m feeling ill failure” I mean “I’m pushing with every ounce of strength I can possibly muster, yet somehow this weight is moving in the wrong direction” type of failure.
See, now this is a claim that you didn’t include earlier, but that makes HIT look more absurd. You now want to say that you are doing nothing for size and strength unless you hit failure - but you know it’s problematic to say that directly because plenty of people massively increase those things without using HIT. You’ve gone from “HIT is the best” to “HIT is the only” which is just absurd. I see no reason to start with 45 pounds. In the famous squat routine, you start with a weight that lets you comfortably do 10 reps, then you do rest-pause to get up to 20. Then you add a fixed amount, generally between 5 and 10 pounds, per week, and at each workout, do 20 reps.
“Right, I acknowledge that you get the same blood sugar effects from any processed sugar, separated from its food source so that you can eat more of it faster and without anything else in the stomach to slow absorption. However, what is the form of sugar in the majority of our foods? What form of sugar is used in soda? What form of sugar is incredibly cheap due to subsidies and therefore taken in in larger quantities?”
And how would things be any different if sucrose were used instead? Answer: they wouldn’t. If you’re suggesting avoiding foods with HFCS in them is good because those foods tend to be unhealthy or served in extra large portions with the HFCS being merely an arbitrary marker that works for right now, I’m with you. However subsidies and what not only have an influence on what is in front of us in what portions, they do not force us to eat anything in particular. I go all day without eating HFCS, all month in fact unless I decide to have a soda here or there which I do occassionally. So it’s not like it takes any great effort to avoid such foods.
“See, now this is a claim that you didn’t include earlier, but that makes HIT look more absurd. You now want to say that you are doing nothing for size and strength unless you hit failure - but you know it’s problematic to say that directly because plenty of people massively increase those things without using HIT. You’ve gone from “HIT is the best” to “HIT is the only” which is just absurd. I see no reason to start with 45 pounds. In the famous squat routine, you start with a weight that lets you comfortably do 10 reps, then you do rest-pause to get up to 20. Then you add a fixed amount, generally between 5 and 10 pounds, per week, and at each workout, do 20 reps.”
Perhaps now you see why I didn’t want to spend time going post for post with another HIT’ard like KK? I mean strictly speaking, rationality and consistency aren’t the HIT crowd’s strongest points. You may as well argue The Bible with a fundamentalist Christian, because True Believers in HIT or any other guru backed workout program are just that, believers. Rationality need not apply when you believe someone lived in a whale for a whilem just chillin’, I have no idea why so many such people have gravitated to HIT except perhaps for the various gurus who, like Mentzer (RIP), had shall we say ‘exceptional’ personalities.
If sucrose were used instead, the foods would be more expensive. Then people would, on the margin, consume less of them. Of course they don’t force us to do anything, but undermining the opposition most people have to HFCS will not help the average person’s health. The average person will be healthier giving up HFCS - even if he continues to eat sugary foods, he’ll have to consume them in lower quantities than he would the HFCS good because the price is higher.
“If sucrose were used instead, the foods would be more expensive. Then people would, on the margin, consume less of them.”
Which is only true because those prices are being artificially supported. And for the same amount of consumption, the health affects would be the same. I don’t think either one of us could predict how things would shake out between sweeteners if all trade restrictions were removed. Suffice it to say I agree eating ridicuous amounts of either wouldn’t be good, the true issue is that calorie consuption per person has gone up over the years which brings me back to my point of not singling out things like fructose or HFCS or even more generally carbs as bad when portion control overall is the real issue. What concentrating on portion control does:
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Lets people know they have to eat less to lose weight, which is true.
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Makes them realize it is about discipline and their overall eating habits, not simply rearranging their food intake around certain formulas other than the simple one of eating less than you burn.
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Avoids the tendency to blame this or that food villain (like HFCS or carbs) and using them as a scapegoat for what is really an over consumption problem.
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Takes the impetus away from diets based on magical thinking centered around food villains and their spandex clad hawkers and puts the responsibility on the trainee to eat less, not eat leas carbs or avoid HFCS or gluten or fat or whatever the new food villain will be next week, but to eat less in an absolute sense.
Real fast, do you accept that suggesting that somebody substitute, for example, walnuts for cashews, would be reasonable? We shouldn’t focus on “eating less”, but on limiting your options to what would lead you to eat the right amount without much conscious “intervention”, if you know what I’m saying.
Which is only true because those prices are being artificially supported. And for the same amount of consumption, the health affects would be the same. I don’t think either one of us could predict how things would shake out between sweeteners if all trade restrictions were removed. Suffice it to say I agree eating ridicuous amounts of either wouldn’t be good, the true issue is that calorie consuption per person has gone up over the years which brings me back to my point of not singling out things like fructose or HFCS or even more generally carbs as bad when portion control overall is the real issue. What concentrating on portion control does:
Exactly, I wasn’t taking on the libertarian issue. I was taking on the fact that those subsidies do exist, and that with them in place, people would be better off avoiding HFCS. However, certainly it’s true that calorie consumption has gone up over the years - but it’s also worth looking at just where it’s gone up. Fat consumption hasn’t gone up, it’s dropped. Consumption of sugar has skyrocketed. So it stands to reason that telling people, absent other advice, to “cut the fat and avoid meat and butter, and focus more on consumption of grain products” or creating a pyramid saying that will not help.
Finally, in addition to weight loss, optimal health also requires proper nutrition. While caloric intake has gone up, what’s happened to vitamin and mineral intake? How about transfats?
“Real fast, do you accept that suggesting that somebody substitute, for example, walnuts for cashews, would be reasonable? We shouldn’t focus on “eating less”, but on limiting your options to what would lead you to eat the right amount without much conscious “intervention”, if you know what I’m saying.”
In my experience substitutions and limitations are good attention-getters, but for a lot of people aren’t necessarily the means to change habits. For some it works, they just want a list of stuff that’s okay and stuff that isn’t. But at least from what I’ve seen the biggest issue to overcome is the psychology of food as a reward, and more specifically massive portions of calorie dense food as a reward. Overall I’ve found you can’t ignore the portions, and given the list of okay stuff a lot of people will still over eat. They may be healthier over eating certain foods than others which I guess is progress, but most people have the goal of looking better for whatever it’s worth, and for that they need to lose pounds consistently.
“Finally, in addition to weight loss, optimal health also requires proper nutrition. While caloric intake has gone up, what’s happened to vitamin and mineral intake? How about transfats?”
Last i read which I think was in some research gathered up in Alan Aragon’s blog, calorie intake was up across the boards, not just in sugar or carbs in particular. As for vits a mineral intake I haven’t looked because I’m getting mine, couldn’t care less about others these days. As for trans fats, what? Again, a blanket dismissal of them as ‘bad’ doesn’t take into account CLA and naturally occurring trans fats. I haven’t followed any data on consumption of hydrogenated oils so if it’s up, yeah that’s not necessarily a good thing. But is the issue the transfat itself or the fact that people down two bags of oreos at a time?* Dose always makes the poison, dose need not be what it is assuming it’s high.
*EDIT: And be clear, I’m aware trans fats, especially hydrogenated oils, are bad for one’s health. But the mandate is to reduce consuption to trace amounts, not remove them from the food supply altogether, and some argue for the health benefits of naturally occurring trans fats like CLA.
Squats (full squats) put the quad through at least 90% of its full ROM. Full range of motion and isolation aren’t necessary to stimulate muscles maximally anyway.
Muscle growth is not only related to micro tears, but the hormonal response to lifting weights. Compound exercises work infinitely more muscle mass than any isolation exercises, and therefore result in larger growth.
Seriously, I don’t know any athletes who use the leg extension to build mass or strength in their quads. Its used to pump blood into the leg muscles, and pre contest to cut up and seperate the quad. Compound exercises build mass and strength. No one walks around doing isolation exercises for more than 50% of their routine, and the most intense sets are always compound movements. Isolation is for shaping.
Don’t be so obtuse. No one is so unique. If they were, you’d have no basis to advocate LVT.
Uhh… the supplements comment is a straw man. But if you think supplements can’t significantly improve recovery… I don’t take anything other than protein powder because my recovery is fine, but I bet I’d be a lot stronger if I took estrogen blockers.
Regardless, diet and sleep does have a HUGE impact on recovery. Eating carbs causes insulin to be released, shuttling resources to your muscles. Microtears are only ONE of the ways your muscles need to recover anyway. Glycogen, damage from lactic acid… A very large amount of growth hormone and T is released during sleep. That’s why bodybuilders sleep all the time.
Not to be mean, but if you had a bad experience with traditional programs, and you weren’t eating lean protein and slow digesting carbs every 2-3 hours, sleeping 8 hrs a night, and taking a 20 min nap during the day, that probably explains why. Low volume training is a lazy man’s workout. They’ll never get the results that traditional fitness models, bodybuilders, and powerlifters get. They’ll just blame their genetics.
Uhh… doing 1 set versus 3 sets. Doing 10 reps versus 5. One takes a LOT more energy. It has to come from somewhere.
Uhh.. and muscle glycogen, and ATP. There is a reason powerlifters can do 1 rep of 500, and not get 15 reps of 315. Fibers in and of themselves don’t fatigue. They run out of energy.
Despite my low testosterone (430ng/dl), yes. I have been increasing every workout. 5-10%. And I do 3x10 because it feels like a good balance between strength and endurance. I’ve done 5x5 and the sets aren’t long enough to deplete muscle glycogen. I’ve done 10x10 and you can’t go heavy enough to justify the focus on endurance.
I think people go to lower volume because it is a lot easier to get increases in strength that way. Neurological adaptation masks physical stagnation. Makes you feel like you’re making fast progress.
Also consider that higher volume will deplete your muscle glycogen, increasing the tissue’s insulin sensitivity. This allows you to eat more, and more nutrients to get into the muscles. Another benefit of not going low volume.
Additionally, you get a pump from working out one or two body parts during workouts, and the extra blood helps feed your muscles more. Full body, low volume workouts spread the blood around, so you don’t get the benefit.
“Uhh… the supplements comment is a straw man. But if you think supplements can’t significantly improve recovery… I don’t take anything other than protein powder because my recovery is fine, but I bet I’d be a lot stronger if I took estrogen blockers.”
Meh. In my experience raising your test with OTC herbs be they estrogen blockers or free test enhancers is a lot of money for little return, a little hardness and vascularity. If you want to go that route, best save you money and get some real hormones and go to town. It won’t cost much more, the results will be great, and the risks while real have been over blown.
Also I’d note his fixation on muscle damage and your mentioning of hormone levels and large compound movements. I’d take issue with both. There is plenty of research showing muscle growth absent traditional signs of damage as well as growth even though ‘recovery’ from the previous bout hadn’t been completed. There is also research both ways on whether or not the acute and chronic changes in hormone levels in response to resistance training really amount to all that much. There was a recent study I saw that looked into just this issue and came up wanting, I’ll see if I can dig it up for you if you’d like.
All told one of the main reasons why a devotion to HIT or any other particular program is stupid is because our understanding of what drives muscle growth and strength gains is evolving as we learn more, and right now there seem to be a variety of possible pathways to accompish either goal. Real ‘proper’ exercise would start with a varied approach and then using the trainee’s goals as a guide, hone in on the methods they seem to respond to the best,
I was thinking about nolvadex. But you’re right, straight up steroids are supplements. I don’t mess with them though. My gym’s manager says I should just save supplements to break plateaus… like start taking creatine for a little while if I get stuck. Take caffiene if you’ve had a bad day, etc.
At the very least, he has to concede that exercising with higher volumes increases the insulin sensitivity of muscles more because it depletes their glycogen. So when you ingest carbs, and your body releases insulin, a larger portion of nutrients are driven into muscle rather than adipose tissue.
Pretty good recommendation. I used to get a kick out the NO Explode types who used to to swear by it when some monohydrate and 200mg of caffeine would do the same thing minus the pump. I went through a supplement phase, guess lots of people do, and then a steroid phase, and now all I take a multi vit and fish oil regularly. Everything else is, as with you, saved for when I might need a little bump.
No, he doesn’t, though he might. Remember as with any religion: rationality. In my experience getting logic into the head of an HIT’ard is like trying to thread a needle with an oyster.