ADVICE FOR BEGINNERS FROM A 50-YEAR VETERAN Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 10:07:08 -0400 From: "John V. Higgins" Subject: Beginners' workouts Message-ID: <199609011407.AA23013@zelacom.com> I read with interest Rich Muller's advice to beginners and it is somewhat at a variance with my own experience. Perhaps I've been at this too long, fifty years, but I have started a number of people on weight training, including my own children and grandchildren, and seen many other beginners. Most beginner haven't bodies resistant to the demands entailed in concentrating on one or two body parts in each workout. Moreover, such workouts are not necessary, beginners are easy to train. It's easy for most people to make progress at the beginning of their careers in weight training than at any other time, if they train properly and don't overtrain. It's easy for beginners because of the way muscles grow. AS I understand it (a more scientific explanation is provided in Pat O'Shea's "Quantum Power Training"), with untrained muscles, i.e., muscles with few fibers that respond to stimuli, it's easy "reach" new fibers in the muscles, increase their excitability, and thus increase the beginners' strength. The fibers are activated by nerve impulses and each nerve strand is connected to a number of fibers, up to 150. An impulse is transmitted through the fibers, from fiber to fiber, but the impulse is never or rarely transmitted to every muscle cell connected to the strand of nerve. At some point the impulse is no longer strong enough to be passed on. The number of fibers excited by the impulse is a function of the strength of the impulse and the excitability of the individual fibers; the latter, in turn, is a function of previous training. Only after the muscle fiber is stimulated does it grow with the addition of blood plasma and extra material (myofibrils). At the same time, the capillary network in the muscle grows to provide more nourishment and bulk. It might be convenient to think of the muscle fibers as being arranged in layers, the first layer being the most susceptible to stimulation, each lower layer progressively less so. A strong impulse activates many fibers, reaches "down" through many layers, an weak impulse activates a lesser number, reaches down through few layers; the number of "layers" an impulse can reach is the principal difference between a strong muscle and a weak one. The process of getting stronger is primarily one of increasing the impulse into the muscles, reaching more fibers, and making the fibers more excitable. As a muscle becomes excitable (hooked up, as it were), the number of subfibers (myofibrils) in it increases and the capillary network grows. Thus muscles grow in size but not by adding more fibers. The number of muscles (there is some variation) and muscle fibers are thought to be fixed at birth. Since the processes of generating them differ, strength and size are correlated but not identical. An analogy might be that of a farmer harnessing a skinny horse to his team and then fattening it (you can see I date back to when farmers used horses and mules). Tendons and ligaments, the connective tissue, are strengthened along with the muscles but they take two or three times as long to strengthen (O'Shea, p.56). I've always thought that was the trouble with baseball players like Mickey Mantle or Ricky Henderson, who are naturally very strong and quick but are not kept in good shape by their sport. Such players seem always to be pulling muscles and hamstrings. Baseball playing produces ballistic forces on the body but doesn't strengthen it. As John Kruk said,"I'm a baseball player, not an athlete." Most bodybuilding injuries are of the same type, the muscles produce more force than the connective tissue is ready to handle. Connective strength is produced by weight-bearing exercises, which is one of the arguments against the extensive use of bodybuilding machines. A beginner or a lifter resuming after a long lay-off must be particularly careful about his muscle strength not outrunning the strength of his connective tissue. In other words, they have to be extra careful about "pulling" a muscle. To make progress a beginner just must reach the most accessible fibers that he doesn't ordinarily use, the first layer in our illustration. The nerve impulses don't have to passed very far along each strand of nerve. Consequently, the exercise doesn't make great demands on the nervous system. If a lifter is to become stronger he must generate more powerful nerve impulses to activate more fibers. He must reach more layers of muscle fibers, which makes more demands on the nervous system. An advanced lifter must find some way of making greater demands on the nervous system and the muscles, while still not driving the body too hard. At that point the lifter should specialize in each workout on one or two lifts or body parts. A typical beginner finds the recovery from a workout much easier. He can work the whole body three times per week without overtraining. In that manner he will make more progress than working the whole body once per week. Along these lines, Medvedyev, the Russian coach and former world champ, in his "Program of Multi-Year Training" (available from Dynamic Fitness Equipment, PO Box 510505, Livonia, MI 48151) starts a novice lifter on a program that covers pulling, pressing, and squatting in each workout. I like to see a beginner start working out on a complete program: standing press, rowing, squats, bench press, some form of deadlift, upright rowing, db press, and curls (or reverse curls). One set each at first, the work up to three sets, increasing the weight between sets. After making some progress most lifters should go on a program of a limited number of heavy exercises, something like: standing press, power clean, squats, and bench presses, doing 5X5 with the training weight in each exercise. If he really needs to gain weight the old limited program of doing squats in 20 reps will help. You can overdo that one and turn into a fat, sloppy monster. With a complete start a beginner can find out what exercises and techniques work best for him. If he gets off on the wrong foot, his mistakes will seem natural to him and he will thereafter perfect his method of making the mistakes. Obviously, the force driving the muscles comes from the nervous system (why is the system nervous?). Overtraining occurs not in the muscles but in the nervous system. Muscles can be sore and can be injured without the trainee otherwise experiencing a reduction in strength or energy. But he can be overtrained without any particular discomfort in the body. It is a real phenomenon that occurs in all sports (in all human endeavors, for that matter). Boxers must be careful not to overtrain, although too many of them now are too careful. Rocky Marciano, the old heavyweight champ, was so good because he had an unusual capacity to train. He could train through almost the entire year without going stale, an ability very few other athletes possess. In his fights he seemed to grow stronger as the rounds progressed; he didn't, but seemed stronger as his opponents tired. One method, a very good one, of avoiding overtraining is periodization (a very awkward word), with specific objectives in each phase of the training and specific steps in the progress toward those objectives. A beginner may be able to get away with instinctive training, an advanced trainee must be more systematic. One word about research. The dependability of statistical results depends on the number of factors considered by the analysis, in other words, on the model. No model can include many factors, i.e., variables, and still give statistically reliable results. When we deal with a complex subject, such as training the body, we can include only a small fraction of the factors influencing the real results. In fact, it's an open question whether we can even find variables that are reliable proxies for the real factors we wish to study. Successful studies, which do not include only those with positive results, might give us some indication of what works, but none are definitive. It's not like simple Newtonian physics. What works? History, the experience of other lifters. Worthwhile statistical models are drawn from the real world; if we can't do controlled experiments, then we can examine the raw material of experimentation and discuss what we think we've learned. That's what forums like this are all about. John Higgins Date: Mon, 16 Sep 1996 08:57:51 -0400 From: "John V. Higgins" Subject: Training for beginners As I've written, I like to see a beginner on an all-round training program, starting with one set of ten reps in each exercise. As he progresses I'd have him add sets to the exercises up to three but not limit sets. Pete Alexion mentions the important principle of recruitment of the muscle fibers. I'd apply that to all exercise routines, including that of a beginner. After the initial phase of training, the beginner should do two and then three sets in each exercise. The first set would be a light warmup, the second one in which ten reps can be done fairly easily, the third would be the set to work to a target. On the third set the lifter would begin handling a weight for eight reps and, over time, work up to twelve. Then weight would be added to the last set for the next workout and the earlier sets adjusted accordingly. The point is that the trainee would not be making great demands on the nervous system except for the eight or so last sets. To me, the key to any training system are the demands made on the nervous system. As a model, the routine allows the nervous system while it is comparatively fresh, while it still has a lot of electrical potential, to recruit unused muscle fibers to replace those that are partially desensitized by earlier sets of exercises. I like to run all my routines like that. I've tried routines using a comparatively large number of limit heavy sets (such as eight sets of two reps after a warmup, used by John Davis in the old days) and they don't work for me. I'd rather gradually approach my heaviest poudages in a workout and do two or three sets at the limit for the day. If I work to limit poundages, I might take small jumps, maybe of five pounds, to one limit set. Lifters in competition do the same thing as they warmup backstage and then take their three attempts on the platform. For a beginner the same principles apply. Most beginners have great nervous potential compared to the number of muscle fibers accustomed to responding to stimuli (i.e., sensitized). They can work all the trained muscle fibers they have without making great demand on the nervous system. In two days most of them are ready to work all of the body again, their nervous potential has been fully restored. In comparison with specialized workouts, it's a matter of comparative advantage. One trouble with limiting a workout to one or two body parts is that the trainee tends to do a lot of auxiliary exercises to maintain training volume. (On the distinctions between volume and intensity, see the Queensland weightlifting page, which can be reached as an alternative site through "On the Platform", http://www.waf.com/weights/index.html.) To work the upper back, for example, a trainee using a specialized program might do rowing motions, shrugs, bent-over DB lateral raises, and a variety of pulling exercises on the machines, most of which is of no use to a beginner. For one thing, such a routine does little for body strength, for the tendon and ligament strength, which takes two or three times as long to develop as muscular strength. I think that is why trainees who use the machines extensively are not as strong out of the gym, in real life, as lifters who concentrate on the basic lifts. A specialized workout must use far less than optimal weights in the later exercises. I think it will tend to work muscle fibers that have already been reached by the principal exercise for the body part, rowing in our example above. By the time a trainee in our example reaches the pulley machines he will be using much less weight for the given number of reps than he could have used earlier in the workout. It seems to me that his nervous energy will be depleted and muscle fibers used earlier will have partially recovered. Thus the weakened nervous impulse will not get through to unused fibers and the trainee will be working fibers that he has already used. His aim, though, should be always to reach new fibers, to recruit more fibers in the muscles and to increase the nervous impulse to the muscle. A specialized routine has a place in the training of an advanced bodybuilder, but not in that of a beginner. I've never read anything a satisfactorily explanation for the increase in nervous energy or the recruitment of new fibers. Authorities just attribute them to the effects of training, but never explicate the process. Kinesiologists have outlined the static results, the before-and-after, but I've never seen a satisfactory scientific explanation of the works in progress. That leaves us with historical experience, our collective personal experience. (Exclusively personal experience is a hard way to learn, usually just a collection of mistakes.) The nervous system is the key to progress; a lifter must always try to work get stronger, to increase his nervous impulse, without overtraining, without exhausting the nervous system. It's a balance, but I don't think it is a delicate balance. From the record, many systems work. A variety of training routines over a long period is valuable, reaches muscle fibers not reached in other ways, as long as the trainee gets the full value from each system in turn and doesn't have a new routine every week. Some routines don't work well for some lifters. If you find one that doesn't work for you, avoid it in the future, no matter how well it works for some other lifters. To assert that there is one perfect method of training is to be like the schlock artists that tell you that their system will put you in the stock market only when it rises and will have in cash when stocks fall. Pure BS. Having said that, I still think that the best method of training is on a limited number of basic lifts, train hard in the gym, strive always to get stronger, get out of the gym in a little more than an hour (unless you a competitor in the contest mode), and, perhaps the most important point, be regular in your training. Keep it simple; after all, the body can only push, pull, and squat, all else is commentary. One added note on the upright rowing: The only people I've seen hurt by the exercise, which puts the lateral deltoids in a weak position, are those who tried to make it a power exercise. When working for power the upright rowing should be superseded by the power clean, a much superior exercise. John Higgins