From: Lyle McDonald Newsgroups: misc.fitness Subject: Beginner's info Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 21:34:07 EST Hi! Lyle here again with more information to help you reach your goals In any case, this is the first part of a multi-part series of an introduction to exercise, both aerobic and weight training. I will be starting at a very basic level for the first few posts in order to define some key terms involved. In this post, I will adress certain basic principles involved in all types of exercise (no, not the damn Weider principles). So, let's go. Aerobic exercise: Literally any exercise where oxygen is not the limiting factor like long distance low intensity cycling or running. Generally aerobic exercise is associated with greater fat burning but I will adress this issue later. Anaerobic execise: Any exercise where oxygen is the limiting factor like sprinting or weight training which are of high intensity but low duration. Generally anaerobic exercise is associated with greater carbohydrate usage. Again, I will adress this later. Overload: Quite simply, you must do more work than you are accustomed to in order to cause improvements. For example, if you were to curl a soup can 20 times, you probablly would not be doing more than your biceps is accustomed to. However, if you curled a 30 pound dumbbell the same number of times, you might be. Overload causes the stimulus for adaptation, the next term. Adaptation: When stressed, the body will adapt to the stress. Let's say you are curling the afformentioned 30 pound dumbbell for 20 reps. At first, this may be too much weight and you cannot do all 20 reps. Well, after a period of time, the muscle will adapt by growing stronger so that 30 lbs is no longer an overload. This fact of adaptation brings us to the next concept. Progression: In order to realize consistent gains, there must be a progression in the overload. Using the same example, having adapted to 30 lbs for 20 reps, you are no longer overloading the muscle. If you wanted to get stronger, you would have to use a heavier weight to cause another overload. However, if you merely wanted to maintain, you could stay with the 20 lb dumbbell and not progress. Specificity: Only the system stressed will be improved. That is, if you wanted to run a marathon, you would not begin a weight lifting program. Similarly, if you wanted to increase upper body strength/size, you would probably not becaome a long-distance cyclist. Your goals will determine what specific exercise type (or modality) which you should use. There are some crossover effects (i.e. crosstraining) but they tend to be rather small. For example, running may improve your cycling somewhat but not nearly as much as cycling would improve your cycling. Frequency: The number of times per week an exercise modality is performed. There a lot of different theories regarding the optimal times per week to exercise. Some elite athletes train 7 days per week twice a day or more. Instead of giving my opinions on optimal frequency, I will quote the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) guidelines for minimal adaptation. Aerobic exercise can be performed a minimum number of twice per week to see aerobic benifits. For body composition changes, three times is the bare minimum. For weight training, twice per week is the bare minimum. Intensity: How hard an exercise is performed. It is normally used for aerobic exercise and is frequently expressed as a percentage of Maximum heart rate or VO2 Max ( I will go into more detail on this a little later). Intensity is directly related to the next concept. It can also describe how hard a given weight workout is. ACSM reccomendation for aerobic exercise are 60-80% of Heart Rate Reserve (again I will describe this later) which corresponds roughly to 60-80% VO2 Max. Duration: How long an exercise is performed on any given day. Duration is generally inversely proportional to intensity. The harder you go, the less time you can go and vice versa. ACSM recs for aerobic exercise are 20-60 minutes of exercise within the target heart range. That's it for now. All comments to lylemcd@delphi.com. Lyle From: Lyle McDonald Newsgroups: misc.fitness Subject: Beginner's info Date: Thu, 25 Nov 93 19:36:28 EST Hi again. Well, I realized after posting the list of general exercise terms that I had failed to explain a few things adequately, like heart rate reserve and VO2 max. So, in this post, I will delve further into determining exercise intensity for aerobic exercise. VO2 , or oxygen uptake, is merely a measure of the amount of of oxygen you body is processing at a given time. It is generally represented in units of ml oxygen / kg body weight / min. VO2 max is the maximal amount of oxygen your body is capable of processing at a maximal exercise level. The VO2 max for an average untrained individual is about 35 ml/kg/min while some elite athletes have values as high as 70 or more. This means that the athletes are able to perform at a higher level than an untrained individual which makes sense. In any case, unfortunately, measurement of VO2 requires an exercise lab and rather expensive equipment. However, one measure of exercise performance, namely percentage of heart rate reserve, has been found to correlate highly with a percentage of VO2 max. The old method of determining exercise intensity was percentage of maximum heart rate but heart rate reserve has been found to be more accurate as it takes level of training into account. Heart rate reserve is found by taking the maximum heart rate and then subtracting resting heart rate. Max heart rate is generally estimated by 220 - age. Understand that this is only an estimate and can vary by up to 10%. For most purposes, however, it is sufficiently accurate. From this value, subtract the resting heart rate. The resulting value is the heart rate reserve. Multiply this value by .6 and .8 to get 60-80% of the reserve and then add the resting heart rate back in. These two values represent the Target Heart Range (THR) for aerobic exercise. So, using myself as an example: I am 23 with a resting heart rate of 48. So, Max heart rate (MHR): 220-age = 220 - 23 = 197. Heart rate reserve: MHR - resting heart rate = 197 - 48 = 149. 60% = 149 * .6 = 89 80% = 149 * .8 = 119 Adding resting heart rate we get 60% = 89 + 48 = 137 80% = 119 +48= 167. So my THR is from 137 to 167 to make aerobic improvements. Let me explain how to take your pulse at rest and at exercise. The most common places to take pulse are at the brachial artery at the wrist and the carotid artery in the neck. Using your first two fingers (not your thumb) press lightly at the selected sight. Every thump you feel is a heart beat. Count for 10 seconds with the first count being zero. Multiply the resulting value by six to get your heart rate in beats per minute. When measuring at the carotid artery, do not press too hard or you risk causing a pressure response which could result in fainting. For resting pulse, I would recommend sitting quietly for a few minutes before measuring. During exercise, you should probably take your pulse every few minutes following a five to ten minute warmup while increasing the intensity (either speed or resistance) until you reach your target heart rate. While exercising, continue moving while taking your pulse. Otherwise, you risk fainting due to the pooling of blood in your legs. Ok, so now let's examine the components of a good cardiovascular workout. First and foremost should be a warmup. This should be five to ten minutes of very low intensity activity to increase heart rate and raise body temperature. This can be followed by some light stretching in desired. Then, you should try to spend 20-60 minutes in the target heart range. This should be followed by a cool down of 5 to 10 minutes of lower intensity exercise. The cool down is important for a feew reasons. First and foremost is safety. Going from exercise to a dead stop without a transition period can cause fainting. During exercise, muscular contraction is one of the primary methods of returning blood to the heart. If these contractions stop suddenly, there can be a large drop in blood pressure which may cause fainting. Secondly, the cool down will help the body dispose of waste products generated by exercise, especially lactate and may help prevent soreness. This cooldown can be followed by more stretching in order to increase flexibility. The stretching prior to exercise was merely part of the warmup. I will describe proper stretching principles in another post. With regard to frequency, the minimum to see aerobic benefits seems to be twice per week. For body composition changes (i.e. fat loss), three times seems to be the bare minimum. ACSM recommends performing 20-60 minutes of work in the target heart range 3-5 times per week. That wraps it up for now. As always, question/comments to lylemcd@delphi.com. Lyle From: Lyle McDonald Newsgroups: misc.fitness Subject: Aerobic exercise and fat loss Date: Thu, 25 Nov 93 19:39:03 EST Hi again. Of all of the info I'm going to post, I imagine this one will draw the most criticism and disbelief. As a preface let me make a couple of points. First and foremost, I am an exercise scientist (of sorts) and use science as my primary benchmark when determining the "truth". However, I do realize that scientists and athletes do not always agree about what is correct and that research has to be tempered with real world observations. Also, in the field of sports research, very few things are cut and dry. Beliefs change frequently and research is often contradictory. So, what I'm going to present is some of the current research and findings into one of the most debated topics in exercise.Today I will be talking about: Aerobic Exercise and the Fat Burning Myth Before I get started, let me ask everyone reading this one question. "Have you ever seen a fat sprinter?" Think about this question while you read this post and I will explain why I asked it at the end. Myth #1: After 20 minutes of aerobic exercise, your body is using predominantly fat as the fuel for exercise. This belief has pervaded the exercise world for a very long time. Unfortunately, it is incorrect. First, the body always uses some combination of fat and carbohydrate during exercise. Second, the time course of fat usage during exercise is much slower than that. A study of trained cyclists will help to explain why this myth is incorrect. Basically, a group of cyclist rode at a moderate intensity while the amount of each substrate being used was measured. At the one hour period, they were still deriving over 60% of the calories burned from carbohydrate. Of the approx. 40% fat being burned, only 27% came from fat cells while the other 13% came from intramuscular fat. This merely serves to point out that it can take upwards of an hour for fat to be a major energy source during exercise. We'll see later on that it really doesn't matter with respect to fat loss. Myth #2: Well trained people will shift over to fat burning faster than untrained people. Also, low intensity exercise will burn more fat than high intensity exercise. A study was done at Georgia State U. on very well trained aerobics teachers. They stepped for approx 40 minutes (about the length of a typical step class) while the source of energy was measured as above. Mind you, these were extremely well trained teachers and the intensity of their exercise was approx 60% of their max which is fairly low. Of the total energy expended, over 90% came directly from carbohydrate with only a small amount coming from fat. This draws some serious doubt on both the above myths. We'll also see later that this doesn't matter either for fat loss. At this point, I'm guessing that you're saying "Well, if I can only burn fat if I exercise an hour or more, why should I bother?" This brings us to the final myth. Myth #3: You must burn fat during exercise to lose fat. Two very similar studies have found evidence that this is simply not the case. One was done at UCLA (my alma mater) while the other was perormed at Georgia State U. Both had two groups exercising at either a very high intensity or a very low intensity. The exercise was standardized so that both groups burned the same number of calories. One group exercised approx. 50 minutes at a very low intensity (~50% VO2max) while the other exercised approx. 25 minutes at a very high intensity (~90% VO2 max). Well, based on the pervading myths, only the low intensity group should have lost fat. But, at the end of 18 week, bodyfat loss was identical. Now you're saying "But if the high intensity group burned only carbs, how did they lose fat?" They don't really know. However, what seems to be important is the caloric deficit rather than the manner of burning the calories. Even if you do tons, of low intensity exercise, if you still eat too much, you will not lose fat. So, how about our sprinter. Well, sprinters, who tend to be phenomenally lean break all of the supposed rules for fat loss. They do lots of short duration, high intensity work burning only carbs during exercise. However, their bodyfat levels are extremely low. Now, am I recommending that everyone go out and start running sprints to lose fat. Well, no. First and foremost, high intensity exercise greatly increases the chance for injury, especially if you are just starting out. Second, high intensity exercise is very uncomfortable. If you are just starting, you will not continue exercising if you put yourself through lots of unenjoyable and painful exercise. However, assuming you have been working out a sufficient amount of time to be physically able to do high intensity work, you will definitely see greater fat loss by exercising at a higher intensity because you will be burning more calories for a given time period. This is especially important for those people who have a given amount of time that they can exercise. In order to burn more calories, they should increase the intensity since they cannot increase the time. As I said at the outset, this post will probably draw the greatest amount of criticism. Before you start flaming me or sending me hate mail, please take a second to think about the information I've presented with an open mind. Then, if you still think I'm full of it, let the flames begin. Lyle lylemcd@delphi.com From: Lyle McDonald Newsgroups: misc.fitness Subject: beginning weight training.part1 Date: Thu, 25 Nov 93 19:41:03 EST Hi guys. This is the second part of my intro to basic exercise. Today, I will focus in a little more specifically on weight training and on some of the terminolgy involved. Isotonic: A type of resistance training where the resistance does not change throughout the range of motion. The mahority of training equipment falls into this category. A dumbbell provides the same resistance throughout the motion of a bicep curl. Admittedly, it may feel heavier or lighter during certain parts of the movement but this is due to changing biomechanical factors around the elbow joint. The mojority of machines fall into this category as well. Some machines (notable Cybex and Nautilus) attempt to overcome this and provide different resistance throughout the motion by using an elliptical cam. The usefulness of these cams is open to debate. I have my own opinions about Nautilus but will keep them to myself. Isokinetic: A type of resistance where the speed of motion is determined by the machie (i.e. 60 degrees per second). Unless you work in a physical therapy setting with very expensive machines, you will never see a true isokinetic machine for the most part. These machines have to use a computer to adjust the resistance constantly in order to keep the speed of motion constant. Thus they reun about $50k. I don't care what NordicGold says, it is not a true isokinetic machine. The hydraulic type of machines found in some gyms might be a little closer but they are still not true isokinetic machines. Isometric: A type of resistance where there is no motion at a joint. This is the theory behind the dynamic tension type of workouts that we all saw in the back of comic books. It's usefulness to the average body shaper and fitness entusiast is very debatable. It is useful if no equipment at all is available but even then most exercise can be duplicated with body weight or elastic straps. The biggest problem with isometric exercise is that strength gains are only realized at the joint angle used. Thus, if you do an isometric biceps curl with the elbow bent 90 degrees, you will get stronger only at 90 degrees. But, if you do a full motion biceps curl, you will gain strength across the whole range of motion. The next set of terminology concerns the type of muscle contractions which can occur. Concentric: This is the shortening portion of the movement. In a biceps curl, raising the weight is the concentric portion of the exercise. Eccentric: This is the lengthening portion of the exercise, also known as the negative. In a biceps curl, lowering the weight is the eccentric portion. Within eccentric, there are two subdivisions. The first is a controlled or voluntary eccentric motion. This is when you are able to hold the weight in a contracted position but slowly lower the weight. The second is an uncontrolled or involuntary eccentric motion. This is when you are physically unable to stop the weight from lowering down (like at the end of an all out set). You are able to slow the weight but it will lower eventually. As an aside, due to some very boring physiological reasons, eccentric strength is always greater than concentric strength. This is why you are able to do extra negatives at the end of the set but cannot do any further concentric contractions. For the same reasons, lots of eccentric work has been implicated in the cause of post workout soreness. Also, in conjunction with this, some studies have found larger muscle growth has been found to occur with concentric plus eccentric motions versus either eccentric only or concentric only. Isometric: Any exercise where there is no motion involved. See the above description of isometric exercises for more info. That's about it for now. Til next time. Mail to lylemcd@delphi.com Lyle From: Lyle McDonald Newsgroups: misc.fitness Subject: Beginning Weight Training Info.Part2 Date: Thu, 2 DEC 93 00:24:35 EST Okay. Now that I've sort of covered most of the necessary info to start a program of aerobic exercise, let me turn my attention more toward resistance training. Having covered the various types of machines one might run into and some basic terminology, let me go into a bit of physiology which will lead me into a discussion of repetitions. The only thing I would like to discuss regarding muscular physiology is the types of muscle fibers and their characteristics. The differentiation of fiber types will make it a bit easier to discuss the proper rep ranges for various goals. Let's go. Type I: Type 1 fibers are the endurance fibers in the body. They are also known as Slow Oxidative (SO) fibers which helps to describe them. First and foremost, they have a slow speed of contraction. This makes them useless for activities (like sprinting) which requires repetitive fast contraction. However, they are slow to fatigue which makes them useful for endurance type athletes. The oxidative part of their name refers to their mode of energy generation. They continue to contract promarily through the aerobic oxidation of fats. Type I fibers have a large amount of mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell) and few glycolytic enzymes. They are the smallest fibers size wise and can generate the least amount of force. Also, they have the least capacity to get larger when adequately stimulated. From the above description, we can gather that Type I fibers are useful for long duration, low intensity activities (like cycling) and are not the primary target in a muscle building program. This is true. Generally speaking, bodybuilder types do not have a large percentage of Type I fibers or they wouldn't have the capacity to get much larger. A high percentage of SO fibers may be part of the reason some people (like me) find it almost impossible to gain any decent amount of muscle. (In any case, it makes a great excuse) Anyway, how do you go about hitting these muscle fibers. Well, since they do not fatigue easily, they tend to require many reps at a lower intensity before being adequately stimulated. Most studies have found sets in the range of 12-20 repetitions to be optimal. Above 20 reps, there seems to be a degree of diminishing returns were no additional stimulation is being recieved. The second type of fibers is Type II which are subdivided ino type IIA and IIB. Type IIB: IIB fibers are the power fibers in the body. They are capable of generating the most force but fatigue the most quickly. They are able to contract quickly and rely primarily on glycolysis of carbohydrate for energy production. They are also called Fast Glycolytic (FG) fibers. Due to their rapid fatigueability, they are useless for any activity longer than about 1.5 minutes. These are the largest fibers and have the greatest potential to grow of the three types. As you would guess, these are the primary targets for any type of muscle building program. These fibers seem to respond best to sets in the 4-8 repetition range. Type IIA: IIA fibers are the intermediate fibers. They are capable of both endurance and power although not at the level of either Type I or IIB. They are also referred to as Fast Oxidative Glycolytic (FOG) fibers indicating that they contract quickly but can derive their energy either from the oxidation of fats or the glycolysis of carbs. They are mid range on size, amount of force production, and potential to grow. At first glance, these fibers seem kind if useless. However, these fibers seem to have the greatest ability to shift towards one end of the spectrum or the other. If you do a lot of endurance training, the IIA fibers will become more oxidative but if you do lots of strength/power training, they will become more glycolytic. These fibers seem to respond to either range of reps but they will shift towards one type of fiber or the other depending on how they are stimulated. Right now I can hear people screaming that they get such and such of results from high reps or vice versa. Well, that's ok too. Not everyone will respond to the same thing. Tom Platz, who had some of the biggest thighs ever, frequently did 30 rep sets of squats which seems to contradict what I've said. At the outset of this series I tried to explain that the same thing may not work for the same people, especially at the more advanced levels. However, for the rank beginner, the above rep ranges seem to be the best place to start. As they advance, they will them. Since this post is getting rather longish, I think I will save the recommendations for sets and reps for the next post. As always, mail to lylemcd@delphi.com Lyle From: Lyle McDonald Newsgroups: misc.fitness Subject: Beginning weight training info.part 3 Date: Thu, 2 DEC 93 23:49:08 EST Hi, and welcome to the Nth part in a N+1 series of article of an introduction to exercise. This time, I will be continuing my intro to weight training with a further discussion of optimal rep ranges having laid the groundwork with a rather boring discussion of muscle fiber types. Sorry, but it's tough to make physiology sound too exciting. So, last time we saw that sets of 4-8 reps were best for hitting the Type IIb fibers which grow the most while 12-20 rep sets seem to be best for stimulating the Type I fibers. Tybe IIa fibers seems to be somewhere in betwee. One thing I should point out is that when I say a set of, say, 6 reps, I mean a 6 rep max set. By rep max, I mean a set using a weight that you can get only six strict reps but no more. I mean, I don't want you to think that you can take a soup can, curl it six times, and think you've stimulated the Type IIb fibers. Unless, you are working at your six rep max, you are not fulfilling the principle of overload necessary for adaptation. Ok, so really, Type IIa fibers are worked by 4-8 rep max sets while Type I are hit by 12-20 rep max sets. So, what?? Well, if you're primary goal is to gain muscle mass, it would seem prudent to concentrate on the Type IIb fibers and do the majority of your sets in the 4-8 rep max range. However, there are times when doing high rep sets (12-20) are useful. For people who are concerned with ultimate muscular development (i.e. bodybuilders), hitting both fiber types to some degree will result in the most complete gains. Also, unless you are, shall we say, pharmaceutically enhanced, only doing 4-8 rep max sets will lead to severe overtraining and possibly injury. As a quick aside, one of the benefits of steroids is that they seem to greatly increase the recuperative speed of the body. This is why competitive bodybuilders can train six days a week, twice a day without becoming overtrained. For the normal person, this type of workout would be far too much. Ok, so am I recommending that beginners head into the weight room and start cranking out 4-8 rep max sets from day one. Well, no. And here's why. When you first start weight training, your primary emphasis should be on properly learning the movements and getting a feel for what muscles are being worked. Using weight which are too heavy at the outset will tend to lead to mislearning proper form for a given exercise. And once, a movement is learned, even incorrectly, it is very hard to unlearn it. Also, weight training is a very different stress to the body if you've never done it before. Muscles tend to get stronger a lot faster that tendons and ligaments so the intital two to three months is also a break in period to condition tendons, ligaments, and other connective tissue. Look at it this way, if you decided to run a marathon, you would not go out and run 15 miles the first day, right?? You would start with a couple of miles and work your way up. Well, why would you jump headfirst into weight training and try to do too much?? Ok, so my recommendation for the complete beginner are to do 2-3 sets of 8-12 repititions three times per week with at least one day of rest between workouts on a variety of exercises. None of the sets should be maximal sets at this point and the emphasis should be on form rather than weight at this point. If you've never exercised before, you might even start with 1 set for the first week and then do two sets the next and then three the third. This should be followed a minimum of 2-3 months before increasing the intensity by incorporating rep max sets and such. That's it for now. Next time, I will address the choice of machines versus free weights for beginners. Mail to lylemcd@delphi.com Lyle From: Lyle McDonald Newsgroups: misc.fitness Subject: Beginning Weight Training Info.Part4 Date: Sat, 4 DEC 93 21:24:23 EST Hi again. This time I would like to address the choice of machines versus free weights for the beginning weight trainer. Personally, I tend towards machines for the complete beginner for a variety of reasons. There are a couple of exercises I think free weights are better due to the lack of really good machines for these particular bodyparts. First, let me explain some of the primary pros and cons of machines and free weights. Basically, the pros for free weights and machines are also the cons for each. The main difference between the two is that on a machine, your movement is pretty much confined to the track that the machine runs on. Basically, all you have to do is move the handles and the machine will take care of staibility in terms of body position and range of movement. Well, in the beginning of an exercise program, you have enough to worry about with working the muscle and concentrating on what muscle is being worked without having to worry about proper form too much. The machines tend to control your form to a great degree. I think this makes them excellent for learning movements initially. Also, you don't have to worry about dropping a weight or bar on your head with most machines. However, this increased stability also makes machines inferior to free weights in a couple of ways. When using free weights, you not only have to control the weight but also to keep it stabilized. Thus, free weights tend to work accessory, stabilizing muscles that machines don't call into play. However, there are a couple of bodyparts that I find free weights to be vastly superior for. This is because most of the machines I've seen pretty much suck. These bodyparts are biceps and triceps. Most of the machines I've seen for these bodyparts (Cybex and Nautilus) are very uncomfortable for most people and don't do a terribly good job of working the muscle. Thus, I would generally recommend doing simple dumbbell or barbell bicep curls and pushdowns for triceps. Also, after the breaking in period, many people will prefer to move to free weights. I don't know if the debate has been settled for Machines vs. Free Weights concerning which provide the best muscle stimulation. It seems that you should go with what you prefer after this initial period of 2-3 months. If you like free weights, by all means do them. But, if you are content with machines, you can get a fully sufficient workout with them, too. In the final(?) part of this series, I will go into exercise selection and ordering as well as offering some alternatives for those of you who prefer to exercise at home or would prefer to do bodyweight exercises. As always, mail to lylemcd@delphi.com. Lyle From: Lyle McDonald Newsgroups: misc.fitness Subject: Beginning Weight Training Info.Part5 Date: Sun, 5 DEC 93 20:20:41 EST Ok, here it is. The final (?) part of my series on beginning weight training. In this section, I will try to bring everything together by discussing exercise selection, order, and how to design a workout. Generally speaking, the best exercises for beginners are those that work large muscle groups across multiple joints. Examples of this are bench presses and leg presses. Generally, isolation or single joint exercises like Pec Deck flyes are best saved for more advanced routines. I am aware of the theory of basing your workout on large muscle, whole body exercises such as squats and deadlifts. However, these are technically difficult lifts and I am hesitant to recommend them to the complete novice. So, good exercises by muscle group are: Thighs: Leg presses, Lunges, Leg extensions Hamstrings: Leg curls Gluteals: Leg presses, Lunges Calves: Calf raise Chest: Bench press, Incline bench press Back: Low row, Lat pulldown Shoulders: Military press Biceps: Bicep Curl Triceps: Tricep Pushdown Abs: Crunch, Reverse Crunch Low Back: Back extensions Also, remember from my last post, that my recommendations are to use machines for all exercises except biceps and triceps. (Well, technically, tricep pushdowns are on a machine, but it is not on a specific tricep machine). Also, I don't personally believe in using machines for abdominals either. First and foremost, using weight will tend to make your muscles get larger and few people really want a thickly muscled waist. Also, most of the machines I've seen don't even work the abs, they work the hip flexors. I will be putting up a complete article on ab training and anatomy soon addressing these points and others. Generally, one exercise per bodypart is sufficient in the beginning. If desired, you can do a different exercise on different days for variety. This also allows you to learn a variety of movements and hit the muscles from different angles. In terms of ordering, in the beginning, it is generally best to move from largest muscle group to smallest. So, the general order is Legs, Chest, Back, Shoulders, Biceps, Triceps, Abs. Note that I listed these bodyparts in alternating push-pull order. By push and pull I mean this. Chest, shoulders, and triceps involve pushing type motions for the most part. Back and biceps are considered pulling movements. My rationale for alternating them is this. When you are working chest, you are also working shoulders and triceps. My personal preference is to insert a pulling movement (i.e. back) before working shoulders. This allows the shoulders time to recover so that more weight can be used with them. Incidentally, this is also the rationale for moving from larger muscles to smaller. If you were to work shoulders before chest, your chest workout would suffer because your shoulders were already tired. But when you work chest before shoulders, you pre-exhaust the shoulders so that they don't require as much work to be fully stimulated. Since this is getting too long, I will finish up in the next post by putting all of it together and designing an example workout. Mail to lylemcd@delphi.com. Lyle From: Lyle McDonald Newsgroups: misc.fitness Subject: beginning.weight.training info.part6 at last Date: Thu, 9 DEC 93 20:22:34 EST Ok, this is the final part of this series. I promise. So, let's put it all together. A possible workout routine might look like this. Mon: Warmup, stretch, leg press, leg curl, calf raise, bench press, Low row, Military press, dumbbell curl, tricep pushdown, crunch Tue: Aerobics Wed: Warmup, stretch, lunge, leg curl, calf raise, incline bench press, lat pulldown, military press, barbell curl, tricep pushdown, crunch Thu: Aerobics Fri: Same as Monday Sat: Aerobics Sun: Off Note that there are about a million variations on this workout but this is merely an example. Also note that I included one day completely off. My personal belief is that taking a day off from the gym will help both physically and mentally to prevent burnout. If you hate just sitting around, go do something nice and easy like walking or hiking. Also, aerobics can be performed on the same days as weight training if you don't have time to work out six days per week. But, let's say you're very out of shape and even the above workout is too much. In this case, I would recommend doing four exercises to start out. These exercises are Leg Press, Bench Press, Row, and Crunch. The leg press will hit the majority of muscles in the lower body. The bench press will hit the chest, shoulders, and triceps. The row will involve the back and biceps and crunches work the abs. As you get more used to exercising, you can add more exercise when you feel ready from the above list. I've had great success with this type of abbreviated workout for extremely out of shape people. If you kill yourself and don't enjoy exercising, you will never continue it. Finally (whew!), a few words about training at home. It is completely possible to do most exercises without equipment like push ups, squats and crunches. However, most pulling movements are rather difficult to perform without some sort of additional equipment such as a chinning bar. The elastic bodyshaping bands can be used to approximate just about any exercise you can imagine and are availble for around $19.95. Also, weights can be improvised using milk jugs filled with water or sand or books or heavy cans or small children. What's probably more important than how you do it is that you do it. Sure you probably won't get huge muscles lifting milk jugs, but it sure beats doing nothing. Also, there are some excellent books put out by a company called Health For Life (HFL) dealing with home exercising. The first is the Weightless Workout which details how to get an excellent workout with a minimum of equipment. Also, for women, there are Transfigure I for the lower body and Transfigure II for the upper body which describe exercise routines aimed exclusively at women's particular needs. HFL can be reached at 1-800-874-5339 and have lots of other excellent courses available. Oh, BTW, I don't work for them, I just happen to really like their stuff. Well, sigh, this is the end of this series. I hope I've provided some good info for anyone just starting out. I will continue posting and should have some info on stretching and abdominal training as well as an intro to sports nutrition coming soon. As always, send questions/ comments/flames/whatever to lylemcd@delphi.com. Also, if you sent me mail and did not get a response, I apologize. My mailbot has been screwing up lately and some of my mail may have been lost. I promise to answer every piece of mail I get, so try sending it again. Lyle From: Lyle McDonald Newsgroups: misc.fitness Subject: Fiber.splitting.info Date: Wed, 16 Feb 94 19:06:38 -0500 Hi, again. Well, as I still haven't gotten around to writing the sports nutrition series that I've been planning (I'm waiting to get some books back from a friend), I thought I'd cover some more miscellaneous topics. As some of you may remember, I did a four part series discussing muscle growth and the fact that the negative portion of the movement seems to be most responsible for growth. Well, I would like to follow that up by talking a little more about muscle growth, specifically, the two different ways that muscle can grow and what the implications are for weight training. The two different types of muscle growth are hypertrophy and hyperplasia. Hypertrophy: this refers to actual growth of a given fiber. This seems to be the primary method of muscle growth after you have finished your fetal growth. Most researchers feel that hypertrophy accounts for about 99% of the muscle increase that is seen in people who undergo resistance training. Hyperplasia: this refers to the splitting of a muscle fiber into multiple fibers. This would result in an increase in the number of fibers. However, it seems that hyperplasia only occurs during the fetal growth and that any subsequent increase in muscle size is due to hypertrophy. A recent review article looked at this (1). Although hyperplasia has been found to occur in animal models, few studies have reliably found that hyperplasia occurs in human models. However, this is in part due to technical and ethical considerations. In animals, the muscle to be examined will be exercised and then it, and an unexercised control from the other arm will have both fiber size and number measured. In humans, it is unfeasible to do this as the muscle must be ground up for measurement. However, some data on body-builders has found a greater number of fibers, especially Type II fibers. Whether this is due to genetic factors (i.e. they were simply born with more) or training factors is unknown and difficult to determine. Some have suggested that extremely intense exercise, such as sets of 100 (2) might have the potential to generate muscle fiber hyperplasia. Again, whether this is true or not remains to be seen. Another problem is with the method of measurements. In many studies, only a muscle biopsy is performed (where a small part of a muscle is removed to be studied). Some studies have found that, although fibers do split in the measured area, they do not reach the full length of the muscle. So, although the muscle would look larger, it would not be functionally any stronger as the new fiber could not generate any force. In any case, at least in animal models, hyperplasia seems to occur most often when the weight is lifted slowly and deliberately rather than ballistically. As this mimics the performance of most body-building type movements, it may be that some of the growth seen in body-builders is due to fiber splitting. Also, some have found that hyperplasia only occurs in muscle use when damage to the muscle occurs. As this has been shown to occur the most with negative type movements, it seems prudent for me to include a deliberate negative in any type of training where maximum muscle growth is desired. Ultimately, the question of hypertrophy vs. hyperplasia has not been resolved. However, if it does occur in exercising humans, it seems that slow, deliberate movements with an emphasis on the negative or eccentric portion is warranted. For a catalog of previous posts, send mail to lylemcd@delphi.com along with questions and comments. If you have any suggestions on future posts, please send them to me. I can't guarantee that I have any information on it but I'll do my best. Lyle References: 1. Jose Antonia and William Gonyea. "Skeletal muscle fiber hyperplasia." Med. Sci Sports Exerc. Vol 25 (12), pp 1333-1345, 1993. 2. James E. Wright. "100-Rep Sets: The Twilight Zone of Training." Muscle and Fitness. March 1991 (?). From: Lyle McDonald Newsgroups: misc.fitness Subject: Rep.continuum.info.part1 Date: Wed, 24 Aug 94 19:35:18 -0500 Well, I'm still working on fats and athletic performance but it's spiraling out of control as so many of my series of articles do. So, in the interim, to keep busy, I though I'd try to address a topic which I've seen questions about and which came up in email a while back relative to a post I did on periodization. What I want to talk about now is rep ranges. A while back on misc.fitness, someone asked a question as to why, if training at 8-12 reps with heavy loads leads to muscular development, training at 1 rep max loads wouldn't be better. I thought about the question for a while but never answered it. Hopefully, this article will provide the answer. The concept I want to try to get across is that of a repitition continuum. Reps and loads are not a discrete entity. The loads used to a degree will dictate how many reps can be performed but very little is set in stone. Before I present the reps and associated loads, I want to ask a couple of questions to get you thinking about the topic. 1. What rep range do bodybuilders generally train in and why? 2. What rep range do power and Olympic lifters train in and why? 3. What rep range do endurance athletes (wrongly, IMHO) train in and why? 4. Is there any use in crossing over between athletes: i.e. is there any reason for bodybuilders to train in the rep range of power lifters and vice versa? The answers to these questions should make my explanation of reps a bit more clear. First, I want to present the rep continuum (1) and then I'll try to offer some practical interpretations as to how it can be used. Reps 1 3 6 8 10 12 20 25 >25 Strength Hypertrophy Endurance Endurance (Note that in all cases, sets should be considered rep max sets (RM): i.e. a weight is used allowing one to get, say, 8 reps and 8 reps only. This is an 8 RM set) What about training loads. According to my exercise phys. class, the above rep ranges approximate to the following percentages of 1 RM. 1 RM: 100% of 1 RM load (well, duh) 3 RM: 90-95% of 1 RM load 8 RM: 80% of 1 RM load 10 RM: 70% of 1 RM load 20 RM: 60% of 1 RM load Thus, in general, you should be able to lift 90% of your 1 rep max approximately 3 times. Please note that this is only a guideline. If you graph this association (# reps vs percentage) it isn't a straight line so that at even higher reps than 20, it becomes increasingly difficult to predict loads. Various equations and look up charts have also been developed to predict rep max loads based on 1 RM roughly according to this correlation. One is the Bryzcki formula which predicts 1 RM to be weight lifted / (1.0278 - 0.0278 * X) where X is the number of reps done and is less than 10. Note that this is an approximation and that it may not hold for every muscle group. (Matt, if I've screwed this up, please let me know). Also, due to the curvilinear relationship of number of reps to percent load, a weight which can be handled for many more than 10 reps will not give a good prediction of 1 RM. Well, so what about the rep ranges? Another question that I've been asked in email is "Why there is a distinction made between strength (1-6 RM) and hypertrophy (8-12 RM)?" I mean, hey, strength is related directly to muscle size, right? So a stronger muscle should be a bigger muscle, right? Maybe, maybe not. I recall reading somewhere that a study found that you can only voluntarily recruit 65%-75% of your total muscle fibers at any given time (I have no idea where this was and have no idea where to dig up the reference). This is probably a protection mechanism to keep you from tearing your body apart by recruiting all available muscle fibers. Also, if you were to recruit all 100% at a time, you would not have any left over if you needed them. The bottom line is that it is physiologically impossible to recruit all available muscle fibers no matter how heavy the lift. Again, this is probably an evolutionary mechanism. This is getting long so I'll continue it into a second post. Lyle lylemcd@delphi.com References: 1. Kraemer and Fleck "Designing resistance programs" Human Kinetic Publishers. From: Lyle McDonald Newsgroups: misc.fitness Subject: rep.continuum.info.part2 Date: Wed, 24 Aug 94 19:38:48 -0500 Ok, I was talking about rep ranges. Last time, I stated that you can only recruit about 65-75% of your available muscle fibers at a time, probably due to an evolutionary protection mechanism. If I am wrong about this, would someone with some references please let me know. Well, this one fact helps to answer some of the questions I posed when I began this article. Let's try to answer some of the questions I asked. 2. What rep range do power and Olympic lifters train in and why? Powerlifters and Olympic lifters have traditionally lifted in the 1-6 rep range although it's changing somewhat. Why? Well, powerlifting is about how much you can lift for 1 rep period. How you appear or how much you can lift for 10 reps doesn't matter at all. So, lifting in this range is more specific to their competitive goals. What about the adaptation that are seen. Training with 1 RM loads only recruit maybe 65-75% of your total muscle fibers. Remember when I talked about plyometrics, I talked about a strength deficit which exists (the difference between maximal strength which is definitely related to muscle size and maximal voluntary strength which is the maximum amount you can lift). Yes, there does seem to be an adaptation which allows trained lifters to call in more of their available muscle fibers, but it's still not 100%. So, a 1 RM lift can only use and fatigue (and presumable damage) the number of muscle fibers which can be voluntarily recruited which isn't all of them. Presumably, lifting in this very low rep range may be able to increase the amount of muscle which can be recruited which would improve performance. However studies of periodized programs have found that muscle mass may actually decrease during the heavy strength phase. Presumably, this occurs as some of the muscle fibers created during hypertrophy training are not needed and atrophy again. Theoretically, plyometrics are also able to improve fiber recruitment and lower the strength deficit. Fred Hatfield (aka Dr. Squat) (or maybe it's Ed Coan) always performs a plyometric frog jump before attempting a competition squat to, hopefully improve neural activation. (BTW, I don't want this to turn into another plyometric argument, so please don't send me email telling me that plyometrics are dangerous. We've already been through that). 1. What rep range do bodybuilders generally train in and why? As the reps increase, the percent of max load must, by definition, go down. Bodybuilders generally tend to train in the 8-12 RM range with 65-80% of their 1RM loads. Why? Well, the belief is this: with submaximal loads, the fibers which are first recruited (the initial 65-75%) will fatigue after a while. As this occurs, other muscle fibers muscle must be recruited to continue the lift. Eventually, no more muscle fibers can be recruited concentrically (momentary muscular failure) and the set ends. However, some athletes use forced reps, negatives, and other systems to increase the number of fibers which are damaged. So, why not extend this argument and have bodybuilders doing extremely high rep sets (20 or more). Well, as the reps continue to go up, the relative load lifted goes down. Beyond a certain point, the load is not heavy enough to call in any Type II fibers (the ones most responsible for growth) and all you're doing is working Type I muscle fibers. I mean hey, on my bike, I routinely do 4800 reps per leg in an hour but it doesn't build much muscle since the load is way to low. Hopefully, this type of training leads to increased muscle hypertrophy which is seen empirically. Yes, some bodybuilders train at lower reps (6-8) and some at higher (12-15), but 8-12 RM is generally considered to be the hypertrophy rep range. Are there other differences with this type of bodybuilder training, though. Actually, yes. Several studies (1) have been performed to look at a variety of things relative to different loads. The two main groups in these studies were a group performing multiple 10 RM sets with a 1 minute rest period (10/1) which is similar to typical bodybuilding training (multiple sets with short rest periods). The other performed multiple 5 RM sets with a 3 minute rest (5/3) which is similar to powerlifting type training. To keep the statisticians happy, the control groups were a (10/3) group and a (5/1 group). These studies found that the high rep, short rest period had not only the highest lactate levels (due to incomplete recovery) but also had the highest testosterone and growth hormone response than the low rep, long rest periods. So, if you believe that growth hormone and testosterone important for maximum muscle size, muliple sets in the 8-12 rep max range (high volume training) with short rest periods is the way to go. So, you ask, why do powerlifters get so large. Yes, powerlifting with heavy singles, doubles, and triples will definitely build mass. However, I'd be willing to bet that, relative to absolute strength, bodybuilders will have more muscular development due to their specific type of training. Think of it this way, few bodybuilders can lift the type of poundages routinely lifted by powerlifters. Yet, they display proportionately much more muscle tissue than powerlifters. To be continued. Lyle lylemcd@delphi.com Reference: 1. "Essentials of Strength and Conditioning" Human Kinetics Publishers. From: Lyle McDonald Newsgroups: misc.fitness Subject: rep.continuum.info.part3 Date: Wed, 24 Aug 94 19:41:55 -0500 Continuing, let's try to answer the other questions. 3. What rep range do endurance athletes (wrongly, IMHO) train in and why? Endurance athletes frequently train with very high repititions in the weight room (20-25 or even higher in the 50's and 100's or more) to try to improve muscular endurance which they do. However, here, we must differentiate between local muscular endurance and aerobic endurance. Muscular endurance is defined as the body's ability to contract repeatably vs. submaximal loads. It is probably limited by the buildup of waste products such as lactic acid. A one minute push-up test is a test of muscular endurance. Aerobic endurance is a systemic type of endurance related to the amount of blood (and this oxygen) that is pumped per minute and the amount which can be used by the muscles. It is limited by the amount of available fuel (i.e. glycogen and fat). Any activity over 3-5 minutes will probably rely mainly on aerobic metabolism. The longer the duration, the more the event will rely on aerobic metabolism. Will improving muscular endurance improve aerobic endurance? IMHO, no, at least not directly. Weight training may increase lactate tolerance but it won't directly improve maximal aerobic level, at least not with light weights and high reps. Some studies of circuit weight training (30 minutes or more of moderate weight high rep training with short rest periods) have brought about modest increases (3-10%) in VO2 max but this pales in comparison to the 10-30% improvement that can be brought about with standard endurance training. A couple of studies (sorry, no references) looked at aerobic performance relative to high intensity weight training though. They found an increase in time to exhaustion at the same workload (i.e. 200 Watts) with no increase in VO2 max after a period of high intensity weight training. How did this occur? Well, during aerobic activity, you will be recruiting a certain percentage of muscle fibers. If you shift your strength curve up (with heavy weight training), the amount of muscle fibers needed for an absolute load goes down which will improve performance. Also, weight training may raise the lactate threshhold which would also improve the usable portion of one's VO2 max. 4. Is there any use in crossing over between athletes: i.e. is there any reason for bodybuilders to train in the rep range of power lifters and vice versa? In my opinion, yes. And here's why. At the outset, I tried to explain that these various reps and loads exist on a continuum. It's not as if training at 3-6 RM won't increase mass or 8-12 RM won't increase strength as this just isn't true. However, certain rep ranges have been found to cause maximal improvements in certain facets of performance and adaptation (strength, endurance etc...). So, since they are on a continuum they are somewhat related. But, how? Well, in general, a stronger muscle is a more enduring muscle for the reasons outlined above. Look at it another way. Let's say your1 RM is 133 pounds and your 10 RM is 100 lbs which is about 75%. Now, you engage in heavy weight training and bring your 1 RM up to 165 lbs. The same 100 lbs is now 60% of your 1 RM so you should be able to lift it more than 10 times. By increasing your 1 RM, you have increased your absolute muscular endurance. Yes, your 10 RM would still be about 75% (now 123 lbs), but, for a given load, you have more endurance. So, for bodybuilders and endurance athletes alike, including phases of very heavy training (3-6 rep range) can improve performance. What about for athletes at the other end of the spectrum? Well, powerlifters, as stated, perform 1 RM lifts in competition so improving this is obviously their goal. Traditionally, they have performed heavy singles year round. However, many powerlifters are now including bodybuilding type training (and movements other than the bench, deadlift, and squat) to enhance their training. By training in the 8-12 RM range, powerlifters can increase their absolute muscular mass. Then by training in the 1-3 rep range, they can improve their ability to recruit that mass. Jimmy "Iron Bull" Pellachia is a good example. He is a self-proclaimed power-bodybuilder doing a mix of bodybuilding type of movements and heavy max lifts (usually assisted somewhat by a spotter). He has incredible strength (although not as much as a strict powerlifter) coupled with incredible muscular size and definition. What about high rep training? Well, high rep training could also improve performance for both bodybuilders and powerlifters alike. Improving muscular endurance will improve capilarization and the body's ability to deal with high lactate levels. This will translate to better tolerance for bodybuilding type training which generates very high lactate levels which will increase muscle mass which you learn to recruit during strength training which will increase muscular endurance which translates to better tolerance for bodybuilding type training which increases muscle mass for strength training... Do you see where this is going? And, like it or not, this is at least part of the basis for periodization. By cycling between different phases (endurance, hypertrophy, strength), you can attempt to avoid staleness and improve overall performance as each phase will improve the others in a continuous cycle. There are other bases for periodization training (mainly Hans Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome) but the above mentioned reason is one of the primary ones. Without getting too much into periodization routines (I have articles available on request) a basic cycle for a bodybuilder might look like this. Endurance: multiple sets of 15-20 repititions. Four weeks. Hypertrophy: multiple sets of 8-12 reps with short rest periods. 4 weeks. Strength: multiple sets of 4-8 reps with long rest. 4 weeks. Active rest: 2 weeks of light training before starting over again. For endurance athletes and powelifters, it would change slightly but the basic idea is the same. The cycles can be different lengths and you can make it as complicated or not as you like. Again, for more specific example, get in touch with me. To wrap up, there is a huge continuum between powerlifting type training (in the 1-3 rep range for each set) and endurance training (which might be 4500 reps in an hour workout at very submaximal loads). Somewhere in between these extremes, you can get some mix of strength, endurance, or hypertrophy. No one rep range is better than another, just different. The choice of rep ranges is determined in part by the goals involved. Hopefully, this post has answered some of the questions I posed early on. Next time, maybe fats and athletics, maybe not. It's hard to say right now. Lyle lylemcd@delphi.com