Dumpers
Part III

By Ken Hutchins, Josh Trentine,
Gus Diamantopoulos, & Al Coleman

In Part I of our Dumpers series, we explored the history of negative hyperloading, starting with its emphasis by Arthur Jones as he used it to combat isokinetics philosophy in the early 1970s.

In Part II, we closely examined the issue of friction in exercise equipment, especially in the early Nautilus^®, that gave rise and continued sustenance to the false need for negative hyperloading.

In Part III, we consider two factors simultaneously. They are: the speed of motion in an exercise and its resistance curve. Please note that the discussion herein is somewhat streamlined for the Dumpers series. The same material is discussed in much deeper detail and with greater argumentative support in The Renaissance of Exercise: Volume II.

Apparent Simultaneous Problems

The two factors—movement speed and the resistance curve—are integrally related. Referencing a standard of 10 seconds positive and 10 seconds negative, the resistance curve, to impart a challenging load, changes from repetition to repetition. In the early repetitions of, for instance, a Leg Extension exercise, a resistance curve perfect for random-range failure at 4-8 repetitions is not challenging at or near complete extension in the first and second repetitions.

And if we design the resistance curve to be truly challenging at or near complete extension during the early repetitions—assuming we choose to forego knee safety—then random-range failure will not occur. In other words, failure will almost always occur during the first half of positive extension, never at or near anatomical zero.

At this juncture, it is important to clarify that random-range failure is a highly desirable and somewhat elusive feature.

Another approach to offset this dilemma is to use speed variation as a means to effect a variable resistance curve of sorts. By moving progressively faster as the set progresses, the resistance curve that is challenging during the first repetitions is deliberately overwhelmed by momentum as speed increases, thus providing a random-range failure.

Of course, the variable speed issue introduces many other interrelated problems:

• How quickly do we make the movement faster? Answer: A SWAG (scientific wild-ass guess) of an answer. By feel(?): Feeling is highly subjective.
• How do we account for this? Answer: We can’t.
• To what degree does this becomes skill dependent? Answer: Highly.
• How dangerous and uncontrolled do the forces become? Answer: Wildly.
• How do we determine proper form? Answer: Another SWAG.
• How do we keep reliable and repeatable records for resistance progression? Answer: We can’t.

This, as anyone should be able to see, is a morass.

So…we go back to keeping the speed at 10/10 and applying a resistance curve to effect the random-range failure in 4-8 repetitions.

As is exhaustively planted in The Renaissance of Exercise, the 10/10 protocol is the standard! Not 15:15. Not 5:5. Not 3:5 as the XForce people expect of the subject. Not 4:4 as the MedX^® people have recommended. And certainly not the traditional 2:4 Nautilus^® protocol.

To vary protocols is a disservice to the subject and provides no benefit. As is experienced by some subjects who travel and exercise in different facilities with different instructors, the performance of different protocols unnecessarily compromises their competence. In dynamic exercise, everyone should teach 10/10 and nothing else. Any deviation strongly implies several possible conclusions:

• Inept instruction.
• Poor equipment.
• Inadequate focus.

And since they (speed, resistance curve) are so related, one factor must be held more-or-less constant in order to derive the other.

We staunchly proclaim the speed of motion to be the one held firm as the constant of the two and, thus this factor, speed, is also the independent factor. Once the speed is set, the other, the resistance curve, is roughly known and derivable. Until Ken Hutchins came along, this was never correctly done. His cams on the SuperSlow^® Systems equipment were spot on because, he alone, did two things simultaneously: He controlled the speed and profiled the cam to effect a predetermined outcome. Exactly how Ken did this is explained in The Renaissance of Exercise: Volume II.

Vintage Nautilus Resistance Curves

Arthur Jones’ Nautilus resistance curves were grossly incorrect, often backwards to what we now know is required with the application of slow movement speed and minimal friction. Ken once observed Arthur testing a prototype Pullover cam for its correct resistance curve. Ken was surprised by two things. First, Ken was amazed that Arthur would allow Ken to observe as this was tightly controlled proprietary information. Second, Ken was shocked by Arthur’s speed of movement during the test. Arthur seemed to not know that he was exposing his greatest weakness to Ken.

Arthur’s excursion was very controlled by most standards of the day, however, was at a speed of between one and two seconds each—positive or negative. For so large a range of motion as the Pullover was, this was a fast speed—too fast to determine proper cam profiling.

This made Ken ponder several questions. Why did Arthur move so fast?

Did Arthur seriously believe that he was capable of sensing meaningful loading of the intended musculature at that speed? And if that answer was yes, did he believe that anyone else was able to sense the loading—with no flat spots—throughout the range?

Was Arthur deliberately trying to make the machine an acceleration device merely to overcome the friction? (At this point, Ken still believed that Arthur might be aware of the excessive friction in the equipment and was merely compensating for it. Ken was in great awe of Arthur and believed that Arthur knew best about all things.)

Now

We staunchly decree that the excursion speed is 10 seconds—an acceptable range of 8-12, but we strive for 10. Only by maintaining a 10-second positive, as well as a 10-second negative, can we control a myriad of other factors. Yes, the 10-second excursion requirement is merely the median of a range of acceptability, a median we use as the “central target,” but without it as the independent variable treated as a constant, we must endure chaos at every other turn in a host of dependent variables.

Knowing this, we have scant patience for our detractors who minimize the importance of the 10-second standard. To us, this merely proves their ineptitude and insensitivity to the inherent problems. With some exceptions, they are the intellectual untouchables that cannot be reached with reasoned arguments. And, by the way, this group includes some, if not many, of the Nautilus old guard as well as some of the original (pre-2004) SuperSlow community who have since fallen off their wagons. It even includes some of the former SuperSlow masters. These individuals demonstrate by their actions that they do not possess the ability to appreciate the supreme importance of the 10-second excursion.

It is possible—even probable—that the typical excursion, while not at uniform speed, clocks an average speed at 10-seconds. This is particularly important as the excursion approaches the upper turnaround and when a fall through occurs. Fall through denotes an inappropriate speed increase into the endpoint. This common discrepancy effects an excessive resistance decrease that leads the imprecise exercise buff to conclude that our properly-designed cam delivers an inappropriately radical falloff.

One former SuperSlow master displays this ignorance, not just in his statements and training habits, but also in his machine camming. Very conveniently, we possess some of his work—a tangible example of his intellectual defect toward proper cam design as well as the proper excursion speed.

The case in point regards the cam retrofit of a MedX Compound Row (Product name: “Row.”) machine. For starters, he incompetently copied an early, perfectly-functioning retrofit by SuperSlow Systems. Second, he changed the positive cam—as used in the original product—to a negative cam, a totally inappropriate cam type for any exercise machine. The end result is a resistance curve that is worse, not better, for the performance of SuperSlow exercise, although it did slightly improve the resistance curve compared to that provided in the original product.

So why would a former SuperSlow master, trained by Ken Hutchins and ostensibly devoted to the 10/10 protocol, lose his way? Sure, he has a difference of opinion regarding excursion speed, an opinion that we categorically reject and condemn. And we condemn this for the following reasons:

His cam profile and its portrayed resistance curve reflect his dedication to an excursion speed much faster than 10/10. In fact, he now recommends 5/5, a speed that, in practice, is always much faster than 5/5 and therefore not controllable. And this faster speed reflects his state of mind regarding those earlier-mentioned dependent variables.

It might be nigh impossible to completely list all of the dependent variables, but we can make a generalized attempt. The first regards safety that further regards control of forces, and this mostly regards control of speed. Once excursion speed exceeds 8 seconds (performed in less than 8 seconds), the start of the positive is likely abrupt and the upper turnaround is likely fallen through with attendant bouncing of the movement arm and jolting to the subject.

Also, with these faster excursions, subtle shifting and squirming by the subject—all apparently innocent and innocuous—are glossed over. These subtleties become obscured and ignored and, therefore, uncorrectable.

If the subject moves so fast—faster than approximately 8 seconds—then these subtle and sometimes injury-producing subtleties go unnoticed. If they go unnoticed, the instructor cannot identify them and inform the subject of them. And if the instructor is so inept, is uninformed, so unobservant, so reticent, and therefore so uninformative to advise the subject, then the subject is essentially without supervision.

Less important than safety, but still very important, many of these nuance subtleties are forms of ratcheting, a discrepancy that unloads the targeted musculature. The subject of ratcheting is thoroughly discussed in The Renaissance of Exercise: Volume I.

What’s more, the 10/10 speed is the required standard for determining the resistance curve and therefore the cam profile for any exercise machine. Anything else is sheer lunacy. Without this 10/10 speed standardization, correct camming is forever elusive.

We realize that Nautilus engineers don’t agree with this. We realize that MedX engineers don’t agree with this. Of course they don’t agree. As far as we are concerned, they do not possess the understanding in order to deserve an opinion. We have witnessed these engineers perform their own personal exercise on their own products and they are blatantly ignorant of proper excursion speed. In view of their reckless behavior (obscenely fast: one-second-or-less positive/one-second-or-less negative), how could anyone expect a cam/resistance curve for the proper 10/10 speed of motion? Their behavior reveals their bad thinking and attitudes regarding equipment design.

With the typical and improperly-fast speeds of excursion, momentum rules the resistance. It influences the design to include excessive loads at the upper turnaround of the compound pulling movements and the rotary movements. And the usual exorbitant attending friction fosters a decreasing resistance for the negative excursion.

Note that with the correct camming on a low-friction exercise machine—such as a Leg Extension—the positive resistance decreases progressively faster as full extension is attained. Once beyond the turnaround, the same experience occurs in reverse. If the cam provides a progressively faster falloff as positive excursion completes, it provides a progressively slower resistance increase as the negative excursion begins. Another way to express this is: If the final wrap of the cam during the positive—that position of the cam where the belt just flattens onto the flat of the cam (the position of least resistance)—provides the fastest resistance decrease, then the immediate unwrapping of the cam provides the fastest resistance increase.

In an unintended way—as this is a mechanical property and not deliberately designed—this relationship is highly fortuitous to provide negative loading just as is desired. At first, negative loading increases reasonably fast and continues to increase for most of the negative range in most cases although the increase grows progressively slower—exactly as needed. And none of this beauty operates properly if the speed is much, if any, faster than 8 seconds. Therefore, we strive for 10 seconds just to be sure.

Another fallacy of the wayward master mentioned earlier is his apparent quest to accommodate the first repetition. The goal is random failure after completion of the third or fourth repetition. The goal is not random injury before the third or fourth incomplete and defective repetitions.

Some of this discussion may seem unrelated to our Dumpers criticisms. We assure you that it is exactly this information deficit that makes instructors, exercise subjects, as well as exercise equipment design engineers vulnerable to the lure of the Dumpers insanity. We pledge to you that we will keep this scourge away from Renaissance Exercise.

Another former SuperSlow master is or was promoting Exerbotics^TM. This is another example of a tremendous inconsistency between what he should know and his ostensible beliefs and behavior.

Our last major discussion point in this third part of the Dumpers series has already been mentioned in a comment by Josh Trentine, however, for continuity’s sake, we mention it again.

Using a SuperSlow Systems Leg Extension machine, a proficient and highly willful subject performs the exercise to deep failure. As he is just able to complete the fourth repetition, he performs the turnaround and then—due to the highly efficient inroading— immediately encounters negative loading that requires 100% of his will, effort, and strength to control the negative to the degree that he does not lose control and drop the weight. Therefore, what is the point of adding 40% to the resistance to the negative at this juncture? And what would be the point of adding 40% resistance (or any additional resistance) to the final repetition of this exercise performed by the typical housewife, a stroke victim, an osteoporosis patient, a rehab subject, or anyone else? To do so is nuts!

Note that this surprise negative is built in. It naturally occurs as a result of the combination of proper speed, proper camming, minimal friction, willful and disciplined effort without loading respite and with progressively-faster inroading at and after failure.

So you muse, what about a 40% increase to the negative of all those repetitions leading up to the final repetition so as to foster faster and deeper inroad all along the set of repetitions? In this way, the required weight for the set might be less and result in deeper and faster inroading.

Good question! This is, perhaps, the most difficult question for us to address, but as you will see in Dumpers IV, this is a clumsy affair at best and outrageously dangerous at worst. And although it seems a futuristic promise of benefit, in practice, so far, it has merely reinforced the bad training habits that we are trying to correct.

Nevertheless, we believe the surprise negative (not truly hyperloaded) at the last repetition is deserved and should be reserved for the last repetition. A gradual buildup to that last repetition is best for safety, particularly for progressive joint lubrication. Many marginal joint issues—like that often observed with the knees—are often far more sensitive during the negative excursion rather than the positive! Hence, hyperloading the negative merely makes for heightened irritation instead of the desired lubrication.

In Part IV of the Dumpers series, we will report our firsthand experiences on many of the dumpers products. They include the Life Fitness^TM, the XForce^TM, the Motivator^TM, Exerbotics^TM, and CZT^TM/ARX^TM.