This is a repost from the blog page www.BodyByScience.net regarding our RenEx Workshop on October 15th. We’ve added some pictures that we’re taken over the course of the day.
“I attended the RenEx Seminar in Cleveland this weekend. I was allowed to do a full workout on the new line. I didn’t just want to get on the machines to “see what they felt like”; I wanted to experience their full capability in a rapidly paced workout to complete failure with deep inroad. This turned out to be ideal. In fact, I would suggest that you have not truly experienced the capability of this equipment and its protocol unless you do so. This workout was unlike anything I have ever experienced and was as follows:
Disclaimer: What follows is not a paid endorsement, and I have NO financial interest with RenEx or Overload Fitness. My only financial bias is that UE Bulletin 1, the original UE bulletin and a Round Table Interview are being sold on the RenEx Products page.
RenEx Trunk Extension (supervised by Ken Hutchins)
RenEx Leg Press (supervised by Josh Trentine)
RenEx Pulldown (supervised by Gus Diamantopoulos)
RenEx Ventral Torso (supervised by ??-at this point I began to lose awareness of anything other than my movement and effort)
RenEx Compound Row (supervised by ??)
RenEx Overhead Press (supervised by Al Coleman)
One of the things that irritated me most about the articles and discussions on the internet from the RenEx guys was the esoteric and mystical language they invoked when discussing the equipment. Now that I’ve been through the above workout, I can say that I now understand the difficulty they have had avoiding this kind of language. All I can tell you is this…..Words Fail. However, I will do my best to give you some general impressions and insights.
1. Most pieces looked like the old SuperSlow systems line, but there were refinements and adjustments everywhere. Slight tilts of the handles or subtle changes in upholstery as well as the new weight stack technology were the new adjustments. To an untrained eye they may appear as “not much different from the machines in my facility”.
Josh and Doug
2. Once a set was under way, you could tell something VERY different was going on. These seemingly minor changes made a world of difference. By the time I started the second rep, I could not even perceive there was a machine there. I realized that if I closed my eyes, I could not even perceive that a machine was there, and that if I did not have prior knowledge of what the equipment looked like, I would have no perception of where the machine’s frame or movement arm would be located because it really did “feel like heavy air”. I felt as if I was simply moving my body through space in the most natural way possible, but against an utterly relentless resistance.
3. I could actually perform a perfect lower turnaround. On my own equipment I can never get this quite right, but on the RenEx pieces I was able to do great lower turnarounds almost immediately. Before this experience I did not understand how negatively even minimal friction affects the ability to do a good lower turnaround. If you realize friction is subtracted from your negative resistance and added to your positive resistance, you will understand how it creates a situation where a smooth transition from negative to positive is a real challenge. Now, a lower turnaround with friction feels like unexpectedly driving your car into a pothole. A lower turnaround on RenEx feels completely seamless.
4. No sticking points. No weak links. This was the most astonishing thing that I experienced. The fatiguing of the largest muscle group in a kinetic chain was in no way limited by the fatigue of the smaller muscle groups. It never made evolutionary or biological sense to me that the latissimus should be made to function through a link with a muscle that was much smaller and weaker. There had to be leverage factors at play that allowed the smaller groups to exert force on par with the larger groups in the kinetic chain. Even as a teenager I felt my toes curl in my shoes when Arthur said the purpose of the pullover was to bypass the weak link of the biceps. I particularly noted the lack of weak link in the RenEx pulldown. At no point did I feel as if I were going to fail because my grip was going to give out, or that my biceps were fatiguing faster than my lats. And it was not because I felt my forearms or biceps were being spared….indeed, they were being worked intensely. Instead, the timing of fatigue in my hands/forearms/biceps/chest/lats/abs seemed perfectly synchronized. When I hit failure, all the muscles in the kinetic chain were failing….and they were failing simultaneously. This was true across all movements. Leg press was not limited by quad burn. Ventral Torso (chest press) was not limited by the triceps. Compound Row was not limted by grip or the brachioradialis. Overhead Press was not limited by the triceps. I believe this experience is made possible by very subtle adjustments in the angles of the movement arm and handles as well as body positioning that actually takes advantage of biotensegrity-dictated kinetic chains.
5. I could “dig deep”. Many times I feel like I fail in a way that produces frustration. It seems like I failed from an inability to dig deep and push. I had always attributed this to a lack of willpower. Now I understand it was from a lack of purchase. In order to push really hard, you need something to push against. You need a backstop, and if leverage is involved, you need a fulcrum point. The positioning in the RenEx equipment involves a “get set” procedure that locks you into a coupling position. By coupling, I mean you form a couple where you can exert two forces in equal and opposite directions so that you will be stabilized. Any loss of this backstop when you are desperately fatigued will result in an abrupt drop-off in force output and premature failure. With the “coupled” position you can actually channel force through a kinetic chain until the true “bitter end”. This coupling seemed to be augmented by the density of the pads on the texture of the upholstery. Also, the movement arms had absolutely no flex or give.
6. A hard end-stop is key. Each piece had a sliding metal end-stop with a dense rubber pad that the weight stack would run into on the upper turnaround. This could be set ahead of time, as well as 0n-the-fly. The on-the-fly adjustment becomes important because seat pad/back pad compression during the set can change the exact location of the upper turnaround. The end-stop served to definitively rule out any lockout/sandbagging on the upper turnaround. More importantly the end-stop allowed the performance of the squeeze technique beginning on about the 3rd repetition. To do so, when you hit the end-stop you gradually ramp up to maximal force, hold that level until it starts to bleed off from fatigue (about 3-5 seconds) and then gradually “unsqueeze” and commence the negative. My personal theory is that this maximal squeeze serves to engage as many actin/myosin cross-bridges as possible (which brings us to the next point).
Doug Discussing Friction
7. Speed of movement is a non-issue. When a perfect lower turnaround is married to great squeeze technique, perfect speed of movement occurs. During my workout I was never commanded to “slow down”. I was frequently told to “hurry up” or “catch me”. I would be pushing as hard and as fast as I could but the movement just crawled along. I was trying to “catch up” to a 10 count that the instructor was giving, but I could only finish around 13 or 14. I think a seemless/gradual lower turnaround and a hard end-stop squeeze engages the greatest number of actin/myosin cross-bridges possible. This creates the difference between the movement of a centipede and the movement of a millipede. Regardless of mechanism, the experience is one of maximal effort producing slow and continuous movement.
8. Deep internalization occurs. I was nervous and distracted before my workout. Everyone stayed behind to watch. I was being supervised by the most anal-retentive form Nazis on the planet. Boyer Coe (who I idolized as a teenager) was watching. Ken Hutchins was watching. I had every reason to be distracted. Even during my best workouts, my mind wanders…and it wants to wander when my concentration should be the greatest. The combination of the equipment, the protocol and the supervision (not to mention the resulting intensity) resulted in very deep internalization. By the time I got off Trunk Extension, I had no awareness of the crowd. By the time I was midway through the Pulldown I had lost awareness of anything but the effort. From the Chest Press onward, I do not know if I correctly recollect who was instructing me. Other than a handful of BMX races, I do not ever recall having such a “Flow” experience.
9. The metabolic effect was astronomical. What was peculiar is that it seemed perfectly paired to the local/muscular effect. In other workouts, I have had the experience of a large metabolic effect from the Leg Press causing the rest of the workout to fall apart. During this workout, the systemic effect seemed to come entirely from the local effect…muscular fatigue and metabolic effect were coordinated and synergistic. I think this lack of coordination occurs as a result of what the RenEx guys call “Outroading” which I interpret as metabolic work that is spent on activity that does not result in inroading.
10. The aftermath was unexpected. In the first minutes and hours after the workout I was fearful that I may have really overdone the intensity (butterfly hunting with a bazooka). By today I feel more recovered than I normally do. I also feel as if I have had a full-body alignment. Everything feels fluid and coordinated and I feel as if I’m 2 inches taller.
Now….Some other cool things from the event:
1. Boyer Coe was there. When I first walked into the lobby of the hotel it was very empty, only hotel employees were around. As I headed toward my room, I looked down a short hallway and immediately noticed Boyer Coe! I shouted out his name and walked up to him as if we were old friends (even though we never met). It slipped my mind that he was a huge part of my life as a starry-eyed teenager, but he had never laid eyes on me. At age 65 (I am told) he looks amazing…as I approach 50 it is good to know what is possible.
Doug and Others Watching Al's Workout
2. Al Coleman is a freak! He is exploring the mind/body connection for no other reason than to see how hard a human can volitionally push themselves. While he is not particularly concerned with getting “swole”, he has grown a lot of muscle since I last saw him. I was concerned that there actually be tangible results from the “other end of the black box”. There has definitely been some hypertrophy going on with Al and all the RenEx team.
3. I got to meet Chuck Spencer (Chasbari from the Darden Board). He is doing personal research on infimetrics that is revealing interesting data that meshes well with what the RenEx people are doing. I have encouraged him to set up his own blog/website to document his work.
4. Researchers from Johns Hopkins were there. They are working with Dr. Kevin Fontaine on research projects investigating the therapeutic utility of high intensity exercise (using RenEx protocol and equipment) in rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory conditions.
5. An Endocrinologist from the U.K. attended. He is combining a Hunter-Gatherer diet and high intensity exercise as the default treatment of his patients with type II diabetes. With great courage he has opted out of the Public Health Service to carry out his vision. He is another example of a long line of thinking doctors who is demonstrating to the bureaucrats and government experts that they are irrelevant.
6. Brenda Hutchins just turned 60…..and you would never believe it.
7. I got to visit the Overload facility. They have more cool machines, toys and retrofits than you can imagine. If I had access to this playground, I would be chronically overtrained.
This is all I can say for now, so post your WOW’s/thoughts/questions.”
