RenEx | High Intensity Training — High Intensity Training | Philosphy | Protocol

Apr

2011

Your #1 Job As A Business Owner!

46 comments written by Kristina

In my last blog post, Are You A Personal Trainer Or A Life Changer?, I discussed how to survive and thrive in this business as an instructor.

Today, I’d like to discuss what it takes to survive and thrive as a business.

Sorry if this isn’t as exciting as discussing the realm of lower turnaround, TUL or breathing BUT I know there are a lot of us in this niche who own businesses and this is our livelihood.

So for those of you who do not own a business then I apologize, Josh will be back next post with some exciting new content for you.

For the rest of you, I think you will find this of great value and if you don’t by all means let me know 🙂

I’ve heard many HIT business owners say that this is a terrible business model.

I beg to differ.

Out of all of the other fitness training business models I believe ours to be one of the most efficient, effective and lucrative available.

Don’t get me wrong our commitment to our training philosophy does have its limitations.

We can’t train multiple people at once.
We can’t buy cheap equipment or use no equipment at all.
We can’t perform our service at a park or beach.

These may be perceived as limitations but I consider them the foundation of what makes our business model work so well.

You see, in any business you have to separate yourself from the competition if you want to survive and grow. This is known as a UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSTION (USP) a term that was coined by the great advertising executive Rosser Reeves.

People often confuse a slogan for a USP. A slogan can be congruent with your USP such as the one that Rosser Reeves created for M&Ms; “The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand.”

BUT, a slogan is NOT a USP.

A USP is what sets you apart from your competition.

However your slogan should be very relevant to your USP.

Take our OVERLOAD Fitness facility’s slogan: Maximum Fitness…Minimum Time.

It is relevant to our USP but it doesn’t tell the whole story. Damn close though.

Those who follow this model automatically have a UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSTION.

Think about it:

We keep our facility clinically controlled with regard to temperature so you won’t sweat.
Our facility is devoid of any distractions (no music, mirrors or socializing).
We dress professionally.
We MUST use a specific type of equipment in order to perform the protocol which NO ONE else uses.
We actually have a system (a PROTOCOL) that is consistent and reproducible from instructor to instructor that no one else uses.
We require very little of your time; 20 minutes 1-2 times per week and we get RESULTS!
And typically most things we tell our clients are the exact OPPOSITE than what other personal trainers and popular magazines and TV infomercials are preaching.

I’m sure there are others but these are our main unique selling propositions.

Almost everything we do and say is 180 degrees in the opposite direction than other fitness businesses and this is what makes our business model such a success.

Therefore, if you follow this model in your business you have a built in USP that helps you surpass the competition.

So those out there claiming that this is a terrible business model are not performing the #1 job of any business owner.

What is that you may ask?

Bear with me and I’ll tell you in a moment.

Two of our OVERLOAD facilities are in Cleveland, Ohio.

Let me say that again: CLEVELAND, OHIO.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau Cleveland, Ohio was the 2^nd poorest city in the US only behind Detroit, Michigan.

Now if we can build a seven figure business in only 6 years in Cleveland, Ohio then I don’t want to hear any excuses from those in more affluent cities.

One question you may ask is why are we so successful.

Now, this article is not meant to brag. It is meant to shed some light on what I believe is the #1 reason Renaissance-like businesses fail.

The reason: They don’t MARKET their business.

That’s it.

Sorry, but it’s true.

If you are a business owner then your number one job is Marketing!

More specifically Lead Generation.

Anyone know what that term means? I didn’t a few years ago.

Lead generation means always bringing a constant steady flow of new qualified prospects into your business.

There is a now somewhat popular slogan in the Fitness Business world called “Multiple Poles In The Water.”

This was coined by Billy Beck III who owns a fitness business in Florida (not a Renaissance Exercise model).

You see, Billy gets it and that’s why he is successful. I’ve met Billy and have masterminded with other non-Renaissance Exercise fitness business owners over the years in order to grow our business. (That was a gold nugget right there-mastermind)

You see, having multiple poles in the water is probably the most powerful fitness marketing lesson you’ll ever get.

To paraphrase one of my mentors (another gold nugget-mentor):

“The #1 goal for any marketer: you, me, anyone in business – is to consistently put marketing poles in the water, measure the results, and let the NUMBERS (most important of which is ROI) determine whether or not you continue using that pole in the water or not.

Done correctly and diligently, over time you WILL develop consistently reliable poles in the water…consistently reliable fitness marketing tactics that generate new clients, retain/re-sell existing clients, and reactivate lost clients.

Then your job is to KEEP DOING THOSE THINGS REGULARLY. Do not stop until the numbers tell you to.

And while you are consistently running your proven performers, you also never stop testing new poles in the water.

That, my friends, is the million dollar fitness business marketing plan in a nutshell.”

So if you’ve plateaued – if you want better results, faster – get the hell out of your comfort zone.

Stop doing what you’ve always done.

If you don’t do marketing START. If you are marketing, how many poles in the water do you have and are you measuring the outcomes (ROI)?

Remember, you can’t manage what you don’t measure.

I hope this doesn’t disappoint you to find out that your #1 job is MARKETING if you want to own a successful business.

It may not be as sexy as the training BUT it is an ABSOLUTE NECESSITY if you want to grow your business.

We can go into the details of what MARKETING actually is and should be to become successful but I will save that for another post if there is interest on your behalf.

So if this has resonated with you and you’d like to take this topic a step further please let us know by posting your thoughts below in the comments section.

And by all means show your love and click on the Like button as well!

We truly appreciate and welcome your feedback.

Until next time, ALWAYS BE MARKETING!

P.S. Please leave your comments below and let us know what other business related questions you may have and we’ll do our best to answer them!

46 comments

Mar

2011

W.O.W. … I may have voided my warranty

65 comments written by Joshua Trentine

There has been an overwhelming response to the RENAISSANCE EXERCISE movement thus far. To date our day to day operations have revolved around supervising the workout sessions in our facilities. This is what pays our bills and this will always be the cornerstone of our business, the end user, the trainee, although we must allocate more and more of our time toward education and product development.

The expansions of this philosophy and the web site have already led to many new developments and interests. Just in the past week we have finalized a number of new design concepts in the new REN EX line of equipment. Concepts that we have wanted to incorporate for years have finally come to fruition in working prototypes.

We have been using the basic platform and movement patterns well over ten years, but we have been able to improve these designs in such a way that will make it easier for the user to work harder and systems that will provide better feedback and allow the trainer to control more variables.

I cannot wait to unveil the new machines; our anticipated date is June 2011.

In the meantime the show must go on.

There is more demand than ever to educate both the trainers and trainees.

This week alone we have had communications with interested parties from the USA, India, Qatar, Canada and Australia. And we were fortunate enough to be able to do a workshop for students here in Cleveland this weekend, one of our students coming all the way from Australia.

The reality is that the RENAISSANCE movement is gaining momentum and in many ways has gotten ahead of itself. We have yet to release neither our technical manual, nor one piece of equipment.

That being said there are still many interested parties familiar with the teachings of Ken Hutchins. Our headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio has full lines of the original SuperSlow Systems machines (built by Ken Hutchins), MedX Machines, DAVID machines, and various generations of retrofit Nautilus. This set up has allowed us to take students who do not have our technology and teach them to get the most out of their equipment. When the equipment line is complete those who purchase the equipment will be required to enroll in the Renaissance Exercise Academy in order to best represent this technology.

A big part of the educational process revolves around the articles that we write for this site and the chapters in our manual.

The other medium by which we introduce people to the protocol is video demonstration.

Whether it is instructional DVDs or the videos posted on the site. The most common request that we get is to post MORE video support. I think people require social proof and one video may be worth more to some than any numbers of articles we can write…assuming they know what they are looking for, which leads me to the original intent of this Blog post.

A number of people have asked me, personally, to produce a video during an actual workout. I’ve been somewhat hesitant to do so for a number of reasons:

1. The vast majority of my workouts are done on REN EX equipment which is not ready to be released just yet.

2. It is quite a distraction and interruption of the workout to put together video that is decent. A regular workout can take 15 minutes. Placing cameras, considering angles and organizing the whole production of getting every exercise on film could take 45 minutes or more, pretty much killing the workout continuity. When you only workout between 4 and 8 times per month and when you only repeat an exact workout maybe 12 times or less per year you hate to lose even one session.

3. We have a number of real time demonstrations with Al Coleman training that are already posted.

4. No matter what the videos are there is going to be criticism.

While the overwhelming majority of comments are positive I received critiques on camera angles, equipment choices, I have been told the weights are too light, that TUL’s are too high or too low, that the trainee’s clothes look shabby, I’ve been told that we are showing off like proud peacocks and worst of all I’ve been told that the subject doesn’t appear to be working hard. My point…unless you read the protocol and the articles and have experienced Ren Ex you might not know exactly what you are looking at.

Gus writes about the Al Coleman video:

“This is why so many of us are unable to communicate these ideas. You can’t really see what we’re saying.

You can’t see that what Al is demonstrating is the best performance of the protocol that exists so far in ANY video.

You can’t see that Al isn’t just parroting past performances of slow movement, but instead working at the highest level possible for the purpose of stimulating muscular growth without wasting precious resources.

You can’t see that the machine is delivering the resistance with no more friction than can be practically detected and that the resistance is so plentiful that most reasonably strong men would not remotely be able to replicate Al’s performance.

You can’t see that every rep that he performs requires his maximal concentration and effort. And you can’t see that the moment the rep commences, the machine delivers a magnitude of resistance to equal his greater strength in that position. Or that he has to perform “rate changes” to match the timing of the machine’s decrease of resistance as his muscles weaken along the range.

You can’t see that as he approaches the end of the range of motion the device is opening the gate to a level of muscular congestion that affords maximal input to his physiology without the need for output nor that such input affects his muscular capacity dramatically thus setting him up for yet harder work at the moment he continues the exercise.

You can’t see that each moment that passes alters the feeling of each rep in such totality that none is his reps feel the same as any other. You can’t see that his only resource to combat this ever changing resistance delivery is to release more and more effort thus signaling the ultimate intensity necessary to challenge the final moments.

You can’t see that Al is genuinely dealing with the final moments of the incomplete rep by literally, not figuratively, demonstrating the primary objective; that he’s actually IMPROVING his form at precisely that moment at which every fiber of his being is screaming to break loose and just finish the rep. You can’t see that this attention to the primary objective of attending to his physiology annihilates the assumed objective of finding a way to move more, or greater, or longer.You also can’t see that Al does all of this while fighting a biting inner turmoil, masking it with a serene countenance. You can’t see that as the set proceeds, the rate of fatigue requires Al to deftly manipulate his perceived output to unleash all of his remaining strength to complete the last bits of range of motion despite the ever escalating difficulty in those formerly easier positions.

You can’t see that performing in this way obviates the need to do additional work, to add variables, to “mix it up”, to extend the set. And you can’t see that such performance, outside of helping achieve the desired consequences and adaptations, actually FEELS so good in his physiology that it’s almost beyond description and certainly beyond that which is possible on any other equipment that we know of thus far.

Most of all you can’t see that it took Al months–no–YEARS to learn to do this at such a high level. You can’t see that one can’t just go home and “try it” any more than you can go home and play guitar like VanHalen because you saw Eddie play up close once.

Of course you can’t see these things.

What can we say of demonstrations anyway? If they properly highlight intensity of effort, it’s at the expense of the cold, calm aggression needed to focus deeply. Intensity is usually indicated with grimaces, grunting, groaning, and representations of pain that all make for great photos and video but are really nothing more than histrionic nonsense….Intensity without purpose and without inroad. Or, and this could be worse, the more recent “huff and puff” demos of people simply hyperventilating and wasting energy by over-breathing too early and with grossly insufficient resistance.

There’s a reason why Hutchins was (from the beginning) against demonstrations: if they’re doing wrong, the observer subconsciously learns the bad habits. If they’re done right, the observer doesn’t even know what he’s seeing.

It’s not anyone’s fault. This is the PROBLEM with this philosophy and protocol. It’s tough to get right. And no one is to blame. We aren’t indicting people’s intentions, ability, intelligence or ego. We’re saying that a very rigid system must be in place to help people experience what we are calling Renaissance Exercise.

There’s a time and place for a live demonstration. It’s when someone had an opportunity to try it our way under our supervision. This has been my experience, whenever someone who has had some background with all this comes to train with me: without fail they all say: “well, none of my workouts have ever felt like this before”. And then i must ask “why? What have you been doing?”…. Invariably an answer is not necessary and everyone comes to this profound and resigned “get it” moment because everything just fits.

We understand there’s some frustration…. “you gotta have this that and the other to get it right”…or, “you did it, but you didn’t quite get it right”….and, “you need a cold room, fans, machines with freaky cams, gotta be stoic, slow, squeeze, fast-but-slow, get the rep but then don’t”….it’s all just too much, i know. But then, if you DO get it just right, well it’s magic. And there ain’t a study on earth that’s necessary to prove that.

Have you ever had a good tailor? i mean a really good “blow-your-fucking-mind-detail-oriented-tailor” ? If you have, then you know that such an artisan is rarer than rocking horse droppings. This kind of tailor can do things with fabric to merge with your body that few will ever replicate. Why? Most tailors learn the same basic things. So why is it that only very few can truly create the kind of garment that fits you truly well and consistently meet your expectations? As Al said, it’s all about the details…details that many others would find ridiculous and laughable. Yet for the discerning aficionado, such details are the mark of true excellence…

We get that most people don’t care that much about the details of a workout. (Most people don’t care that much about anything). We get that to go this far is “hair-splitting”. But we love this stuff….”

So, here I am contemplating posting another exercise demonstration.

Most people have been asking for more video of exercise done in real time. I’ve been wanting to, for a long time, contribute a real time workout to Doug McGuff’s Workout of the Week (W.O.W). Doug has been a huge influence for me and I can say that OVERLOAD FITNESS and RENAISSANCE EXERCISE may not exist if he doesn’t write the book ULTIMATE EXERCISE. It is for this reason that I would like to pay tribute with my own W.O.W, but I go into this demonstration with much hesitation.

I constantly have Ken Hutchins voice echoing in my head “If they’re done wrong, the observer subconsciously learns the bad habits. If they’re done right, the observer doesn’t even know what he’s seeing.” I hear Gus’s voice with his comments above how it’s damn near impossible to get people to REALLY see what’s going on. Not to mention the fact that Gus worked in film production and his quality of video I can never produce.

I can already hear the plateheads and gym rats exclaiming that we’re not working hard in the videos and the weights are too light.

I can hear all of the members of the former SuperSlow Guild becoming enraged as I play to the orthodox exercise crowd.

And last but not least it doesn’t make sense to film my W.O.W on Ren EX equipment because it doesn’t yet exist in the field and I’m not quite ready yet to fill any more orders for it than what we’re currently doing.

Perhaps I’m completely nuts for trying to take in so many considerations, but I did when filming my W.O.W.

The intent was to maintain the standards set forth by Ken Hutchins.

It was to provide an example of how this would be done on readily available equipment.

It was to show that people who train this way can become VERY SRTONG, stronger than with any other method and it was done to give the impression that the absolute load moving up and down requires tremendous effort even though my appearance is not a tell that I’m producing such efforts.

Stoic, blank, expressionless look on my face.

Now in the process of doing this I may have voided the warranty on all of the equipment in use. I strongly recommend against doing this to your own machines. MedX machines have enough inherent weight stack problems and friction issues without piling weight horns and weights on top of their already defective weight stacks.

My Workout of the Week (W.O.W) is as follows:

Nautilus XP LOAD Deadlift starting weight 960#x4 (done more as a strength feat, not usually part of the workout and NOT recommended)
MedX retrofit Compound Row 650#x4
MedX Chest Press 745#x3
MedX Leg Press 1305#x6

Watch Below Now!

65 comments

Mar

2011

Breathing (part 3)

33 comments written by Al Coleman

In my previous installment addressing the topic of breathing during high intensity exercise, I alluded to the idea that our respiration, if left untouched by the Val Salva maneuver, could possibly be the crudest tool we have to measure the rate and depth of muscular inroading and the general performance/adherence to the Renaissance Exercise protocol.

My objective during this installment is to begin to try and explain how the things that I have observed as an instructor have led me to this conclusion. This subject will be divided into two parts.

“Everyone is always teaching one what to do, leaving us still doing the things we shouldn’t do.”
F.M. Alexander

In my formative years as an instructor I would at times get frustrated with being unable to get a subject to do something that I asked. A gleaning example of this is getting someone to load up correctly during the commencement of a leg press.

Despite specific instructions to “breathe freely”, “load up gradually”, or “take a good 3-5 seconds to initiate the first inch”, a subject will more than likely perform some type of restrained and tensed maneuver to provide themselves some mechanical assistance in breaking the inertial load. Even having them “over-breathe” this load up (in an attempt to reduce intra abdominal pressure) only worked half of the time. This frustrated me because I could seem to do it myself almost effortlessly, yet folks who probably double me in the IQ department, couldn’t seem to compute such a seemingly simple task.

This wouldn’t have been a major issue if it didn’t somehow seem to affect the remainder of the set. I surmise that there is a profound educational tool in learning how to initiate this phase that will neurologically “prime” and “lock in” the intended musculature and their recruitment sequence during the remainder of the set.

It is almost as if the quality of the exercise is determined by how the subject initiated the movement. This isn’t difficult to understand when one realizes that the quality of that initial “loading up” is reflective of a particular attitude and that if that attitude isn’t present right from the get go, then it isn’t likely to be present for the remainder of the exercise.

Oddly enough, I’ve found the most practical and effective tool for ingraining this attitude is the proper application of “squeeze technique”. The “squeeze technique” is, in my humble opinion, what makes or breaks this protocol, but that is a topic for another post.

I digress.

The observance of this phenomenon (Val Salva while initiating movement) led me to wonder, “Could it be possible that the quality of muscular loading is reflected and determined by the degree to which the subject enacts the Val Salva maneuver?”

In other words, the speed of motion and therefore the protocol of choice, might to a large degree, be determined by whether or not the Val Salva is enacted. This may sound slightly outlandish and overly anal retentive, but I have good reason (I think) to believe it is true.

I would actually go as far to say that it might be impossible to suddenly apply muscular force without first performing the Val Salva maneuver.

I’ve performed experiments on myself where I’ve tried to apply muscular force abruptly and simultaneously tried to avoid a Val Salva and it is (by my determination) impossible.

I feel to come to this conclusion one must be acutely aware of what the Val Salva maneuver could be at its most subtle level. It is exactly this subtle awareness that I have found to be the most effective tool in breaking the tendency to perform the Val Salva maneuver prior to loading up.

Simply paying attention and being aware of the process seems to be all that is necessary to stop it.

After all, breathing happens on its own if we allow it. The process of getting a subject to pay attention in this fashion can be arduous, but the payoff is huge in the sense that they have just taught themselves something extremely profound about their habitual reactions to stress. I have rarely seen someone go back to their old way of trying to break an inertial load once they discover this, not to mention this level of attention spills over to the remainder of the set.

Once again, it has to do with laying the groundwork for a particular attitude and intention.

Once one has avoided the Val Salva maneuver, muscular force will more or less happen gradually.

What we have now is a situation where the manifestation of the protocol will be contingent upon three things: Val Salva (or lack thereof), the subjects’ willingness to “chase” a consistent rate of speed, and the source of resistance (equipment).

Given my experience and observations, I find the argumentation over protocol choices a bit silly. You either feel that ideal loading occurs without the Val Salva maneuver or you don’t. If you are of the opinion that ideal muscular loading will occur in the absence of the Val Salva maneuver (and I obviously am), then you are not left with a whole lot of options with regards to how you will effort against a particular resistance source.

Is it necessary to hold up such an ideal?

I have no idea, but without at least moving in that direction, neither I nor the people I train have any direction.

After a subject has learned to avoid the Val Salva maneuver, they now have provided you the instructor, with the most profound feedback to determine how well they are engaging the intended muscles at any given moment…..oxygen debt.

You can’t fake oxygen debt and how that relates to protocol performance will be the topic of my next post.

Until next time, please post any comments below and we will personally reply! We’d love to hear your feedback.

33 comments

Mar

2011

To Pump or NOT to Pump? This is the Question.

23 comments written by Joshua Trentine

More of What We Want and Less of What We Don’t

I am unaware what role muscular “pumping” plays in either stimulation or ultimate growth.

What should be understood from the onset, is that while attempting to achieve the real objective of exercise, we make demands on the musculature that require large amounts of blood, oxygen and nutrition, as well as waste removal.

The pump is a consequence of this objective. It is not our intent, but merely a side effect. We do know that maximal pump is affected to a large extent by hydration, electrolyte balance, glycogen levels as well as amino acid concentrations.

Let’s discuss the origins of the “pump”.

The pump or engorgement of the musculature occurs secondarily to a negative feedback loop as a consequence of occlusion.

Exercise of this type necessitates that blood flow oscillates due to high intra-muscular pressure produced by muscular contractions. However, said contractions create high pressures that occlude the aforementioned blood flow.

The degree of this occlusion appears to be directly proportional to the intensity or force of the muscular contraction. It has been observed that efforts above 60% of maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) may entirely occlude blood flow.

The result of the negative feedback loop dramatically increases the blood flow to the affected muscles as a consequence of the fact that the muscular effort has dropped below the level which caused the occluded blood flow to initially occur (60% MVC).

The resulting phenomenon explains the pump.

My experience has led me to conclude that the most profound pump can be produced in the least amount of time through a combination of several factors.

They are high volitional effort exhibited by the subject, proper resistance provided by the machine and slightly longer set durations. Where the largest degree of pump is concerned, I am opposed to short duration sets, performed with limited range of motion, that are often exhibited by many bodybuilders.

My personal experiments, as well as the training of thousands of clients, has led me to conclude, that the modality of exercise that we promote, produces a superior, severe and predictable pump, that is longer lasting than any other form of exercise.

On what do I base this conclusion? Through the simple fact that the muscle remains occluded longer, with a more constant tension (provided by the accommodating resistance curve of the machine) and consequently produces a larger flush after the exercise is concluded.

Having been a professional bodybuilder I can probably predict, with a high degree of accuracy, your reaction.

Perhaps it goes something along the lines of “I’ve been performing fast, short, low weight, pumping repetitions for as many years as I’ve been competing-it works”.

My answer – yes it does work, sometimes.

This action does produce a pump during the performance of the set, but the results remain unpredictable.

Have you ever attempted to pump your muscles and no matter how hard you tried or how many sets you perform you just can’t achieve a satisfactory result?

Knowing the answer to this problem is probably worth the entire time investment you have in reading this article.

The answer is “instant gratification”.

Every repetition you perform adds to the engorgement of the muscle. More blood volume, more engorgement. The repetitions are short, brief and usually partial. They provide very little negative work (back pressure) that allows the muscle to rest with every repetition you perform. This respite produces reduced occlusion and poor fatiguing characteristics. Simply stated, sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t.

Be advised that this type of performance can result in significant fatiguing of the involved muscles. However I have an altogether different theory on way this occurs. This theory that I will explain latter, partially explains why I perform my exercises in a manner opposite to the behavior I have just described.

First…Which is better?

Is it one big predictable profound flush after the set, or many mini pumps during the set?

It depends what you are trying to do, if you are about to step on stage to pose for the next thirty minutes or take some vanity pictures, I strongly recommend that you do not exhaust (inroad) the muscle too much. In this case I would recommend “pumping” reps.

If I wanted to produce the greatest exercise effect I recommend prolonged occlusion (Renaissance Exercise type reps). It will provide a more consistent, predictable and sustained effect and it will allow for Random failure as opposed to a metabolic back up. Meaning the set ends because the available fibers have been tapped out, not due to congestion and or mechanical constraints of the machine, such as friction or poor resistance curves.

Therefore, more stimulation and as a side effect more occlusion followed by more blood, oxygen and nutrition. More of what we want and less of what we don’t….congestion and interruption of the Real Objective of Exercise.

Why does the body produce congestion?

Why do we experience edema?

A theory I have proposed is that the system is attempting to shut down.

Biological self-preservation and system redundancy is circumvented by the atypical act of slow repetition speed.

In a sense we “fly under the radar.”

The stimulus is presented in a manner so foreign to the body that we stay beneath its protective margins, at least for a longer period of time. This may also account for the protective nature some have expressed when we encounter “harsh” resistance. “A bracing affect if you will.” – Negative Thoughts

Most of us have trained on conventional exercise equipment, machines designed for more ballistic type training. Let’s talk about one exercise done this way and study it.

Let’s consider the prone leg curl (any conventional brand, including Nautilus.)

Select a load normally used for 10 conventional repetitions, enter the machine, lay prone, hook the legs, and apply force suddenly.

Assuming the selected weight is reasonable, on the first rep the pads will come all the way to the buttocks, the hamstrings experience an intense full range contraction, almost as if they are going to cramp, “ouch”!

On the next rep a similar experience, perhaps a few degrees less range of motion.

By the third or fourth rep the movement arm is nowhere near the buttocks, of course you continue on… you haven’t “failed”, have you?

In order to continue the set you will find that with each and every subsequent rep you will lose some range on the contracted end and as you continue also on the stretched (extended) end, but you continue…..you haven’t “failed” yet, have you?

This is high intensity training, therefore you continue along with these “reps” (partials) and you will find that as you continue to lose range of motion on the ends, movement in the middle of the range is still possible, but some more of it disintegrates as you plug away, you haven’t “failed” yet, have you?

Movement is still possible, small pulses somewhere around halfway between the knee being straight and it being bent to 90 degrees.

No matter how many times you replicate this set, at these speeds, the set will terminate the SAME way. Reps may vary, but you will lose range on the ends until you can no longer budge the movement arm anymore.

Wait a minute…did you ever fail?

NO you didn’t!

You just congested the muscle beyond the point of function, gummed it up, pumped it, in the process eliminated the ability to recruit maximum musculature and eliminated any extended occlusion required to achieve a superior, long lasting and predictable pump.

And is it possible that the muscle always runs out of steam in the same part of the same set every time?

NO!

You ran into two problems; one is mechanical, which we will save for another article, the other metabolic.

YOU PUMPED UP DURING THE SET!

So what happened?

In the article “Negative Thoughts” the author wrote; “It isn’t friction gentlemen, but whatever the hell it is; it affects us less by using slower protocols. Comparing when you get stuck going fast versus going slow screams that you don’t understand the salient factors involved. Most guys who try and compare protocols don’t understand that reaching failure and inroading deeply are not the same.”

The muscle becomes so congested, so quickly, because of the aggressive action on the initiation of positive which contributes to the momentum, which contributes to momentarily decline in tension, which is followed by a poorly loaded negative. Very high efforts followed by moments of lower tension and respite, perhaps even moments below 60% MVC. The situation only worsens when you watch the more advanced subjects train.

“Their ability to contract and un-contract is extraordinary. Intensity=inroad? – No way. What you think you’re experiencing and what the muscles are truly experiencing may be very different.” – Negative Thoughts

The more advanced the subject, the more muscle and the better he can contract and uncontract- the more blood, oxygen and nutrition his muscles will require.

The method that he employs will ultimately determine if and when the pump arrives and if the pump helps or hinders his efforts, his intent.

Let me know your thoughts by posting them in the comments section below.

And if you liked this article, show your love by hitting the LIKE button as well!

23 comments

Mar

2011

The First Step Toward Solving Any Problem Is To Call It By Its Proper Name

16 comments written by Joshua Trentine

For the past 12 years I have, for the most part, stayed a safe distance from most people in the HIT community. With the retirement and death of Arthur Jones I have struggled to observe any significant progress concerning refinements or a major breakthrough in the understanding of high intensity exercise.

This is not to say that interesting theories have not been stated.

Only that we are no further down the research path then we were 20 years ago. Over this same period of time there has been a huge influx of information coming out of the “strength training community” to attempt to describe training adaptations.

The direction has not been defined in the classical sciences as Nautilus principles were but, instead we are besieged with this mentality of new terminology, of a new language, that’s been designed to confuse and complicate and supposedly specialize, rather than define.

I did a Google search to look up basic exercise definitions, the number one search came up with 14 different “types” of strength. The article was called

“Defining strength. There are many kinds of strength”

The article included “regular” strength, starting strength, speed strength, absolute strength, relative strength, limit strength, strength endurance, dynamic strength, isometric strength, general strength, special strength, functional strength, eccentric strength, and concentric strength.

Hilarious, only in this business, anyway…

All of these things are products of strength, but all we need to know is:

STRENGTH – The ability to produce torque.

Renaissance Exercise methods rely on concrete definitions of Strength, Inroad, Intensity, Tension and Fatigue.

Some of the modern Strength Societies claim that this isn’t good enough so, first they create 14 meaningless definitions of strength. Then some tell me the one thing I can measure; Inroad is supposedly meaningless and now we can’t talk about fatigue because there are so many kinds that we must discuss, all of these fatigues (plural-odd?), but we can’t define them so well because there are supposedly so many kinds.

I’m also told that the one concrete definition that we always had, Tension is no longer good enough that we must talk about Tensions (again plural) because there are so many kinds’ of tensions just like Strength.

I’m sorry; I’m calling bullshit on all of this.

So…the modern jock/scientist has stripped our words of their meaning.

None of our definitions have a single and agreed meaning?

None of them are concrete?

They can have as many meanings as you can think up?

Sounds like a convenient out to justify anything and everything.

What is Strength?

What is Fatigue?

What is Tension?

Why would we see these words used as plural?

These words have concrete/definable meanings, but they become unidentifiable, vague concepts when applied inappropriately by the anything goes, me too, we already tried that mentalities.

These types of bastardized words are common place in the pseudo exercise scientist’s lexicon.

Words like Aerobics, the 14 derivations of Strength and now add to the list Tensions and Fatigues— we can’t solve or explain anything until we define our terms.

There is no basis for any of these words, they are instead, made up to confuse the public, and in turn create some sort of knowledge base inaccessible to the average man. Like a great deal of the “research” being performed, it keeps people employed.

Ken Hutchins has written about the importance of language sophistication in our pursuit and how the exercise field will be lost without it.

Ken writes “I am a fan of the writings of Richard Mitchell, the so-called underground grammarian. Mitchell is a strong advocate for the notion that the first step toward solving any problem is to call it by its proper name.”

“I believe that Mitchell would concur that progressive sophistication in any field of endeavor is largely dependent on the development of progressively finer linguistic distinctions. If usage of any word in a discipline is excessive to the degree that it becomes too interchangeable with multiple concepts (i.e. Strength, Tensions, Fatigues), then for true progress to occur one of two possibilities must occur. Either new words must be invented to distinguish each of the multiple concepts or the overused word must be HARSHLY restricted in its meaning.”

“It is impossible to truly respect a concept that is nameless or that has the SAME name as other concepts. A concept, much like a person, must have its own distinctive name.”

“A respectable service is one in which all the practitioners of the discipline have a relatively high level of linguistic distinction and consistency for the concepts philosophies and practices of their discipline so that efficient communication can be performed between the practitioners and subjects. Anything less is a collection of babble. This babble within the rabble, hence, deserves no respect. And this rabble can never constitute a legitimate profession.”

“Linguistic distinctions must also be consistent with science, particularly classical science. To veer off the path of accepted science to invent a sequestered world of linguistic distinctions is not likely to gain respect, especially if those distinctions are not fit with the rest of the science-described reality.”

Exercise must fit too!

The laws of exercise are definable.

We have strength (torque), we have tension, and we have fatigue. These terms do not have endless, nebulous meanings which may be applied at the convenience of the end user.

The way to identify this vague mentality, the giveaway, is when you witness their training application. You discover that nothing has meaning, it’s just phony language, concocted in an attempt to disguise the type of training most of us did in high school.

The common statement the exercising public likes to ask is “but what about my goals”. Your goal is to inroad, period.

You accomplish this by mastering the technologies we presently have available, period.

As always, let us know your thoughts by posting a comment below. We’d be happy to reply!

16 comments

Mar

2011

Are You A Personal Trainer Or A Life Changer?

21 comments written by Kristina

First let me preface this post with a distinction in terms.

When I refer to “Personal Trainers” such as those who follow the RenEx protocol I am referring to “Instructors”.

Personal Trainer

: Instructor

If you haven’t read the article Differences by Ken Hutchins click here first and then read the post below.

______________________________________________________________________________

I often get asked by clients or friends “How do you sit there and do the same thing day after day? Don’t you get bored?”

To the outsider looking in I can appreciate their perspective. They think I just take a client through a workout and press a stop watch.

In fact, other personal trainers who have observed us on a daily basis may come to the same conclusion.

They think, “Oh that looks easy. Just get the client to move slow, press a stopwatch and clicker and take the client to failure. I can do that!”

Little do they or anyone who has never engaged in this type of training appreciate all of the meticulous detail and knowledge that goes into what they see on the surface as “Boring/Easy”.

I can understand how exercise instructors can get bored or burned out. Just like anything in life, if you are not fully engaged and passionate about what you are doing then you will lose interest.

In fact, I’ve heard trainers referred to as over paid friends, gym caddies or even pin pullers.

This is may be the reality of some but it is NOT mine or my staff!

Our exercise instructors are NOT just instructors.

We are LIFE CHANGERS!

We are in the business of OPTIMIZING ONE’S HEALTH AND FITNESS AND IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF ONE’S LIFE.

We just happen to do this through exercise instruction.

I don’t know about other trainers, but to me that is PRICELESS and fulfilling.

When I meet someone new and they ask me what I do, I simple reply with “I improve the quality of people’s lives”.

They will inevitably then ask me “How do you do that?”

I reply with “I do that through one on one exercise instruction and nutritional consulting.”

At that point I have their attention and they are intrigued.

Now that is a little networking trick I use to engage people but it is absolutely true!

“Are you bored with Life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.”

– Dale Carnegie

This is how we keep our trainers engaged and retained. They appreciate the greater good they do for people. This only gets reduced to pulling pins if you let it. (We’ve also found that the more the instructor knows about the Renaissance protocol, the more interesting their day becomes)

In John Di Julius’s book What’s The Secret? To Providing A World Class Customer Experience we writes:

“Let’s talk about the toughest job in the world, nursing. Most hospitals today will tell you how nurses are underpaid, understaffed, overworked, and as a result, many are burned out. What if we called them “Daymakers”? Because that is what they actually are.

If they were constantly referred to as Daymakers and they had to introduce themselves as Daymakers, wouldn’t that make them reconsider their role and the sensitivity they must have with every patient and family member they come in contact with? Who do you think are happier with their jobs, nurses or Daymakers?”

I tell every new potential employee we interview that working here is NOT a job.

This is a career and if you are not passionate about changing lives and helping people then this is NOT the right place for you.

I then tell them that the day you wake up and come to work and think this is just a job and you are dreading it, then this is the day you need to tell us so we can develop an exit strategy.

I appreciate that trainers come and go.

I’m not ignorant to that fact.

Nor do I believe that they will stay with us forever UNLESS they are constantly engaged with their passion and they fully appreciate the outcome which they provide to clients.

They CHANGE LIVES!

I can’t tell you how many times we have clients tell us that they have dropped their blood pressure medication or can walk up the stairs without getting winded or just recently we had a client walk out of the hospital the day of his total hip replacement.

WOW!

I could go on and on and I’m sure you could too. This protocol CHANGES LIVES!

However, this profession is NOT for everyone.

And High Intensity Training is NOT for everyone. We all know this to be true.

Perhaps burnout comes from not necessarily the repetitive nature of “doing the same thing” BUT taking on the tremendous responsibility of being a trainer and a business owner. That is of course if you own a business.

Are you a Technician or an Entrepreneur?

Let me make this CLEAR!

In order to run a successful business you can only do so much yourself. At the end of the day to succeed, you must learn to work ON your business and not IN your business. (Read the E-Myth by Michael Gerber if you have not. In my opinion it is required reading for any entrepreneur).

As a fitness business owner, most of us all started out as technicians. We had what Gerber calls an entrepreneurial seizure and thought “Why should I work for a gym when I can do it myself and do it better”.

So we quit our job and open up our own personal training business. Then we quickly realize that we own a job NOT a business.

If you are working IN your business you own a JOB.

If you are working ON your business you own a business.

Now, I know what you are thinking…I have to train 15 people today and do the bills and get some new clients in the door and clean the facility and on and on.

You are a one man show (or you have some limited help) and you are stuck doing it, doing it, doing it.

Trust me, I’ve been there and I do still work IN my business BUT I spend the majority of my time working ON my business.

Now this wasn’t always the case.

In the beginning it was just Josh and I seeing 80-90 sessions a week each until we got smart and started hiring help!

As we have grown our company we have put all profits back into the business in order to get to the position we are currently in.

We have evolved from trainers to business owners. This requires a shift in your thinking.

Ultimately you have to make a decision.

Do I want to own a business or a job?

Getting back to my point about burning out.

If you are a trainer who owns a business and you are DOING EVRYTHING, then yes, burnout maybe just around the corner.

It is at that point you must decide if you want a job or a business.

Owning a business is not for everyone and there’s nothing wrong with that. There is NO shame in just being a trainer.

In fact, it is the trainer that drives the business!

I personally believe that people should play to their strengths and NOT spend so much time improving their weaknesses.

For example, most people think that in order to be “successful” in their career they have to move up the corporate ladder.

They think, “I’m a trainer now so the next step is manager and then the next step is owner”. Unfortunately more people fail when they are “promoted” to a position that does NOT suit their strengths.

Managers need to be able to manage people and projects. This is a far different skill set than training a client. BUT it doesn’t mean that if a trainer doesn’t progress to a manager that he/she is less of an employee/person.

You should think of the hierarchy more on a horizontal line rather than a vertical climb to the top. This is the culture you need to create within your business. Without my trainers, I am NOTHING!

If the trainer doesn’t train the clients and get them results and retain them then you have no business. The front line employees are often the most undervalued and unappreciated. When in fact, if it were not for them the business would not prosper.

So you must take a deep look at what your ultimate goal is in life.

If you want to own a business then you better start working ON it and hire others to work IN it.

Otherwise, burnout maybe right around the corner.

To prevent burnout for those you hire to work IN the business you must keep them engaged and help them to grow within your business.

You’ll be amazed at what happens if you just let people evolve!

Lastly, you must hire those who want to be Life Changers NOT personal trainers.

As always, go ahead and post your comments below and we will personally answer them!

21 comments

Feb

2011

Negative Thoughts: You May Never Completely Understand It (Part 4)

6 comments written by Joshua Trentine

Negative Thoughts: You May Never Completely Understand It (Part 4)
by General Tso

The following might be of interest.

Why does the body produce congestion?

Why do we experience edema?

A theory I have proposed is that the system is attempting to shut down. Biological self-preservation and system redundancy is circumvented by the atypical act of slow repetition speed. In a sense we “fly under the radar.”

A bracing affect if you will.

Watch an advanced subject train.

Their ability to contract and un-contract is extraordinary.

Intensity=inroad?

No way.

What you think you’re experiencing and what the muscles are truly experiencing may be very different.

I often read that if such requirements were necessary, we would have died out as a species. I look at this situation from a somewhat different perspective. Perhaps certain individuals, the survivors whose traits were passed on, did not die out because they attained these special adaptations. It was these adaptations, within the species, which in turn allowed them (us) to survive.

These requirements, that often offer resistance to our goals, may have played a very different and important role in our survival. Additionally, attaching a tag of rate-limiting, presents a troublesome set of circumstances that, beyond the realm of realistic training expectations, most would be better served avoiding.

The only manner in which to establish a higher standard is to respectfully crush the old one. The higher you go the more rarified the air.

Don’t expect credit and don’t expect a lot of company.

I have no commercial interest in any results at this time.

In fact I have spent tremendous amounts of my own money attempting to get some answers. I’m not certain I care to share the results for the simple reason that most people will twist and misconstrue them to suit their own purposes.

But I will say this:

If you truly wish to understand something, the first prerequisite is to respect it. You do this by admitting to yourself that you may never completely understand it. This alleviates the tendency, which too many possess, of switching from one position to another.

Secondly, your investigation should be for the right reasons. Boasting or attempting to be an authority is not one of them. Because you are curious is most important. It is from this position that my motivation starts and ends.

We require a standard.

We must control variables so that we may draw conclusions that are worth the paper they are written on.

There are those who are working hard to develop better tools, protocols and teaching methods. They don’t take short cuts, and they don’t do it to post on forums. They do it because they don’t know any other way to conduct their lives. It requires an ongoing day to day commitment because we (I) want answers.

Finally:

Is all this accuracy and precision necessary? I believe it is for three reasons.

First, we can build tools that allow us to observe and measure. Without an exacting standard of performance, we compromise both.

Second, each person represents an experiment with an N of one. Each person is their own control. This produces serial single subject studies; the compilation of which produces group data. From these data we can produce accurate measurement despite individual differences.

Thirdly, when prescribing medicine, physicians take into account age, weight and medical history of the individual, in addition to their medical symptoms.

What are we taking into consideration?

6 comments

Feb

2011

Negative Thoughts: If Only It Were So Easy (Part 3)

22 comments written by Joshua Trentine

Negative Thoughts: If Only It Were So Easy (Part 3)
by General Tso

Do you really think it’s as easy as comparing going fast versus going slow?

I wish it were, it would have saved me 5 years of building and “un” building.

Let me save some of you some typing.

I don’t care if you don’t have the equipment, time money etc.

Neither did I.

This isn’t a hobby, it’s a life’s work and I’d require 100 years to study everything I want to investigate. Developing the tools (no motors please) requires as much time in the week as earning a living.

My advice is to pay someone and get on their equipment.

Good equipment does nothing more than get out of your way, period.

Control variables, take the equipment variable and get it out of your way so you are not inhibited by noise. I don’t care how you train, but try and work harder on your own experiments.

It’s somewhat like training.

Most people will not sacrifice (time, money, effort, mistakes) enough to get the returns. Some don’t care, and that’s fine. Book a trip-but don’t come visit me, ok?

This may sound blasphemes but it is my contention negative strength is depleted to a much larger degree using proper equipment and exacting protocols than most realize.

What do I base this on?

Not much, the tools don’t exist-yet.

Static testing became the focus of the only real tools.

Consider the following that occurs on many exercises.

During the first repetition the positive requires greater effort than the negative. That’s why competent instructors don’t allow their clients to lift in 10 seconds and lower in, say 15 seconds, especially during the initial reps.

The second rep, the ratio of effort narrows. The negative becomes more productive (intense).

The third rep the effort ratio narrows further. If I fail to produce positive movement on my next rep, and I continue to attempt to move in a positive direction, I quickly encounter a situation where my holding strength “gives out” and I am forced to use every ounce of remaining strength to control the negative, with effort easily equal to or greater than the positive effort that was occurring when I reached failure. With this level of inroad fatigue overcomes congestion.

Note that the above situation I have described is not dangerous when employed using slow protocols and proper supervision. If it were, I would install braking systems into my machines.

Instead, it feels somewhat similar to the last repetition of a set of a negative only exercise. Keep in mind that while it feels somewhat similar to the negative only criteria for termination of a set, I’ve achieved this situation with less resistance (not more) than a negative only set required.

Furthermore, it is logical that using all available negative strength to control the weights descent with less starting resistance I have conceivably inroaded to a much larger extent than negative only protocols can achieve.

Several “authorities” on the net have stated that such a situation is “more dangerous” than adding 40% to the negative, and have further stated that the culprit is the radical resistance curves employed in some machines.

I have no interest in 40% negative accentuated equipment and therefore cannot responsibly comment on its utility (a responsibility too many people shun when commenting on things they do not understand).

I may test the use of motors at a later time. My only impression is that the subject’s motor ability is probably “overrun” but I can’t prove it –not yet.

Maybe they are the way to go? Doubt it, but it could be a part of the puzzle and I applaud the efforts. Nevertheless, please understand that being around something does not equal mastery or even understanding of the material.

Read a history book. Perhaps the knowledge seems vast but only to the uninitiated. This happens frequently by those who endorse equipment but have never built anything.

Nevertheless this fellow should take note that I’ve achieved this level of fatigue (and so have many others) in the performance of a push up.

To better understand inroad, let’s look at the classically used example.

We take into account that this model is used to teach novices a basic objective of exercise. Suppose a subject is capable of lifting a weight of 100lbs for one complete repetition and cannot perform a second. Their fresh strength is then 100 lbs. We then select a resistance of 80 lbs and perform consecutive repetitions to the point where positive volitional movement in a positive (concentric) manner is impossible. This is often termed as “muscular failure”.

Where the subject could once perform a repetition with 100lbs he can no longer perform a repetition with 80 lbs. The set of repetitions that he performed diminished his strength from a starting strength of 100lbs to an ending strength of 80lbs or 20 percent. Hence, he has inroaded his starting strength 20 percent or perhaps with continued effort, to a somewhat greater degree.

Keep in mind that the inroad model is used to illustrate a concept to novices-or people who are intellectual novices and are unaware of this fact.

Simply failing under a given weight, say perhaps 20% less of what you are capable of lifting once, does not take into account what the cam’s instant lever (moment arm) was when you failed. Forgetting the leverage factors introduced by the body, we don’t train on round wheels, we train on cams.

Also we don’t, or shouldn’t, fail in the same place every time. A whole paper could be written on the problems with this model, but suffice to say let’s use it to illustrate a point and don’t quote it as scripture.

Remember that we can’t avoid congestion altogether. However, and this has been proven to my satisfaction, moving slowly allows for longer continued movement than faster movement does, from a muscular efficiency standpoint. Reference Jones’s more popular/later Lumbar Spine book under No Contradiction.

Quote: “Earlier, we mentioned that slowing the initial speed of movement may permit you to perform one or two more repetitions by reducing muscular friction…later, we said that less repetitions are possible with a slow speed of movement, an apparent contradiction.”

“But in fact both statements are correct; current knowledge and technology do not permit meaningful measurement of metabolic work, and trying to do so with measurements of mechanical work is meaningless;.”

Someone who is actually thinking might conclude that our sets last longer because we use less resistance.

This is incorrect.

We use very heavy weights; our sets last longer because the slow movement drastically reduces the congestion problem. How else did we inroad deeper if our resistance levels were lower?

Therefore, “less repetitions are possible” is true but “slowing the initial speed of movement” allows the latter to trump the former. You get a longer TUL but deeper inroad.

How can I assert this?

Maybe because our weights are heavy, very close or equal to 2/4, but our speed is approximately 5 times slower on the positive and 2.5 times slower on the negative.

It isn’t friction gentlemen, but whatever the hell it is; it affects us less by using slower protocols.

Comparing when you get stuck going fast versus going slow screams that you don’t understand the salient factors involved.

Most guys who try and compare protocols don’t understand that reaching failure and inroading deeply are not the same.

They can’t measure true inroad, so they assume fast failure equals higher intensity and more efficient inroad.

Wrong.

This is another reason why TULs are a poor choice for measuring performance. Forget them, or at least use them within their limitations and stop assuming they are an absolute marker of inroad or performance. They are not a new standard of anything-only a tool that can be used under very controlled conditions to enable us to study certain specific effects.

22 comments

Feb

2011

Negative Thoughts: Time Well Spent (Part 2)

7 comments written by Joshua Trentine

Negative Thoughts: Time Well Spent (Part 2)
by General Tso

I hear this argument constantly.

“I failed under a load using a faster protocol at a lower /higher/same weight. Therefore…”

Perhaps you did.

But perhaps the resistance your muscles encountered was so inappropriate that they failed not because of profound inroad but instead because the resistance in a given position was too heavy. This is a much larger problem when training slowly because momentum doesn’t carry you over the sticking points. Now we take this conclusion and run with it.

Faster = better.

NO, look closer. We’re working on understanding this better.

What should be considered and investigated is what the musculature encountered with regards to the quality of resistance. Many years ago, Robert Francis had access to a Medx lumbar extension machine. He noted that subjects moving at slower protocol speeds tended to inroad 15 to 20 percent deeper than those exercising at faster protocols.

He further noted that it took an additional 30 seconds to reach positive muscular failure. He referred to this extra time as “time well spent.”

I agree.

Further it should be understood that slower exercise protocols allow the musculature to be less affected by the byproducts of fatigue and thus allows for increased time under load or positive movement against resistance. Keep in mind that this testing was conducted on a 1.4 cam suitable for a variety of protocols, (a rarity) and the slower protocol produced a 20% deeper inroad.

Now, imagine what comparing a cam designed for slow protocols could do under ideal conditions.

I intend to find out soon.

And for anyone really paying attention, consider how “off” your comparison of protocols are when attempting to compare slow protocols on cams that are mathematically incorrect and designed for faster protocols. This makes a bad situation worse, and truly not worth delving into in the first place, let alone posting your results and leading others down a dead end street.

It’s “Intensity of circumstance” if you will.

Cams are damn complex things when you get beyond the basics.

I’m not talking about designing them; I’m talking about their effects on the muscles. How do they change the muscles “environment”. You can build them to provide too much fall-away, just as much as too little. Regardless, where you end up at the termination of the set is affected drastically by the manner in which the muscles receive the resistance in the first place.

Hell, add an adjustable hard end stop to a movement arm and “squeeze” against it.

The effects are profound.

Sometimes it’s so profound you have to change the cam altogether. All you did was change one criteria. Make the resistance linear, exponential, and logarithmic and you change the intensity of circumstance again. These are known variables that you are manipulating.

Do you really think it’s as easy as comparing going fast versus going slow?

7 comments

Feb

2011

Negative Thoughts (Part 1)

15 comments written by Joshua Trentine

The following article was written by General Tso. This gentleman has spent many years refining his craft, many years studying proper exercise when he’s not making his delicious chicken bites. The general is not part of the Renaissance Exercise team, but we do find his insights noteworthy and we would like to share his observations about the current state of High Intensity Exercise.

SLOWLY…Letting go of the past

Most people still believe that we are approximately 40% stronger on the negative portion of an exercise? The “solution” to this is has been to “emphasize the negative” by spending twice the amount of time lowering the weight.

2/4 protocol right?

So the negative offers a respite because the muscle(s) have an advantage during the lowering portion of the exercise. We then engage them in this respite longer, twice as long as the positive lifting part of the exercise. We make the easier part of the exercise longer (twice as long) and this is designed to increase the efficiency of the exercise?

Now add to this situation the friction problems inherent in the early machines that unload the muscles even further while lowering the weight and you’ve got a real mess on your hands. This entire process was a step in the wrong direction. Even removing friction with bearing upgrades does not release a person training in this modality from “emphasizing the easy”.

This respite situation only seems to come up when discussing 10/10 protocols because we “spend too much time on the negative” while everyone else spends twice as much time on it, and that’s just fine and dandy. Don’t believe that you’re using heavier loads for your 2/4, and that you’re unloaded less because of this. We use damn heavy loads with cams that load up coming back, not backward cams that generally reduce resistance as you lower the weight.

The problem is congestion, more on that later.

Let’s explore this a little further. We’ve been led to believe that, through the performance of an exercise your positive strength is depleted and in some cases your negative strength actually increases. It’s all over the MedX literature.

Even though it is clearly stated in the manual and literature, what the non-careful reader may not observe is that while MedX states that only static testing is valid, the negative lines on many of their graphs are:

1. Dynamic (how could you take a static negative?)

2. Not produced on a MedX testing machine that they were selling.

Instead they were (probably) produced on a true isokinetic machine built in the early to mid-80’s. How exactly would a negative strength reading ever occur on a MedX testing machine, right?

On pages 112-113 of Arthur Jones “The Lumbar Spine” (the older large blue book), it is stated during a test of the quadriceps muscles:

“Prior to the exercise it was established by the test of the fresh strength that this subject was 40 percent stronger during the negative test than he was during the positive test, so his negative to positive ratio was 1.4 to 1. With fresh muscles”.

“But that ratio changed as the fatigue increased the friction within his muscles; during the fifteenth repetition his ratio was 2.2 to 1, meaning that his negative strength was then more than twice his positive strength. During the last repetition, number thirty-six, his ratio was then 9.6 to 1; his negative strength was nearly ten times as high as his positive strength”.

I have no doubt that this is what the test indicated. However this test is fraught with problems.

The subject performed 14 sub maximal repetitions.

Was the subject resting (unloading or taking tension off the muscles) at any point during the set?

I can only guess what the protocol speeds were (fast).

Thirty-six repetitions is a tremendous amount of mechanical work to perform and virtually warrants that the resistance was too light, or restated not meaningful enough to induce an efficient inroad. If the subject was in control of his effort (the resistance he was subjecting himself to) he had incredible endurance?

I’m not sure, I wasn’t there.

The fatigue was ultimately dramatic to the positive portion of the exercise; I wonder what portion of that was neurological do to the shear amount/volume of the exercise. In many ways this experiment probably shows us more for the lab, then leading us to refining protocols.

So the common wisdom is that after we have depleted all of our positive strength, we have loads and loads of negative strength remaining.

If you train on lousy cams and faster protocols that load/unload the musculature, I believe you end up in a situation where you have loads of congestion that “you get to keep” that works against you during the positive portion of the exercise (probably inhibiting true inroad) and works for you on the negative/lowering part of the exercise, inhibiting and masking inroad.

Ever hear how people were trained on this machine?

Perform the exercise until positive movement ends. Next, machine lifts leg(s) via motor to the extended position and subject performs a negative (read- muscles resting during this process)- repeat.

Poor guy’s in the damn machine for something like 30 plus reps.

Don’t get me wrong, that’s a hell of an effort and one that I would imagine few could replicate. But if you’re not getting weaker with every rep, and quick, something is wrong.

So, the inroad takes a step back and the congestion remains, and probably increases.

My contention is that lots of congestion gets in the way of inroading. It also gets in the way of what you think you’re observing, which in turn influences how you believe you should train.

It all comes back to how the muscles receive-and what they do-with the resistance at hand.

15 comments

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