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

Feb

2011

Do or DO NOT. There Is No Try! (Part 2)

3 comments written by Gus Diamantopoulos

Josh,

Your post make some great points and offers much food for thought. We all wax scientific about strength training exercise and how critical it is to determine the objective truths of all of this. And such is necessary to establish norms, to devise systems, and to develop theories. But with exercise, we are also dealing with the fact that one of the most important variables in the mix is the human spirit and sheer WILL.

Our personal fortitude to choose to exercise in the first place and our willingness to PUSH ourselves to the threshold of failure (and beyond) is a necessary and yet mysterious component of proper exercise. By virtue of our varying and differing personalities, each person’s force of will can ebb and flow and thus dramatically alter the extent to which someone will decide how much effort to apply in any given workout.

I would submit that at the root of each person’s ability to decide on ANYTHING is his or her BELIEF. Sam Harris says that “beliefs are an outgrowth to our capacity for action…they are principles of action…they are processes by which our understanding (and misunderstanding) of the world is represented and made available to guide our behavior”.

When we believe something to be true epistemically, we do so because something in our experience speaks to that truth. Renaissance Exercise is an attempt to establish a deeper context in which we can apply the theoretical principles that have been developed over the years. It’s an effort to magnify the level of resolution with which we can observe and experience the effects of exercise at micro and macrocosmic levels to better guide our beliefs, our thoughts, and our actions.

This is why we are repeatedly suggesting that seeming past failures of “so called” slow training are not necessarily an exhaustion of the protocol and philosophy. As we have been trying to show, there is so much more to all of this than may have been instantly assumed at its inception.

As you said in your post, we have spent the past 15 or 20 years “just getting started” in terms of our true understanding of all of this.

I for one am looking forward to many more years of discovery to come.

Thanks again for your great post.

Gus

3 comments

Feb

2011

Do or DO NOT. There Is No Try!

33 comments written by Joshua Trentine

Perhaps the most rewarding part of my exercise experience has been the study of my own personal response to exercise.

We have a massive population to study here at our studios and we have all benefited from such a large sample to gather data. The study of progressing someone from ground zero up through the ranks provides many valuable clues and pieces to the puzzle.

No matter how refined our application of the exercise stimuli may be, the ultimate outcome will be dependent on a plethora of variables that can be near impossible to simultaneously control. These variables include but are notlimited to, the subject’s genetic disposition, diet, current nutritional status (rates of absorption, elimination and excretion of nutrients, as well as toxins), recovery factors such as sleep, rest, chemical and hormonal status- life stressors; such as work environment, family stressors, illness and injury, motivation, intellectual comprehension, training maturity (ability to stimulate the body sufficiently), as well as many other variables that relate to one’s own biofeedback and how we might feel on any given day, from bio-rhythms to preference to times of day to train and energy levels.

When it comes down do it, the most consistent study ever conducted has been of only 1 person. There is only one study where one can control ALL of the variables that relate to the end result.

This is the study of ME!

Ultimately and honestly it is this study that I’m most interested in.

This doesn’t mean that others cannot benefit from my own selfish interest. I can assure you that many people have benefited from my conclusions. Also, it’s safe to say that just because I’ve come to some understanding as to what works best for me, it does not necessarily apply uniformly and across the board.

In addition, any of the variables mentioned may ultimately affect the application and outcome for another person.

So…what can you take away from this?

At some point and time we all have to commit to something; a relationship, political views, education, a career, buying a house or a car, choosing a health care provider, dietary habits and of course our exercise program.

The determination of what decisions we make and how committed to our decisions we are, will in large part be based on our beliefs.

That’s where critical thinking comes in.

Critical thinking is the discipline of rigorously and skillfully using information, experience, observation and reasoning to guide your decisions, actions and beliefs.

Critical thinking means questioning every step of your thinking process:

Have you considered all the facts?

Have you tested your assumptions?

Is your reasoning sound?

Can you be sure your judgment is unbiased?

Is your thinking process logical, rational and complete?

This kind of rigorous, logical questioning is often known as the Socratic Method of questioning, after the GreekSocrates who is considered to be the founder of critical thinking.

By developing the skills of critical thinking, and bringing rigor and discipline to your thinking processes, you stand a better chance of being “right”.

As a result of developing this skill set, you are more likely to make good judgments, choices and decisions in all areas of your life. This is an important part of “success” and “wisdom”.

I don’t think anyone would argue the importance of this process and to a greater or lesser extent we call on the process multiple times a day, every day.

So why is it that when it comes to exercise that the critical thinking process is often avoided?

Why does it appear that exercise protocols are often based on the latest whim or fad?

Why is ones opinion about exercise so easily influenced by the latest expert or newest protocol?

Is exercise not based on fundamental science of which we do have some grasp of; Biology, Physics, Kinesiology, and Mechanics?

Is the body subject to different physical laws than the rest of the things that move around the earth?

I think most of us would agree that both critical thinking and reliance on basic physical laws would dictate, to a great extent, which way we should go with our exercise program.

What exactly is it that causes so much indecision and in-fighting within factions that hold similar ideological approaches?

We identify with it as a part of our “self.” But that tendency to create and defend a “self” gets in the way of developing our critical thinking skills fully.

Why?

Because once we identify with our own thoughts and beliefs anything that challenges them is felt as an attack we must defend against – even if that “attacking” idea is closer to the truth than our own.

One of the goals of the Renaissance Exercise movement has been to help identify the basic physical laws as they relate to exercise. If this spawns business opportunity for us, as it has done in the past, great. If not we will continue on this path as we have done for many years in the past, behind closed doors, pushing this approach forward for ourselves in the name deepening our knowledge base. If we concede and settle for good enough, or the status quo, what will we really KNOW in the end?

At some point in time we all have to make a decision about what it is we believe in, what hypothesis we will stand by, based on our critical thinking and see it ALL THE WAY THROUGH.

There are some people who spend their entire lives studying one small piece of a process and this is why Renaissance Exercise is a team venture. No one member of our team possess enough time, interest, skill or desire to solve ALL of the problems and remove all of the constraints to our one common goal.

The Renaissance Exercise movement has already spawned quite a bit of reaction and in every forum or venue where I’ve seen it mentioned. Needless to say, there has been no shortage of opinion, from overwhelming support to heinous attacks. In my opinion both are noteworthy, because once we identify with our own thoughts and beliefs anything that challenges them is felt as an attack and we must defend against them – even if that “attacking” idea is closer to the truth than our own.

That being said perhaps the most aggravating response I’ve heard from the discussions are those who might want to “try” what we are doing. There has always been something that boils my blood when I hear the word “try”, but in this context I have very little patience for the person who wants to try these methods or who claims he has “…already tried that”.

Try? Seriously?

How about we DO?

At Renaissance Exercise we have identified many of the constraints that prohibit us from producing the most profound exercise stress in the least about of time and we are nowhere near done refining this craft. As a matter of fact, we’ve spent the last 15 to 20 years or more just getting started.

At some point in time we all have to commit to the thorough study of one thing.

We at Renaissance Exercise are absolutely committed to seeing this thing all the way through and removing every possible constraint to making Renaissance Exercise the most efficient, effective, safe exercise program.

Why?

Because it is a worthy pursuit and we think it will prove valuable for our own selfish interest and serve many people along the way. So for those of you who still think that this protocol is 10/10 and you are going to give it a “try” and come back and report the results, it might be best for you to keep chasing the magic exercise program that is finally going to produce the results that you never achieved in the last 30 years of trying.

One thing I can say for certain, as the years go on, the only things I’m willing to “try” are new ice cream flavors and perhaps the claimed most delicious pizza pies. We intend to ask the hard questions and provide more answers.

When all is said and done at least we know for sure that our efforts were more than a try.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him… The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself… All progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

-George Bernard Shaw

33 comments

Jan

2011

Breathing…Easier Said Than Done! (Part 2)

15 comments written by Al Coleman

As a follow up to my previous post regarding breathing during exercise, I’d like to delve a little further into the idea of why it may be more important to learn how to simply avoid the Val Salva Maneuver than it is to teach someone how to “breathe correctly”.

These thoughts are germane only to the high intensity exercise that we here at Renaissance Exercise prescribe and practice and do not apply to the various forms of strength sports that involve the lifting of weights.

Early in a subject’s and/or instructor’s experience with slow speed/ high intensity exercise, they may be taught to “over breathe” in a fashion similar to the sound of a panting dog.

The theory behind this strange practice is that if one goes to the other extreme, the tendency to hold the breath will be overridden. If this is done with the jaw relaxed and the mouth wide open, then this “dog panting” technique can momentarily serve its purpose well.

Even so, my preference over the past few years has been to get away from teaching this crutch. My experience has shown me that this manner of breathing is really just another form of patterned breathing that can lead to long term issues that become difficult to fix down the road.

Amongst the most obvious of problems that can arise from purposefully panting right from the get go, is that it dries out one’s air passage ways quite significantly. Besides the annoyance of feeling a dry mouth, the subject will feel the need to swallow.

At the moment the subject swallows, they are no longer smoothly contracting the target muscles. Some swallowing is permissible, but on the whole it should be minimized. This may sound nit-picky, but it has important implications that I will address in a follow up post.

Furthermore, this panting style breathing is in and of itself exhausting. Being guilty of once encouraging this form of breathing, I can attest to the number of subjects who would complain of so much light headedness and dizziness that they would have to terminate the exercise for reasons unrelated to muscular failure. As you can surmise, this is never good.

It is also my belief that consciously hyperventilating sends one into a state of panic that is near impossible to retract from in the middle of an exercise. Working to failure requires a calm excitation and one must be careful not to cross the line into Panictown.

We must understand that respiration in the context of high intensity exercise is one of the body’s governors, and that one of the main reasons to avoid the Val Salva maneuver is so that our body can get rid of enough Co2 to help neutralize the metabolic milieu.

This isn’t a process that we should try to accentuate or control as it will happen if you don’t inhibit it. Inhibiting it is in essence what the Val Salva maneuver does to this process.

Attempting to avoid the Val Salva maneuver by purposefully hyperventilating throughout an exercise is akin to “pushing the cart before the horse”.

Breathing just may be the most valuable feedback tool that we have to determine what is happening at the muscular level. It serves as a mirror of muscular activity. It is my opinion that consistent and rapid panting only serves to make that mirror murky.

In my next post, I’d like to dive into how breathing and our level of oxygen debt could quite possibly be the best subjective measure we have for determining the effects of a particular protocol’s ability to load muscle tissue.

As always, let us know your thoughts by posting in the comments section below. We’d love to hear your feedback!

15 comments

Jan

2011

Theory to Practice

18 comments written by Joshua Trentine

I came across an interview I did with Carl Lanore on Super Human Radio some time ago.

Carl is a great interviewer and really got a lot out of me for this show. The Renaissance concept wasn’t fully evolved at the time of the show, but we do cover the fundamentals of Ken Hutchins’ original SuperSlow protocol. At the time of the show we were no where near ready to come forward with the machines and the Renaissance protocols that go with them.

I’ve outlined the subjects that we covered in the interview below. Most of these subjects will require much more explanation for the initiated viewer.

What is High Intensity training
What went wrong with Single Set Training to Failure
Realistic stats for a Natural Bodybuilder
What’s so magical about our single set
What dictates hypertrophy
General training guidelines
How do we define failure
What is the stimuli for adaptation
SuperSlow exercises can produce the benefits of H.I.T and High Volume Training
What went wrong with H.I.T and what’s the solution
Did Nautilus equipment miss the mark
Rep Ranges for SuperSlow protocol
What is most important load or fatigue….both?
Lactic Acid threshold and hormonal impact
Body-weight exercises
How to adapt the Chin-Up
Radical Cam effect and using HEAVIER loads with more precise expression
SuperSlow and Bodybuilding
What does a SuperSlow rep look like
Focus and discipline- benefits of proper equipment and environment
Free Weights vs. Machines
Thorough Inroad Technique and extending the set at the key point of stimulus
Squats Vs Leg Press- what kind of Leg Press is best
How to get started
Breathing (I’m not happy w/ this discussion, but I didn’t want to bog down, see Al Coleman’s blog article HERE)
Generic Routine
The real work starts at failure
MedX & Retrofit Nautilus
Metabolic impact of Leg Press
How to prepare for Leg Press
T.U.L’s
Does “Power Factor Training” hold any water
Mechanical work formula
A & B routines
Why do we avoid the thought of “holding weights”- I’m not happy with this discussion and the word “hold” snuck into the conversation where I didn’t like it. Again the constraints of the forum.
Avoid ValSalva
Breathing & Inroad
Prone Leg Curl vs Seated
Is SuperSlow ideal for Bodybuilding pre-contest preparation?

Now that you have an overview of the conversation, sit back and enjoy by clicking here!

Please appreciate that this is a national radio show and the information had to be as low tech as possible, as the average listener is not engaged in H.I.T training and wouldn’t recognize anything about SuperSlow beyond what the name might entail.

There are a few subjects that I feel I was a bit lax on as I didn’t want the subject matter to get to technical for our first show. I thought this would be a good surface level introduction worthy of a follow up at some point.

Listening today I’m not particularly happy about the discussion about how we should associate with our breathing.

The RENAISSANCE follower should defer to Al Coleman’s blog post Breathing…Easier Said Than Done! 01/12/11, for the latest on this subject.

The other point in the interview that requires much more detail is the instruction of “Squeeze Technique” VS. the term “hold”.

In practice, there is NEVER any point in time where we think or attempt to hold when performing Renaissance Exercise.

This subject deserves an entire article.

In the interview you may get a sense, at times, that I’m trying to encourage the listener to work through the endpoint of an exercise in order to illicit the most intense contraction, and other times the word “hold” crept in.

Defer to the idea of “squeeze technique” or thorough inroad, never “hold”.

As always, please let me know your thoughts and comments by posting them below in the comments section and we will personally reply!

18 comments

Jan

2011

Breathing…Easier Said Than Done!

35 comments written by Al Coleman

Breathing is a strange phenomenon.

On one hand it is an autonomic function and on the other it is the one autonomic function that we can consciously manipulate. It is to the latter side of the coin that I wish to address in this short post. I wish to emphasize here that these represent my own insights on the subject based on my subjective experience.

Most forms of activity that involve the lifting of weights involve some sort of intentionally patterned breathing scheme. We are taught to do this in order to provide a mechanical assistance in the movement of said load.

The objective of scheming one’s breathing is to act as a way to reserve resources and make moving the load easier. While not overtly what most would consider to be a form of breath holding, the truth is any conscious decision to breath in a particular manner will involve some degree (or at least will lead to eventually) the Valsalva maneuver.

The Valsalva maneuver is an important instinctual mechanism that has helped many a human out of a sticky situation or two.

I don’t wish to speak negatively of it, other than to emphasize that if one wishes to efficiently and directly strengthen muscle tissue, than it should be avoided at all cost. Remember that the point of the Valsalva mechanism is to unload specific structures to distribute stress globally. The moment this mechanism is enacted in any manner, you momentarily, but significantly give the intended musculature a respite.

There is only one correct way to breathe during safe and efficient strength training. I know that is a bold statement, but it is in my opinion, a correct one.

I mentioned earlier that for the most part breathing is autonomic.

If we wish to strengthen muscle then we must leave it that way or to express it differently, we must get out of its way. Any attempt to turn breathing into a technique of some sort is merely dressing up the Valsalva maneuver in different packaging.

So how does one breathe correctly during strength training (obviously I consider Renaissance Exercise to represent proper strength training)?

Simple, go slacked jaw and forget about it.

The slacked jaw part may seem silly, but don’t write it off as it is what allows one to breathe correctly.

Jaw tension is usually the first link in the chain that leads to the Valsalva maneuver.

This is easier said than done.

When introducing this concept to a subject for the first time, an instructor will literally be shocked with how many interpretations of ‘correct breathing’ there can be. Surprisingly, this is one of the biggest difficulties that most instructors face with a new subject (and even some long term ones).

To overcome any initial difficulties a subject may have, the instructor will sometimes mimic a sort of rapid ‘pant’ to have the subject go to the other extreme.

It has been my experience that while this instructional technique has certain applications (as when teaching ‘squeeze technique’), in general it is a mistake that will lead to other problems down the road.

What should be taught and emphasized isn’t how to breathe, but how NOT to hold the breath.

This is much easier to teach and much less of a hindrance to the learning process. If the subject is taught how to maintain focus on the rate of speed/movement and continually coaxed to keep the jaw loose (not puckered or pursed), then correct breathing will happen on its own.

It really is this simple.

This much simplified approach has a few distinct advantages over the common ‘purposeful hyperventilation’ approach that is taught by most ‘slow training’ HIT instructors.

In a few days I will follow up this post with the problems associated with ‘purposefully hyperventilating’ past the beginners stage.

Until then, I hope this gives everyone something to mull over.

Leave us your comments below and we will personally reply!

35 comments

Jan

2011

A Workout By Any Other Name…

27 comments written by Gus Diamantopoulos

A common question I receive by some prospective clients is:

“I’d like to come in for just a few sessions so you can show me how to do the exercises and apply what I’ve learned in another gym, studio, or at home; is this possible?”

My answer to this is:

“I cannot teach you to perform Renaissance Exercise outside of this studio any more than I can teach you to play guitar on a trumpet”.

An alternative answer might be:

“Yes, I can most definitely teach you how to do non-machine exercises. I’ll require about six months just to get you started…”

We stand by a policy that expresses that three key components must be present in Renaissance Exercise:

1. Environment

2. Proper Equipment

3. Protocol (under the supervision of a qualified instructor.)

As Ken Hutchins has stated, the three components are of equal importance and interlocked. Without all three components, a Renaissance Exercise program is really nonexistent. The components form a system and any system must be viewed with gestalt.

In almost every case where this protocol seems to have failed the subject’s expectations an omission of at least one of these parts has occurred. Sometimes it’s perfectly obvious that the environment was inconsistent with our requirements. Other times the problem was that the equipment was tragically unsuitable for the protocol. And often, (especially among instructors who should know better) the protocol is butchered and bastardized repeatedly and insidiously until it’s virtually worthless.

In any of the foregoing cases and beyond, it is the protocol/philosophy that is wrongly blamed with a failure to deliver – when, in fact, it is a careless instructor who has misrepresented the incomplete package as a whole system. This misrepresentation has effectively made former iterations of controlled, high intensity strength training, almost impotent and justly subject to criticism.

Within the paradigm of the three components, a program of Renaissance Exercise offers the most effective and efficient program for everything from general fitness to rehabilitation. The neophyte subject can quickly become proficient at performing the protocol as the skill requirements of the exercises are significantly lower than those required when using conventional equipment. As a beginner moves to proper intermediate levels of exercise, benefits abound. Finally at the advanced level, the Renaissance Exercise subject can fully realize his muscular potential and experience the broadest spectrum of improvements and adaptations.

We require such draconian measures to help us answer the all-important question : “How little exercise does one require?”

Without these standards of rigor, without this level of technology, it is a daunting task to usher the lay public into a high intensity program where we insist that 20-40 minutes of exercise per week can produce better results than the 3-5 days of weekly activity commonly practiced.

Going back to our prospective client who wishes to practice a semblance of the protocol outside of the ideal environment, it is important to remember that one cannot experience Renaissance Exercise outside a proper studio.

Having said this, once a subject has truly reached advanced levels performing Renaissance Exercise, such a subject can be taught to perform select exercises in less than ideal environments and using the body as resistance and/or with lesser equipment. Make no mistake however, that such a workout is NOT a Renaissance Exercise workout and represents only a modest substitute.

It should also be made perfectly clear that such practice represents the highest order of difficulty and requires the utmost in skill and proficiency. In other words, a skilled and experienced individual may be able to perform such a workout but beginners and intermediates will have a much harder time making such a workout worthwhile. The reason for this is that the major exercises that allow for any semblance of substitution are actually the most difficult to perform of all exercises.

Push-ups, chin-ups, free squats and basic free weight activities require a foundation of great strength and tremendous skill and practice to be performed well. They are unlike the machines at our studios which reduce necessary skill to extremely low levels.

For example, it takes an enormous degree of study and practice to properly perform a push-up where it requires only a few basic workouts to learn to chest press on a well designed machine.

This will strike most readers as outrageous and extreme but I must submit that in all my years as a professional instructor, I have never seen someone perform a proper push-up (this applies equally to chins and squats).

Again, I suspect this will sound absurd, particularly to strength training enthusiasts but as I’ve said many times before, this is all quite elusive.

Moral fortitude, positive thinking, and even high levels of willpower are not substitutes for proper technique and I hasten to say that strength training requires some serious technique. And unfortunately such technique requires skill and practice…or more appropriately, ‘perfect’ practice.

Additionally, with body weight exercises, the subject is mostly at the mercy of a level of starting resistance often far ahead of his initial strength levels. (I’ll concede that it is possible to reduce starting resistance in bodyweight exercises by manipulating pivot points in the body etc. but such technique requires skill, also).

I feel confident in summarizing my contention that proper chin-ups, push-ups, and the like are at the most difficult end of the scale of complexity and difficulty in strength training activity and require study, practice, motivation, and patience.

For example, in a proper push-up, one needs to be able to start the exercise at the stretch, maintain head and neck neutrality, torso and leg rigidity, and perform with uniformly slow speed without distorting, wiggling squirming, thrusting or lunging. The hips must not dip, the shoulder blades must not collapse, the knees must not bend, the elbows not sway, the arms must not ratchet, the body must not rock, the head must not move, and this list goes on and on. And of course, discrepancies escalate as fatigue sets in which also breeds a strange type of claustrophobia at the stretch which precludes any meaningful inroading.

I highlight all this to evidence that the seemingly innocuous push-up is, in fact, a high-skill exercise that is not to be underestimated. The same goes for a proper chin, squat, barbell curl, etc…

When you ask an instructor to show you how to push-up or squat, you’re asking him to show you how to perform upper level martial arts, or how to play music on a new instrument, or how to ride a motorcycle. These are not activities that one can learn quickly. They require study, theory, and ongoing, repeated practice. This will be sobering and perhaps even disheartening to some but to suggest otherwise is not only overly optimistic, it’s downright irresponsible.

Having said this, I do believe that the burden of such skills is not insurmountable, especially for the truly motivated and disciplined subject. My suggestion for anyone who wishes to apply our most general principles to basic and conventional movements is to practice a small number of basic exercises well and often. Research proper performance of these basics in books and online. Make every effort to execute your movements with focused precision and intent. Record your performances using video and watch for every possible discrepancy and continue to practice. Practice in the early stages should trump ambitions for intensity (i.e., muscular failure and deep inroad).

Only when you’ve practiced sufficiently and over-learned these activities can a program of free squats, push-ups and chin-ups be productive and effective. With the eventual inclusion of some TSC exercises it is possible to experience a semblance of a Renaissance Exercise workout at home.

As always, please leave us your thoughts and comments below and we will be happy to personally address them!

27 comments

Jan

2011

Training for the Sake of Training

47 comments written by Al Coleman

To all instructors and trainees alike,

Train to be a better instructor. In other words, perform your own workouts not for your own personal progress, but for your progress as an instructor.

This is something I picked up off of Rob Serraino and paradoxically has made my own workouts improve ten fold. How can you instruct another unless you can articulate to a subject what they are going through each and every nano second of an exercise?

Train to understand and test the equipment you are using. This serves two extremely important functions. One, it allows you to study the curves of a given exercise and/or a piece of equipment. This is a critcal skill to develop if you ever hope to correctly instruct an exercise. Your instruction should always specifically be machine dependent. For instilling the utmost confidence in a subject in your ability to instruct them, this skill is mandatory. Unless you know what a given machine is doing in any given moment, your instruction will be misdirected “cheerleading”.

Second, the development of the former skill sharpens the level of concentration during your personal workouts. Instead of carrying angst over having to reach some pre-determined load, TUL, rep count,etc…, your workouts turn into a “study session”. You learn to attenuate yourself and merge with whatever the apparatus happens to be doing at that particular second. You lose all thought of having to accomplish any false constructs, but instead are intensely focused on what is happening now.

The only way you will ever be able to train in order to provide a maximally directed inroad, is to forget personal goals. That sounds funny and runs counter to the way we are taught to do everything, but as long as you carry with you an idea of how your workout is supposed to go, you will always fall short. Inroad is real, your idea of it isn’t.

Train with the open ended question of, “What happens if……?”

This should prove confusing enough to spark some questions 🙂

47 comments

Dec

2010

Renaissance Leg Press Illustration

48 comments written by Joshua Trentine

Our primary teaching tool for learning this method is the Leg Press.

We use this tool because it is relatively easy to learn and it is perhaps the most productive exercise in a program. If taught with great detail it will provide the ground work for more difficult exercises.

I have literally built my business with this tool and I don’t think an instructor or therapist should be without it. (In another article I would like to discuss the other functions of this machine, as it has become a multi-purpose tool.)

With that being said, it makes sense to use this exercise to illustrate performance objectives. So far I have noticed that video does not necessarily give the same appearance as it does in person. Gus Diamantopoulos used to work and study film production and he has given me some ideas on how we can enhance the visual impact of these demonstrations. I have not been able to shoot any video with these recommendations yet, but I do think we will be able to better demonstrate as we learn.

In the meantime I wanted to show another Leg Press video. This video may give you some ideas of what to look for and show you how the set can evolve with proper instruction.

Two points I would like to make:

I would NOT be able to perform at this level (load and quality) without instruction and without feedback.
I do not believe training with a single set done to failure is productive unless it is done this way.

Below is commentary I posted last week regarding Al’s Leg Press video, which lead up to this blog post:

“In the Leg Press video Al is applying force, as gradual as possible, to engage the load. Assuming one is making an effort to eliminate all of the stored energy on the turn around; an advanced subject will be working near peak efforts by the third rep.
I actually shot some video of this same exercise yesterday. By the third, fourth and fifth reps you witness me struggling to do what I can, in order to prevent the tempo from slowing down even more. By this point, it is evident that the performance has NOTHING to do with trying to go slow – it is me trying to hurry up so I don’t bog down even more.
Man, I have to get that video up, I’ll do that Monday. Great illustration if you know what to look for.”

A couple of interesting points that might be difficult to see with the frame of the video:

I did not complete the entire positive excursion of the last rep (the 5th rep). I actually reached failure when my knees are nearly straight. In spite of my best efforts, and Al’s instruction, I could not complete the last one inch of the allowed R.O.M. This is very rare as it is expected that we would be exceptionally stronger as our knees get straighter and as our levers become more effective. This is the only exercise that I’ve ever done where I fail in that part of the R.O.M.(Interesting side bar: Nautilus went to great lengths with their Negative Cam in the Duo Squat machine to attempt to produce the effect I’m getting here.) The final negative becomes an all out war to keep it from running away. When you perform exercise this way you will immediately understand that machines that hyper-load the negative are not only unnecessary, but also counterproductive and extremely dangerous. This becomes very clear the first time you experience this level of fatigue without any opportunity for respite. Hyper-loading the negative is attempted to cover up poor cam effect, friction, and momentous performance. There is much more to say about this subject for another post.
It may or may not be obvious that with the gradual application of force and the magnitude of the load there, but there is about a six second delay between the time when I start to push (note that the breath sounds correlate to the application of force) and when I overcome the weight stack and the sled begins to move. Renaissance Exercise promotes maximum efforts, but force application should be as gradual as possible. As fatigue sets in you will be pushing as hard and as fast as you can in order to stay in the running.

As always, please share your thoughts and comments below and we will personally address them!

48 comments

Dec

2010

Goin’ Slow, Goin’ Hard, Trying to Go Fast

30 comments written by Joshua Trentine

One late night last week after a long day I shot some video to support the article SLOW, HARD, AND FAST. This is not intended as an instructional video. It was shot for one purpose, to demonstrate that sufficient load and gradual force application will result in the desired rate of speed for the advanced subject. The exercises were not taken to failure and I did not continue to the point where I could display a thorough inroad technique (The sets were terminated approximately 2 reps shy). The exercises were done in no particular sequence and since a actual workout was not performed I did not change into appropriate workout wear or use the fans. MedX machines were used for the demonstration, these machines are more common in the field and allow some point of reference for more of the viewers (as compared to Hutchins’ machines). The MedX machines selected have a clear view of the weight stack and give the perception of sufficient load.

Note that the exercises were not necessarily performed at 10/10. I simply selected a “heavy” load, got into the machine and began to gradually apply force. Initiation of the exercise with a gradual and consistent effort allows for sustainable force production for time. I do find that I will consistently fall within the 8 to 12 second range on the positive and the negative when using sufficient loads on Ken Hutchins’ machines.When it comes to the advanced subject using the right equipment there is no other way to do it. The only way it is possible to approach such loads is when the subject learns to find his low gear. Gus says in the article:
“An advanced, strong subject is not moving slowly because he wants to; he’s moving slowly because he has no choice. And each moment of effort during such a set requires more and more herculean effort.”

The intent of the article and the demonstration is to dispel the idea that the protocol is using light weights in an attempt to succeed at moving 10 seconds up and down, the reality is that for continued progress the subject MUST find his low gear. Imagine trying to tow a very heavy load with a truck. A truck made for such a duty has a lower gear ratio and the driver must gradually apply the gas and if he tries to accelerate too quickly or shifts up through the gears to fast he slips the gear or stalls, furthermore the truck cannot do 90MPH in 1st gear. It is well worth your efforts to learn to find this gear and use the right technology that allows for sufficient load. The Renaissance approach is an elitist protocol with NO compromises. You can train with maximum effort and greater loads without compromise in form or safety.

As for anyone who doubts this find yourself a MedX machine, load it up this way and try to explode. lol

Go ahead at try to make it go fast, you won’t go to far and if you do you won’t be able to sustain the momentum very long. This is a discipline… it will pay off if you can learn the focus and control, it takes time and concentration but it’s well worth it.

Renaissance Exercise BECOME POWERFUL!

As always, please post any comments or future topics you would like to discuss below and we will personally address them!

30 comments

Dec

2010

Addendum to SLOW,HARD, AND FAST

22 comments written by Al Coleman

Addendum to SLOW, HARD, AND FAST
by Al Coleman

In addition to Gus’s lucid words in his excellent article Slow, Hard, and Fast, I’d like to shine some light on what conditions would be required to actually produce fast movement once in a fatigued state. Listen up because it is this one minor (yet major) detail that leads to the incorrect conclusion that total weight is directly synonyms with load.

The correct objective in an exercise is to render the target musculature as momentarily dysfunctional as possible, as quickly as possible. If I look at this on a continuum traveling from A to B, what is obviously required to accomplish said objective is to stay on a straight line directly traveling toward “B”. Point “B” is not something that you are waiting for to occur, but something that you are trying to get to as fast as you can. If all environmental factors are correctly present, this will result in one needing to produce a more intense effort the closer you get to the end. The correct equipment coupled with the correct behavioral traits present in the subject will result in the inability to move too fast. Despite this, the subject should be attempting to exert harder or “hurry up” the more dysfunctional they become.

Wait a second! Didn’t Gus say harder NOT faster? How could “hurrying up” not produce faster movement? A few seconds ago I mentioned environment. For this protocol to be optimized all of the correct things in the environment must be in place and as mentioned above this includes equipment and subject comprehension/behavior. If the subject, even a nano second, strays off course (a straight path) the environment will have been changed and the correct conditions to allow for faster external movement are now in place. Muscle can recover quickly. Faster movement CANNOT be produced if every infinitesimal period of time during an exercise is being directed at rapid depletion. Form discrepancies by definition are things that allow for faster movement. To deplete strength faster you must contract harder and to produce faster movement you must have adequate strength present. It’s one or the other and it is the former that in my opinion will produce unmatched gains.

A topic for a future post is the confusion of how the above suggests that one must enforce such a heavy load that fast movement becomes impossible. This doesn’t teach a subject how to volitionally access more muscle and create a deeper level of fatigue, but instead creates what I like to describe as walking a heavy weight like a piece of furniture. Those who have come to the above mentioned conclusion and title it ‘slow training’ most likely didn’t have the ability to evolve based on Ken’s original recommendations, but instead tried to enforce conditions to make up for their own short comings. More to come……
Al

22 comments

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