I am going to say something that is going to be considered blasphemy.
When you can perform only 1-3 reps with a certain weight (or technique), use only 1-2 sets.
When you can handle more reps, only then add sets.
Hear me out.
My theory is based on the following points-
1. Volume and Intensity
2. The Stimulus for strength
3. Neuro Muscular learning.
When something is very very hard to do, you should not do more of it, you should do less. This is because it is hard already, adding volume only adds stress. You are repeating the same work load, again and again. This creates the muscular stimulus to gain mass. This is because both the triggers for growth- intensity and volume are present. This will burn you out fast because you are doing something that is very hard, a lot. This can only lead to disaster, and periodization can only solve so much if you do this. Once something becomes easier, you can do more of it- i.e add volume. The normal approach of several sets with a max weight will only increase the amount of recovery time between sessions. If you only use 1 or 2 max effort sets a workout, you could do the same workout 3 times a week. This way you will still put in the required volume, without over training and you body will be fully compensated. This allows you to coax gains out of your body.
When the intensity is lower, you need to do more to keep getting gains, When the intensity is high, you need to do less.
What is the stimulus for strength? It is max effort. Weather you do it once or several times is not that relevant. Yes, adding sets of max effort should be a stronger stimulus, but it is not. This is because the actual intensity is the same from set to set. You are just repeating the same stimulus without giving the body time to adapt to it. You will basically just add muscular fatigue, which will stimulate growth, but not strength.
If you need to learn a movement and want to use high volumes, you must do it with low weights anyway. This will allow you to perfect your technique and form and teach your body to succeed in the movement. Then you can create the stimulus for an increase in strength by using a max set. This is a better way of neuro muscular learning, than using only high intensities. Its too hard. At the same time you must lift heavy to create the stimulus to get stronger, and also teach your body to use the patterns it has built- with heavy weights too. You must learn to demonstrate its strength.
All this requires more QUALITY PRACTICE. And the only way to do that is to have frequent sessions, with minimal fatigue. The only way to do that is to cut down on your volume per session.
Ultimately its all down to concentration. If you perform every light rep with the same focus and attention to form as a max rep, you will ingrain perfect motor patters. Than concentrated practice with a max weight will teach you to use the patterns you have built, and the strength you have gained, and stimulate an increase in strength.
A sample routine would be-
A phase with a light weight
3 x 10- 2 times a week
Work up to- 4 x 16- 1-2 times a week.
Increase the weight-
2 x 3- 4 times a week
2 x 4- 4 times a week
3 x 5- 3 times a week
3 x 6- 3 times a week
3 x 7- 2 times a week
3 x 10- 2 times a week
4 x 16- 1-2 times a week.
Hi there! First of all, I really like your blog, and I think that your ideas are worth trying.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think that if light weights are enough to learn the correct movement, weights that are very close to the 1RM are also necessary for the nervous system to contract the muscles properly and drill all the little tricks to increase intramuscular tension. And the more you do it, the more occasions you have to feel details you didn't notice before.
Plus, in an other post, you mention that recovery is a skill in itself, so I think that it might be a good idea to do only a few max efforts at a time at first, but it would probably also be beneficial to increase the volume progressively - that's how I do it. You mention training an exercise with max effort 3 times a week, doing 1-2 sets. I manage to do up to 8 sets of one exercise (with low reps) 2 times a week, and I'm seeing very good progress with that (I'm starting with only 3 sets, and keep increasing the volume until I feel I'm strong enough to add more repetitions or make it harder). I'm applying that to one arm handstand push-ups progressions, and I've applied it to full range handstand push-ups with a higher rep bracket to build extra muscle mass before working more on the OAHSPU, and it's been helpful.
Anyway. I was just wondering your opinion about what I just wrote, and once again, nice blog, I like it a lot.
First of all, thanks a lot for reading my blog, I am glad you enjoyed it.
DeleteLets talk about lifting maximal loads for multiple repetitions in order to get the contraction first.
I do think that you have to lift loads above 85% of your 1 R.M at least some of the time, in order to actually learn to utilize maximal contractions. However, repeated lifting of a load beyond 85% of your 1 R.M significantly loads your nervous system.
One of my friends is doing neuro science and she and I conducted an EMG study. We found that even in a puny exercise like the standing barbell bicep curl, which I perform very very strictly, an 85% 1 R.M weight (in my case 115 pounds), increased neuro electric activity in the entire body by 23 times. That is an obviously high amount of neurological stress. I can only imagine what the graph for a Barbell back squat looks like.
What was interesting was that when multiple repetitions were performed (3 reps), the electrical peak in each case was the same, i.e the actual neural stimulation from each rep was the same independent of fatigue. Now we know from the work of verkhoshansky that it is neurological stress that determines the increase in strength, more than anything else. But since the stress caused by the repetitions does not increase with every successive rep, it would seem that all reps beyond the first rep are basically pointless.
What is even more interesting is that when one rep was performed only (at 85%), the neuro electric activity in the body after the set reduced only slightly from the activity before the set, and the original level was restored within 3 mins. However, when multiple reps were performed, or multiple sets in a rapid fashion, the post workout level of activity dropped significantly, and required up till 4-5 days for full restoration.
However when a 3 min break was kept between sets (10 sets were performed), and only singles were performed, the response was such that each single was an entirely different workout, and such that the adaptation has already occurred. The adaptation to higher levels of strength seems to happen within mins in this case!!
The reason why what you are doing is giving you great strength gains is probably because you are keeping sensible gaps between your sets and not crossing 3-4 repetitions between your sets, where basically the neural system gets to adapt rapidly.
If strength is your only objective, consider the following format- perform your 8 sets of heavy, let us say, doubles, but do it throughout the day. This way you get a lot of practice at high levels of contraction and the body adapts fully to the higher contraction each time. I believe this approach is called grease the groove. The results of the study I did would explain why it would work, as essentially not only do you get a lot of practice at high levels of stimulation, but you also get great recovery and you adapt after every set to the higher level of conraction, instead of every workout.
However, the approach you have stated is much much better if you want some hypertrophy also. What I just suggested will not build muscle mass at all, and will also stop giving gains very quickly (in a couple of weeks). This is because your neural system has learnt how to use the full strength of the existing muscles, and since there is no more potential to tap into, gains stop. This is because the neural adaptation happens after every set in a matter of mins (if you stick to singles and doubles).
An interesting approach may be to alternate every 2-4 weeks between grease the groove training and high set low rep training. That way you build quality muscle mass in one phase and learn how to fully use the new mass in the next.
As far as building work capacity goes (aka recovery), I have seen what you are saying happen myself. I have started a grease the groove program for pull ups, and I fluctuate between low rep days and high rep days. I constantly have kept increasing the number of sets performed throughout the day, and I have found that my nervous system has begun adapting at a faster pace. I am not yet sure how to go about systematically building recovery capacity, but like you said, I do think it is a very trainable quality.
DeleteIn the context of working towards a progression from low rep low set to low rep high set, I think maybe a better way to build nervous recovery capacity could be to start with say 8 sets through out the day, than 8 sets over 12 hours, than over 8 and so on until the nervous system is able to repeatedly adapt within mins and we can do all 8 sets in say 40mins. Why I am suggesting this is because if you started with 3 sets in 40 mins and tried to keep on adding sets over time, your nervous system does not have the ability (initially) of adapting after every set fast enough for the next set. If you keep squeezing more sets in that time frame, you nervous system would get better at dealing with the stress and recovering from the workout, but not at adapting from every set. However the approach I mentioned of reducing the time over which sets are performed, begins with full adaptation after every set, and teaches the body to adapt faster over the months.
On the other hand I am certain your approach would work better to build endocrine recovery capacity and the general ability of the body to build muscle. I have used that approach myself to build strength in pull ups, and to increase muscle size. In fact it is probably the best way the build quality size.
I think the choice of approach would depend on your objectives and the kind of stress you plan to subject your body to.
I hope this response helped. Tell me what you think.
Hey, thanks a lot for that long and interesting answer! I must say, what you suggest is pretty much what I do for strength (my 8 sets last a very long time, it can take me a good 2 hours to complete them). I've been working like that for several months, and yesterday was my first training since the beginning where I could do less sets than the training before. I'll try again this coming Monday (goal is to do 6 sets of 4 one finger assisted one arm handstand push-ups), and if my performance is still decreased, I think it's going to mean that my cumulated fatigue has finally overwhelmed the adaptations (I think that resting a bit would let me see if there was an increase). I was planning, if it's the case, to modify the exercise to change the nervous stimuli to be able to keep training in strength without overtraining, like suggested in Louie Simmons' conjugate method.
ReplyDeleteFor the hypertrophy work too, what I was doing was very similar to what you suggest. I've done up to 10 sets of 13 full range HSPUs (freestanding) in an hour. When I do strength, I always wait a long time between my sets, because I want to feel that I have all my strength at my disposal before going again, but when I do hypertrophy, I go again as soon as I feel I can do the target reps number. My last hypertrophy cycle lasted something like 2 months and I did it last summer, so maybe I'll do an other one this summer, with the aim of going from 2 sets of 13 full range HSPUs (adding one set every training, until I hit 10 sets) to 10 sets of 15. Then I'd keep working hard on my one arm handstand push-up.
Your neuro electric measurements are very interesting, indeed! I wonder if you can improve the amount of very intense signals you can use before your nervous system get fried.
I find your mention of the endocrine system very interesting as well. You were probably thinking more about hormones like testosterone and various growth hormones, but it plays on something else as well. The thyroid. I've had a Hashimoto's thyroiditis when I was young, and my thyroid is pretty much entirely destroyed. I'm supposed to be taking a pill every day because of that, but at various times of my life, I stopped for a few months (up to 6 months), and I've never had any side effect from it. Every time I found a doctor to give me a prescription for the pills (I live a little bit randomly, so there's often moments where I don't have access to medical assistance, which usually forces me to take care of my health alone) and didn't take them for a long time, the doctor was always very surprised that I had no side effects at all, and I always tell him the reasons for it: daily hard training that lasts a long time, as much good quality sleep as I need, and pretty healthy diet.
I think you can improve the nervous response through potentiation. I have not done an EMG study on it yet for logistical reasons, but I find I am much stronger in any movement, when I do a heavy and larger movement before it. For example if I do 1 rep of weighted pistol squats (I use a weighted Vest) with say 75 pounds on each leg, and then after 3 mins perform weighted chin ups (for singles), I find I can use a lot more weight. I think it is because your nervous system expects to fire that hard. Let us say the chin up has the same EMG response as the barbell bicep curl (I know it will be much greater but lets assume). The weighted pistol squat needs (let us say), twice the nervous stimulation to be executed. So you first jumped your neural activity by 46 times once. You then took a 5 min break and performed chin ups. Each chin up normally needs 23 times the base level of activity, but your body expects to need 46 times. So it ends up generating 30-40 times as an over reaction. This increases the amount you can chin.
DeleteOlympic lifters use this principle a lot, The perform heavy deadlifts and then lower the weight to their best cleaning weight, and find themselves stronger. Another way to achieve the same effect is to contract more muscles, even if they are not related to the actual movement. This works because the body is then convinced that it is a bigger movement than it actually is, and increases the neural activity. I tested this in my bicep curl study. When performed normally, the response was only 14 times. When I contracted my glutes while performing the movement, it increased to 16. When I tightened my grip, it went up to 17. When I contracted my abs, it jumped through the roof straight to 23. It may be a good idea to contract your abs for everything to increase strength.
And yeah, the endocrine response from heavy training is pretty well documented. Nobody really knows why it works, but one of the more popular theories is that high levels of neural stimulation kicks in the body's emergency mode, which forces everything to at least temporary work perfectly.
DeleteI wanted to ask you what progression you are using for the one arm handstand pushup. I had started work on assisted variations before my accident, but because of the change in spinal curvature, I am unable to get into a handstand (or load any significant weight overhead) for sometime atleast. I however had found that no matter how much I trained my triceps, they would always be the weak point in the bottom position. I tried everything, close handstand push ups, tiger bends, even a type of inverted bodyweight tricep extension. Currently I am trying to master the one arm regulation perfect push up. It occurs to me that mastering the OARPPU would be essential to master the one arm handstand push up. In my mind the OARPPU would by possible only if the hand was literally underneath the dead center of the chest. In that position the tricep power required to press, and more importantly stabilize the body would be enormous. What do you think?
And I think its really important to keep track of recovery and change things up when necessary, the way you are doing. That is one of the beautiful thngs about calisthenics though, you make one weak to the technique and the whole neural pathway changes, but its close enough to help your target movement.
Good luck with you training, I hope you get the one arm handstand push up.
Thanks man! :) Good luck to you as well, I hope you recover fully from your accident and get much stronger.
ReplyDeleteFor the OAHSPU, the triceps is indeed used a lot, but because of the form, it's still less used than I initially thought it would. Most people seem to imagine the OAHSPU as being done with your body perfectly vertical, but it doesn't work that way. To do a one arm handstand, one has to make his body tilt over the shoulder he stands on. Because of that, the body will tilt slightly more to the side while doing the movement, which will allow the elbow to flare out more and will also allow a bigger use of the shoulder (the entire deltoid fires like crazy, and to be honest, every single muscle around your shoulder fires as much as possible). The triceps is still a weak point, and the RPOAPU is indeed an excellent assistance exercise.
For the OAHSPU progression, I simply built a solid base using full range, free standing HSPUs. I also do planche work, hand balancing, and I want to get back to rings as soon as possible (I used to be a high level gymnast). I believe all these exercises, plus assistance exercises for triceps, can be beneficial in learning the OAHSPU. For the OAHSPU on it's own, I practice it on a wall for the moment, assisting with the fingers of my free hand and removing one finger every time I can do 8-12 reps. Right now, I'm trying to get to do 12 reps with one finger assistance, then I was planning to start practising freestanding only, using two fingers of my free hand, and then eventually one finger, and then one day, no finger at all. Doing it freestanding makes a very big difference, as you can feel the balance and know better how much help you're using from your other hand. So at some point, when I'll be able to use only one finger freestanding, that finger should start feeling light, so light that I should be able to tickle the ground with it (same for learning regular one arm handstands).
How were you assisting yourself for the OAHSPU?
Sounds like a solid progression. And yeah, I would imagine that at that level of resistance pretty much everything would be firing.
DeleteI used a pulley mechanism I built to assist myself. Basically, there was a park next to where I was living at the time. There was a 10 feet wall in the middle of the park, which was basically an obstacle for runners and the like. The top of it had a very smooth pipe at one place, such that a rope would slide over it pretty smoothly. I used to carry a few weight plates with me and a rope. I would tie one end to a belt on my hip, and the other end to the amount of weight I wanted to use to assist. I would than throw the plates over the wall, and the would kind of form a counter weight pulling me up. Then I would get into a one arm handstand and perform my reps. The counterweight of the plates would pull me up and basically make the movement a lot easier strength wise.
I figured it was a great way to keep a progression, you know reduce the weight on the other end whenever you feel able, until you would just be using a 5 pound plate or something. Plus I thought practicing actually pressing with one arm would get me there faster.
Downside was it required quite a setup for every set, plus I think it interfered with the balance a lot, so that you has to stay a lot more vertical than what you are saying. I can see what you mean by the tilt at the shoulder and how it would change things. Now that you mention it, that is probably the reason why I always felt a lot more resistance in my triceps.
I suppose if we built a better pulley, we could eliminate the disadvantages. I actually got the idea from Jack Arnow's one arm chin pulley machine. Same concept, just over a pull up bar used to master one arm chins.
Yeah, I used that too at some point for doing one arm pull-ups. These have always been on and off, with me. Now I'll be trying your progression, I'm trying to get 8 reps with my hand assisting beside my elbow, then I'll use partial reps.
DeleteAnyway, for the pulley system for the OAHSPU, you'll have to hook it at the right place around your hip, otherwise you won't be able to balance properly. See this guy's tilt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5orjYQupmWo
If the anchor point to the belt is in the middle or too close to your support arm, you'll lose balance towards the other arm (the one you have lifted). If it's tied too far off that arm, you'll fall out to the side. One problem will be to transfer your weight properly.
Can you do a one arm handstand?
Actually its could you :-D due to my accident. And no, I could not without a wall. But I had faced the same problem when I started trying handstands 3 years ago. I was absolutely unable to get into a freestanding handstand no matter what.
DeleteHowever when I dumped the freestanding handstand, and just focused on mastering the handstand push up, I found when I could perform 2 reps against the wall, I could simply press up into an handstand freestanding, and I never had a problem getting into a handstand after that. I figured its the same with the one arm handstand push up. Just focus on the strength aspect of it first. I am sure by the time anyone gets 2 perfect reps on the one arm handstand pushup, freestanding one arm handstands wont be a problem.
At least, that was my reasoning at that time. Though I did spend a lot of time trying to build upper body mobility to make the transition to freestanding one arm handstands easier.
And I see what you mean by the position of the hook in the video. As I could not do a freestanding one arm handstand, I don't exactly know how it would effect the transfer of weight, but the position of the hook does effect the tilt of the torso even in the wall supported version.
I suppose if we modified one of those rock/wall climbing harnesses and built a pulley for it, it would resolve the issue permanently, or atleast ensure there is a fixed center of balance to compensate for. It could interfere with your freestanding sense of balance I suppose, but it would be effective for building strength.
In fact I think I am going to try this on one of my friends who is trying to achieve the same. I used to be an adventure sports trainer for a company called rocksports before my accident, and I have like dozens of harnesses and ropes and Carabiner lying around with me.
And yeah, somehow I always felt that partial range movements would be the key to achieving the one arm handstand pushup. Two things I remember reading in a study which may help you- The transfer of strength with a certain weight from one portion of an ROM to the rest of the ROM is directly proportional to the number of reps performed, peaking at 9 reps. Basically the smaller the ROM, the more reps you have to perform for it to transfer to the rest of the ROM.
Secondly, stretched position isometrics carries forward the maximum to the rest of the ROM, than partial range movements. I created an isometric exercise to take advantage of this in my quest for the one arm handstand push up. I called it the one arm headstand squeeze. Basically get into a head stand against a wall and take off one arm. Then try your best to press with the hand on the ground, to basically press yourself up to the top. Unless you can already perform a one arm handstand push up, I don't think you would be leaving the ground. But the isometric contraction in the bottom position builds a lot of power in the rest of the ROM, and it helped me considerably in getting my first half (a little less than half actually) one arm handstand push up. See if that tactic helps you. After all the motor unit recruitment from isometrics is 20% more than eccentrics or concentric motions.
Good idea. I've primarily worked with assisted "full" range reps, but I've used both partials and isometrics for other strength exercises, and it was very effective (for the one arm chin, per example). I'll try to add the isometric holds to my training, at some point. I'll probably also use partials, but I think it's too early for now. I think I'll use them when I can crank a few reps with one finger assistance freestanding.
ReplyDeleteAnd tonight, I succeeded doing 6 sets. :) I'll get going until I feel I can do sets of 5 reps.
For the harness, it's a good idea. I think you should pass a strap between your legs, from the front of the harness to the back, and use anchors that can be adjusted, on both sides. Like that, you can arrange it to fit your point of balance better.
I'll try that on my friend. And 6 sets is tremendous. I have not heard of anyone get this far in the one arm handstand push up journey. I remember 3 years back when I saw that video of Jim Bathurst doing finger assisted one arm handstand push ups. At that time I thought it was unbelievable and vowed to achieve the OAHPU. At that time I could barely get into a handstand against a wall for more than 20 seconds. I hope you'll be putting a actual one arm handstand push up performance up soon.
ReplyDeletePersonally I can't train it seriously yet, but this has got me fired up about it again, so I am gonna start one arm barbell military presses. By cutting the weight in half I think I could perform it safely. I will probably start with a 135 pound one arm military press and work up from there. Once I am given the green signal by my doctors I will hit handstand push ups hard and heavy.
Nice. 135 lb is heavy! You must be heavier than me. I don't know how much I could do, cause I don't have access to weights, but I'm pretty sure I'd be able to do 100 lb. With two arms, I've overhead pressed 185 standing in the past. I don't know, but maybe I could do 200 now. I'm just under 150 lb, my weight varies from 146 to 154 (I'm 5'4), depending on the amount of training I'm doing and my appetite (I was 154 when I was doing heavy weighted dips, pull-ups, squats and deadlifts, and I got down to around 150 while training only bodyweight, primarily because I do less legs these days).
ReplyDeleteI just went to watch that video from Jim Bathurst, he was doing it with three fingers. I wonder where he's at, now. I know he had a hard time learning the one arm handstand, and according to his blog, he's gotten better at it a few months ago.
Reminds me, I forgot to tell you, I'm not sure at all you'd learn the one arm handstand just from strength. I think it would help you, but the one arm handstand is a very, very different beast compared to the two arms handstand. It's hard, and I mean it. Not so hard from the strength point of view, in my opinion. It's just a skill that requires consistent practice. I can do it for up to a minute, and I really want to get it for at least 2 minutes in maybe a year or so, and eventually, I'd like to do 5 minutes, but even then... When I don't practice for just days, it feels wobbly. I've met ex professional handbalancers who could no longer control it, because it's been a few years. One of them was still able to do a one arm press to handstand after 7 years without doing it, but once in one arm handstand position, he could no longer hold it.
And I'm looking forward to see your progress with handstand push-ups, when you're good to go! You seem to me like a very strong guy, so I'll be glad to follow your progress.
I currently weigh a 175 pounds and am 6.1 feet. Before my accident I was a 185-190. And I carry a LOT of weight in my thighs and torso. i currently have 28 inch thighs and a 36 inch waist, even though I am 12% bodyfat. In contrast I have 14 inch upper arms.
DeleteThing is I started my training career as a boxer, with what was at that time the Mission Olympics. It was basically a team of high school athletes of various fields who were being trained for the 2012 olympics by the Indian Army (this was in 2008-2009). The program was ultimately closed within a year of my joining, as it ran out of funds.
One of the major problems with athletics in India, and probably the main cause why we suck at the olympic level, is that we have almost no strength training for our athletes. We spend all our time actually boxing or sprinting or throwing the discus. While skill development is key, at the international level we simply get out classed in sheer strength, power, speed and endurance.
I was painfully aware of this after 3 months of my training (I lived in a Athlete's Dormitory at that time- just beds and cupboards in a row), when I a fought a Swahilian fighter in an exchange program match. Rawanda is not exactly a boxing nation, but he still beat the shit out of me. And I knew my skills and even speed was better, so I came to the conclusion that to get to the top you have to become strong as well.
At that time I went to the library in our school (it was an old British colonial library) and found Arthur Saxon's The Development of Physical Power. It was published over a century ago,but it fit my needs as all the equipment his course required and all I had were adjustable dumbells and barbells, a chinning bar and outdoor space. Plus he looked truly strong- the photo of him bent pressing 375 pounds and his 475 two hands anyhow lift made my mind reel. And in a time when they did not even have supplements!
I followed his program for almost 2 years ultimately, which gave me the same kind of physique- huge thighs, a thick fully developed waist, a thick powerful spine, huge forearms, hard deltoids and a sprawling back. I also had thin arms and calves and almost no pec- just like he did. But because of that I got really strong at overhead pressing and odd lifts of almost every variety. I started the program at 150 pounds and gained to 180 in about 2 years. I truly believe that the spine power and mid section strength the old timers had yet to be matched.
I used to do the following workout 2 times a week, one day using lighter weights and one day using a weight as high as I could for the required reps. I never changed the reps or sets though or the order of the exercises. I would add weight every 3-4 weeks and take a week off every 8 weeks.
DeleteI would never do any warmups of any kind. It was anyway 100 degrees all year round, any warm up was overkill, specially as I did all my exercises outside in the blazing sun.
2 Sets of 3 reps- Barbell Clean and Press
1 Set of 3 reps- barbell Clean and Jerk
1 Set of 3 reps- barbell Snatch
1 Set of 3 reps- Dumbell Clean and Press
1 Set of 3 reps- Dumbell Snatch
1 Set of 3 reps (Each Arm)- Barbell Bent Press
1 Set of 3 reps- One arm barbell Snatch
1 Set of 3 Reps- One arm Barbell Clean and Press
1 Set of 3 Reps- One arm barbell clean and jerk
1 set of 3 reps- One arm Dumbell Swing
1 Set of 3 reps- One arm Dumbell Snatch
1 Set of 2 reps- One arm Suitcase Deadlift with barbell
1 set of 2 reps- One arm barbell Clean and Push press
1 Set of 1 Rep- barbell Continental Clean and Jerk
1 Set of Handstand Pushups until form deterioration
1 Set of Dips until form deterioration
1 set of pull ups until form deterioration
1 set of full bridges until form deterioration
1 set of 20 reps of steinborn squats
I know its a lot of exercises and every workout would last 2 hours and I don't think any modern coach would recommend it. But it worked like nothing else. It developed power in all the right areas, developed shoulder and hip stability and power in abundance and developed the explosiveness of a rocket ship. It improved my fighting power insanely. And the amazing thing is I have never suffered a workout injury ever. I think this program developed so mach ligament and tendon strength and developed the various stabilizers so thoroughly that injuries were impossible.
In fact what amazed the doctors in my accident was the sheer lack of soft tissue damage. When the vehicle reversed, my arm was sucked into the tire and my entire shoulder and neck was pulled into the mechanism, but amazingly I did not even suffer a shoulder sprain. I was lucky (and wise) I was wearing a helmet. In fact a 3 inch big rock was buried into the belly of my forearm deep enough to have driven into the bone and caused fractured, yet the tendons and muscles of my forearm was working fine after the accident. They extracted the rock and I was able to use my hands pain free within a week.
Basically because of all this type of training, even later when I changed my routine completely I found I was always very strong in one handed, odd, awkward and overhead feats of strength. And I always pushed very hard and never had the slightest fear of injury or even minor aches or pains. I would recommend any beginner to follow Saxon style training for a year, if only for this reason.
I went through all the post that Jim has put up on beastskills regarding the one arm handstand, and my god he paints a great struggle to a 5 second one arm handstand. If you can hold it for a minute you must truly know what you are talking about. I never really met anyone who could perform the one arm handstand and I was the only one who was chasing overhead and inverse feats of strength. My only source of knowledge was and still is research and experience. I have a lot to learn in the one arm handstand. you must be real master if you can hold it that long. But first things first, I need to get back to just doing inverse work.
And you are pretty big for a guy of your height, a lot of people have absurd standards of weight. Sig Klien and almost all other old timers of comparable height and strength as you had about the same weight, so we can assume you have found your perfect size, or at-least are near it. :-D
I suddenly realized I spent the last 1 hour typing during peak hours at work. :-D I better get back to work.
DeleteHey! Sorry for the late reply, I got uber busy these past few days. The story of your training is very interesting, and it's cool to see how effective the oldtime strongmen training really was. Not many people do that kind of training anymore. If I had weights, I'd be glad to give it a shot, especially the one arm bent presses and uneven lifts like that. I bet that's why you have a thick waist. In any case, they really focused on the essential: back and abdominal belt muscles, grip, hips and legs, and shoulders. :)
DeleteOn my side, I started as a gymnast, when I was 9 years old. They trained me hard and well for gymnastics. At 20 years old, I went to do firefighting for a year, and I lost a lot of my previous strength. After that, I started gymnastics again, and in parallel, I was doing ninjutsu and taking part in researches on martial arts physical training techniques with a government. They wanted to get rid of my region's division, and I was standing in the way, so they made sure I would lose a fight against an certain opponent. After, that, I quit everything I was doing, and trained on my own in the woods for about a year. I was living at home, but would spend my days in the woods, in a training camp I made with a friend. We decided to leave to travel around, live outside and have interesting adventures, but a few months later, he got caught by the immigration (he wasn't supposed to be in Canada), so I kept travelling and living outside with various friends. After 6 months of that, I decided to stop at the opposite side of Canada to work a bit, cause I had no more money and I was homeless. Then, I went on the street to show off gymnastics and strength skills for donations. A girl came to talk to me, saying she worked in a circus and they needed an acrobat. I accepted to work with them, and that's still where I work today (it's going to make 4 years this fall). They asked me to become a handbalancer, a discipline that I wanted to learn anyway, and I'm trying to learn hand balancing since then. It's probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to learn, it requires a LOT of patience and consistency, especially that I'm training alone and have only met people who could help me a handful of times.
As for the one arm handstand push-up, I started messing around with it more or less 4 years ago, but really worked on it consistently for a bit more than a year. By the way, yesterday I tried to do 4 sets of 5, but failed at 3 reps on the last set. Next training, I'll be able to do 4x5, I think! Then 5x5, and when I can do that, I'll start doing sets of 6! Can't wait for it to become easy.
I would say you are pretty close to making it easy at that rep and set range. :-)
DeleteAnd sorry for the late reply but I have been trying to build a new department in my company which took off last week.
Your story is fascinating, specially considering the amount of travelling you must have done. You must have learnt a lot, not to mention the kind of exposure you must be having right now. And I can only admire your perseverance to continue training in those situations. In my opinion is it is the real factor contributing to physical success- consistency.
Btw I am doing a study with one of my friends who is doing genetic engineering and the results up until now are pretty interesting. For instance, resistance exercises change the genetics of the body itself, potentiating a higher genetic "limit'. Therefore the body can theoretically keep getting stronger until the biological limit of a muscular system, which is approximately 2 tons per pound of body-weight. This "limit"
for a 160 pound guy would be, using the squat as an example, a 8,000 Kg rock bottom back squat. So obviously no one is anywhere close to realizing the full human potential. I though it might interest you, as a lot of idiots out there claim a one arm handstand push up to be impossible. This more than proves it can be done, in fact its not even in the same league as impossible. though secondary results show that there might be a ideal level of hypertrophy for every person,but we'll get into that later.
I have actually been working out the math and as far as the calculation goes, you should already be strong enough to control a strict one arm handstand negative. At least that's how it appears on paper. I was wondering if the math still works out at that level of strength. can you extend the negative for over 10 seconds?
Nope, not even close. (I tried to do a freestanding one with one finger assistance, and I could get my face to about 10 cm from the ground before I had to push back up.) :) I think the math can calculate everything, at the condition that all the parameters are taken into consideration - which I don't think they are in this case, since you wouldn't know enough about me to estimate properly. Per example, I don't even know my fiber types proportions, neither do I know anything about my tendons and muscles length and attachments. 1 RM calculations are not precise at all, and in this particular case, technique must play a huge role in the movement difficulty.
DeleteFor the genetics research, I always believed that your genetics could change throughout one's life, although I don't know enough to explain it or even consider it plausible. But I believe that with a ton of work, you can change your own genetics, and that you can also transmit your "improved" genes to your kids. I also have the feeling that certain things that are learned at some point during a lifetime can be passed on to children in an "instinctive" way. But those are just ideas, I've never studied genetics and I'm by no means qualified to talk about it.
I also wonder, how did your friend calculate the limit of a muscular system? Can you tell me more? What did he take into consideration? The resistance to stretching of a certain type of muscle before ripping? Also, did he take into consideration leverages? I'm pretty sure that muscles pull on bones in a way that place the muscles at a disadvantaged leverage. Let's say a biceps' weights 5 pounds (random number). The limit of that muscle would be, let's say, 5000 kg. But the attachment of the biceps to the forearm bones places them at, let's say, 10 times disadvantage. That puts a limit of 500 kg of pressure on the muscles in a curl position. And now, the limit is... Complete tearing? Concentric contraction? Isometric one? How would you describe that limit? Like, what happens when you reach it? And what about the chemistry? Cause biochemistry plays a huge role in a muscle's function!
(I still believe that we have a LOT to discover about human potential, but I think there's many factors that would prevent someone to do a 8000 kg ass to grass squat.)
I was reading the passage about the limit of a muscular system again, and I think your friend was probably talking about nervous signals? In which case, I think there would be a limit to the duration on that signal. Because the energy systems would drain crazy fast, at that intensity! 8000 kg could be "moved". But I doubt it would move on a very big distance.
ReplyDeleteAnd for the people who believe the one arm handstand push-up to be impossible... Too bad. I don't know for sure if it's possible or not, but I'll keep working hard towards it, and I'll see. I can't think of any reason why it would be impossible. Just insanely hard.
Firstly, the 8000kg limit is hypothetical, the biggest factor preventing its achievement is simple training life. It would require over 60 years of continuous training to get to even 50% of that, and this is assuming you have no injuries and have always done just the right training. The point is to prove that the muscular system is capable of voluntary contractions of that magnitude, even if in an ideal state.
ReplyDeleteAll right, parameters for the experiment!! I am the subject and all calculations are based on my body type. I am about to pursue a masters in Psychology and as such an doing a lot of research in order to pursue my long term objective of building a gymnasium of the kind the Russians boasted- simple, sweet but incredibly effective training. For this I want the best training knowledge and the most elite athletes. India has sucked at athletics for far too long.
The muscular system increases in max contractile ability (the amount of weight it can move in a full ROM in a triphasic fashion- Eccentric, Isometric then Concentric), as a result of 4 main factors- 1. Size of Fibers, 2. Tendon Strength 3. Golgi Limit 4. Ability of the nervous system to generate contraction/ recruit muscle fibers. In addition to this there are 1. Improved Mechanics of movement 2. Improved Co-Ordination of Joints.
Traditional thinking dictates that you can strengthen the muscles the muscles and the connective tissue till a point, after which the collapse of calcium is simply not strong enough to generate a contraction beyond this. Also, muscles can only contract up till a certain percentage of tendon strength (determined by the golgi reflex). Therefore there is a biological limit of max hypothetical contraction the body can achieve. This is of course, assuming maximal neural efficiency. But for now, my friend (and its She) was calculating the maximum contraction the muscular system could generate, keeping the neural efficiency at 80%, and the golgi tendon reflex limit as 60% of max tendon strength (these are typical figures for elite power and weight lifters).
ReplyDeleteWhat was observed was, every time I performed a Heavy Squat, the DNA patterns of the cells of 1. My vastus Medialis 2. My Achilles Tendon (Very painful btw), before and after were different. The protein binding had changed, to adapt to a new density threshold. This means that the muscle had become harder (as had the tendon) not just because of the training but because the genetic limit (coding) of how hard the muscle and tendon can become had also changed. This increase in density is obtained by an increase in cellular density and the packing of the various "fuels" for contraction and to a certain degree a reduction in sacroplasmic hypertrophy and an increase (again to a degree) in fibullar hypertrophy. Say max genetic potential for contraction is currently 100 newtons per pound of parallel muscle fibers (say abdominals). The force you are actually capable of on a good training day is 40 newtons. You train at 35 newtons, which rearranges the protein binding, making the max genetic potential 120 newtons. Your strength increases due to an actual increase in muscle fiber size and increase neurological output. In this fashion, every time you train, you are rearranging the genetics of your muscle fibers. Therefore THERE IS ALWAYS SCOPE TO IMPROVE. There is no such thing as a permanent barrier or limit of human strength, as this barrier can keep increasing indefinitely.
The only limit is the maximum density organic life forms can reach, which is believed to be the pound for pound strength of an Army Ant. At that level of density , a person of exactly my body structure, when all sacroplasmic hypertrophy is minimized (as is fat), would be 160 pounds or so and would be capable of the squat I described. Again, this is the maximum of the maximum of training potential. It can never be realized. But it proves 2 things-
1. No matter how advanced a person is, there is no biological reason why he can't get stronger. The problem is somewhere else.
2. Ailments of a genetic nature may be treatable through exercise.
That's amazingly interesting! Thanks a lot for giving me more details. Man, I hope you do build that training facility you want your people to have! If I can be of any help, don't hesitate to contact me! :)
ReplyDeleteAnd the results of these experiments seems very optimistic, I like it. At some point, I wanted to also study the effects of mental training for tapping into a bigger part of our current potential. I should've digged more into it. I've seen a teenager doing a lot of meditation. He started with apparently useless things (I never thought it was useless to do that, on the opposite, I think it's a good idea to learn to control body functions that normally couldn't be controlled), like voluntarily contracting or dilating his pupils. A few years later, I saw him again, and I was impressed. This kid is not very lean, neither is he that strong. My standing jump is better than his. But I've seen him doing moves I just couldn't get. For some reasons, he just explodes towards the moves he goes for. I think that there's a limit to doing that, as his lack of physical training might make him more prone to injury, and also, people who are quite a bit more powerful than him are just better (at parkour). But these more powerful people would be even better if they could do what that guy does. Since you study psychology, it's probably right in your alley!
Hey, sorry for the really late reply again. I have been going the crazy the last few weeks. I am trying to get a job with a new alternative fitness company in India and I have been going through their process.
ReplyDeleteMental training an extremely interesting field and what is even more interesting is the sheer volume of tradition that actually exists regarding it. Its one in which I have put in the maximum effort in my life. You may have heard of reiki, which is essentially transfer of energy in order to heal. My mother and my grandmother are both ascended masters and I myself have achieved the master level, so its kind of a family tradition. I have been doing reiki for as long as I can remember. Interestingly children are a whole lot better at almost every form of mind control, when the want to of course.
Modern day Psychology actually has very little understanding of how mind control works. why it works and how to apply it. In my opinion we have lot more to learn from the ancients in this regard. I have been wanting to do a blog post on this anyway, so I have done one. Here is the link- http://extendingmyspine.blogspot.in/2013/06/mind-control-for-training.html. Tell me what you think!