The goal of an exercise is not to lift and lower a weight, but to use the weight to impose a demand on the targeted muscles to stimulate improvements in strength, size, and other general factors of functional ability, while minimizing the risk of injury. To do this well requires positioning yourself and moving in a manner that causes the weight to provide relatively consistent and balanced resistance to the target muscles, while avoiding moving in a way or into positions where the involved tissues are exposed to potentially harmful levels of force. The better you are at doing this, the harder the exercise will be with a particular weight.

This is an important distinction, so I’m going to repeat it; all else being equal the better you are at an exercise, the harder it will be with a particular weight.

This should not be confused with skill in weight lifting, the point of which is to lift the most weight possible relative to your strength.

The biggest differences between the two have to do with leverage, speed, and time.

Depending on your body position and movement the levers against the target muscles can be longer or shorter, resulting in more or less resistance with the same weight.

Depending on your speed of movement, and more specifically your acceleration when starting or reversing direction, the tension on the target muscles may be more or less consistent. The greater your acceleration, the greater the initial resistance to movement, but the more your muscles will be deloaded over part of the range of motion.

Depending on the relative amount of time you spend in different portions of the range of motion or different phases of an exercise the tension on the muscles or metabolic demand may be higher or lower. Spending more time in positions where the levers against the target muscles are shorter and the resistance is lower makes the exercise less demanding, while spending more time in positions where the levers are longer and the resistance is higher makes the exercise harder. Spending more time performing the less metabolically demanding negative phase of the repetition makes the exercise easier than performing it just slowly enough to be able to maintain proper body position and reverse direction smoothly at the start point.

Why would you want to use less weight? If the resistance is about the same your muscles won’t “know” the difference, but your joints will, and during exercises where the levers increase significantly towards a stretched position a heavier weight increases your risk of injury (e.g. dumbbell and barbell pullovers).

Keep in mind this does not mean training with light weights and high reps, either. You should still be using a heavy enough weight to provide sufficient resistance to achieve momentary muscular failure within a reasonable amount of time (I recommend trying to keep your exercises under ninety seconds in most cases). What it does mean is you should try to use the best form possible to get the most out of every pound on the bar or weight stack, rather than just focusing on moving the weight.

What does this have to do with bodyweight exercise?

The biggest advantage of free weights and machines over bodyweight exercise is the ability to change the resistance by adding or removing weight plates or selecting more or less weight on the weight stack. It also allows people to get away with worse form, because if your form is poor you can still make an exercise demanding by adding more weight, although doing so also increases the stress on your joints and your risk of injury. Focusing on the amount of weight lifted rather than efficiently loading the muscles is what usually causes poor form.

Unless you have a weighted vest or dipping belt or heavy bands there is no practical way to increase or decrease your weight for bodyweight exercises. To change the resistance you have to learn to modify other factors like leverage, speed, and timing. Assuming you are training with the proper mindset – focusing on your muscles instead of the numbers – when you only have your bodyweight to work with you learn to become very good at using it to make exercise as hard as possible.

As part of a project to develop a bodyweight high intensity training protocol and program for use with my UXS bodyweight multi-exercise station I spent over six months (from mid April to the end of October 2013) performing only bodyweight workouts and using them with several clients. My biggest concern starting out was not scaling the exercise difficulty down for weaker clients, but scaling it up for stronger clients. I was worried I would not be able to make certain exercises hard enough, particularly those for the legs and back, but I underestimated how difficult these exercises could be made with proper manipulation of leverage and timing, and turnaround technique.

While proper form involves a lot of factors, I found the following to be the most effective for increasing the difficulty of bodyweight exercises, and they will allow you to make free weight and machine exercises more intense as well.

Focus On Your Muscles, Not The Weight

Everything else depends on this. Don’t think about using your muscles to move the weight; think about using the weight to place a demand on your muscles. If you are focused on moving the weight you will tend to move in a manner that makes it easier to do so, which is the opposite of what you want. If you focus on using the weight – whether it is a barbell, a machine weight stack, or your body – to place a demand on your muscles you will tend to move in a manner that makes the exercise harder, thus more effective.

Slow Down…

Moving in a slow, deliberate manner allows you to better feel the effect of changes in your body position and movement so you can make adjustments to keep the target muscles under consistent tension. It also allows you to better focus on intensely contracting the target muscles throughout the exercise.

…Especially Through The Hardest Parts

Don’t avoid or rush through the hardest parts of the range of motion or slow down too much or pause to rest in the easier parts. Continue to move slowly where the exercise is the hardest, pausing to hold at the start of pushing movements (without setting down the weight) and to squeeze at the end of pulling and simple movements, and reverse direction as slowly as you can in these positions.

Move just slowly enough to maintain strict control of your body positioning and movement, to be able to focus on contracting the target muscles, and to reverse smoothly where an exercise is easier (usually the end of pushing movements and the start of pulling and simple movements, depending on the exercise and equipment used), but try not to rest.

This also means not slowing down too much during the relatively easier negative portion of the exercise, but continuing to move just slowly enough to maintain strict control.

Cut Your Weight in HALF

A good way to learn how to do this with free weights or machines is to cut the weight you would normally use for an exercise in half and apply all of the above, performing the exercise as strictly as possible and trying to achieve momentary muscular failure in under ninety seconds. This may sound easy, but I’ve found most people use free weights and machines so inefficiently that when forced to use strict form this much of a reduction in weight is often required.

This may be hard for many people to do, but unless your primary reason for working out is to impress other people at the gym there is no benefit to using more weight than you are capable of with strict form. Your goal should be to exercise effectively, and exercise effectiveness is more a matter of relative effort than absolute load. Get your priorities straight, check your ego at the door, ignore everybody else in the gym, and focus on making the most out of every pound on the bar or weight stack rather than on just trying to move weight up and down.

By learning to make exercises even harder while using less weight you can get stronger faster and with less risk of injury.

For more on applying these principles to bodyweight exercises, check out the Project: Kratos Bodyweight High Intensity Training handbook.

Carpinelli RN. The size principle and a critical analysis of the unsubstantiated heavier-is-better recommendation for resistance training. J Exerc Sci Fit 2008; 6: 67-86.

Fisher J, Steele J, Bruce-Low S, Smith D. Evidence Based Resistance Training Recommendations. Med Sport 01/2011; 15:147-162.

Burd NA, West DWD, Staples AW, Atherton PJ, Baker JM, et al. (2010) Low-Load High Volume Resistance Exercise Stimulates Muscle Protein Synthesis More Than High-Load Low Volume Resistance Exercise in Young Men. PLoS ONE 5(8): e12033.

Contrary to the advice of many well-meaning but ignorant trainers and “experts” out there, machine exercises can be used to build muscular strength and size, strength gained from machine exercises will transfer to other activities, and machines will not injure you or harm your joints when used properly. If someone believes otherwise, they do not understand exercise in general, they don’t understand what functional ability is or how exercise improves it, and they don’t know how to properly use machines (or, as is often the case, how to properly exercise at all).

Before addressing specific machine training myths, it is necessary to point out just as there are good and bad exercises, there are good and bad machines. Like a good exercise, a properly designed machine provides resistance to the targeted muscles over a path and range of motion based on muscle and joint function, in a manner which efficiently loads those muscles . Unfortunately, there are many machines which do this very poorly or suffer from other design flaws affecting efficiency or safety. While someone with an understanding of machine design can identify these and either avoid them or work around the problem if necessary, many trainers and “experts” are ignorant of this, and often blame machines in general based on their experiences with specific machines of poor design and/or their own incompetence.

For example, a properly designed leg press machine will not cause your lower back to flex to a harmful degree or injure your knees if you are positioned and performing the exercise correctly. If someone says, “leg presses are dangerous because they put too much stress on your knees and back”, it is because they either don’t know how to use a leg press machine correctly or are wrongly generalizing based on their experience with a few poorly designed machines, or both.

It is also necessary to point out that while properly designed machines provide some advantages over free weight exercises both appear to be equally effective for improving muscular strength and size and overall functional ability when used correctly. There are many myths which exaggerate the advantages of machines over free weights as well.

Myth: Machine exercises are harmful to the joints because they involve repetitive movements along unnatural paths and ranges of motion.

Truth: The path and range of motion of a properly designed machine is based on muscle and joint function and a properly designed machine can be adjusted to allow for correct positioning and alignment providing a safe path and range of motion for the majority of people.

Assuming a machine is properly designed, if you are correctly positioned and/or aligned and performing the exercise correctly you aren’t going to be injured by it. If a machine does not allow you to position and/or align yourself correctly or perform the correct movement for the exercise it is poorly designed and you should not use it. Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples of machines with axes of rotation in positions making proper alignment difficult or impossible for some users (alignment of a joint means both the average axes of the joints over the ROM of the exercise and the planes of movement are aligned – most people only consider the first), which cause some users to move into positions which are potentially harmful to the joints, which violate muscular sufficiency principles, etc.

Assuming a machine is properly designed and used correctly it will not cause a repetitive motion injury either, as long as you are performing a reasonable volume and frequency of exercise. If people are experiencing repetitive motion injuries as a result of their training their form and program are most likely the problem, not the equipment.

Myth: Machine exercises do not improve “functional strength” because they do not resemble common body movements in daily living and athletic activities.

Truth: Regardless of the equipment used or the movement performed, the skill of an exercise is specific and improvements in that skill will not transfer to your skill in performing any other activity no matter how similar they appear. The strength gained from an exercise is general, however, and will transfer to improved performance in any other movement involving the muscles strengthened regardless of whether they resemble the exercise movement.

Whether you train with machines, free weights, body weight, manual resistance, some other tool, or a combination of all of them, the strength gained will transfer to all movements the muscles trained are involved in. You just have to plan your program so you effectively train all of the major muscle groups.

Myth: Free weight exercises are more effective than machine exercises for building muscular strength and size because they involve more muscles as stabilizers.

Truth: When you perform an exercise with a barbell or dumbbells more muscles are involved to assist in balancing the weight, but just because a muscle is involved in an exercise doesn’t mean it is under sufficient load to be effectively stimulated by it, and the additional focus required to balance the weight can detract from your ability to intensely contract the target muscles.

For example, the primary purpose of an overhead pressing exercise whether standing with a barbell or seated on a machine is to work the shoulders, upper traps, and triceps. How well it does this is what matters, not whether or the degree to which it involves other muscles as stabilizers. If you are concerned with the strength of those other muscles (and you should be) your program should include exercises which work them directly and far more effectively.

Also, while properly designed machines do a very good job of providing support to counter reactionary force and help you maintain proper positioning and/or alignment so you can focus on working the target muscles, many still require other muscles to work as stabilizers

Myth: Machines with fused movement arms will create strength imbalances because they allow you to train one side harder than the other.

Truth: It is  possible to use a machine with a fused movement arm in an unbalanced manner, but as long as you perform an exercise with the intention of working both sides with equal effort this is not a problem. It is also possible to do a large number of very stupid things with a barbell or dumbbells – and people quite often do – but this is the users’ faults, and not the weights’.

If you are working harder with one side at the start of an exercise it will fatigue more quickly and require the other side to work harder later in the set. As long as you continue the exercise to the point of momentary muscular failure or very close to it the average relative effort over the course of the exercise will be roughly equal for both sides. This is not the case with unilateral movement arms where bilateral imbalances are more likely to cause problems.

Machines with fused movement arms provide several advantages over machines with independent movement arms and free weights. It is easier to assist or spot someone using a machine with a fused movement arm, and you can do it in a balanced way from either side of the machine. The ability to use a fused movement arm in a bilaterally unbalanced manner is an advantage when you want to use one limb to spot or assist the other for rehab purposes, or to perform negative-accentuated repetitions. Machines with fused movement arms also require less motor control, allowing you to focus more on the intensity of muscular contraction

Myth: Machines exercises are safer than free weight exercises because they prevent you from moving incorrectly or dropping a weight on yourself.

Truth: No machine can prevent you from positioning and/or aligning yourself and/or using it incorrectly, and it is possible to drop a weight or movement arm in a way that could strike or pin and injure you on some machines. Also, barbell exercises can be performed inside a rack with safety bars or catches set at an appropriate height to prevent you from dropping the weight on yourself or becoming trapped under it.

There are some really badly designed machines and even entire equipment lines I would strongly discourage people from using due to potentially dangerous features, such as motorized machines which abruptly increase resistance when the user begins negative movement (or even more dangerously, in a seemingly random and arbitrary fashion as was the case with several X-Force machines we tested), but often the risk of injury has far more to do with how the machine is used.

A barbell is very safe when used correctly, and can be very dangerous when it is not. A properly designed machine is also very safe when used correctly, and can be very dangerous when it is not. The real problem is neither free weights or machines, it is that many people don’t know how to exercise correctly using any kind of equipment.

Myth: Machines are fine for beginners but advanced trainees should use free weights.

Truth: Most machine exercises require less motor control and are easier to learn than free weight exercises, making them well suited to new trainees. However, there are no advantages of barbell exercises for advanced trainees in terms of improvements in general health, fitness, or appearance. Both free weights and machines appear to be equally effective for these, and with proper instruction either or both can be used safely and effectively by people of any experience level.

Myth: Machine exercises are more effective than free weights because they vary the resistance to match the muscles strength as it changes over the range of motion, while free weight exercises do not.

Truth: Some machines vary the resistance correctly, many do not, and some free weight exercises can be done in a way that matches the resistance curve to the strength curve pretty well.

Balanced variable resistance makes exercise more effective because it results in a relatively consistent effort from the target muscles over the full range of the exercise, eliminating sticking points and points where the muscles are under-loaded. This fatigues the muscles more efficiently so a lower load is required to achieve momentary muscle failure within the desired time frame, reducing risk of injury.

Ultimately, how you use it is more important than what equipment you use. Although properly designed machines provide several advantages over free weights, when used properly both are effective for improving muscular strength and size and all other general factors of functional ability.

Carpinelli RN, Otto RM, Winett RA. A Critical Analysis of the ACSM Position Stand on Resistance Training: Insufficient Evidence to Support Recommended Training Protocols. Journal of Exercise Physiology Online 2004;7(3):1-60

Fisher J, Steele J, Bruce-Low S, Smith D. Evidence Based Resistance Training Recommendations. Medicine Sportiva Med Sport 01/2011; 15:147-162.

In June of 1971 Donald Duke visited Arthur Jones in Deland and had the opportunity to watch Casey Viator go through a workout at the Nautilus quonset hut at Deland High School. He took several photos during that visit, which he recently scanned and gave me permission to share here. Based on the dates on the photos I believe these were taken just prior to the 1971 AAU Mr. America which Casey won that month, and Donald has shared the following account of his visit to Deland when these were taken:

I was in charge of the New Orleans Police Department gym at the time. A colleague joined me for the trip. I called ahead to Arthur Jones that we were coming. We had planned to camp out on Daytona Beach in my VW van. He met us and told us to follow him, we thought to the gym. Instead he pulled into a motel, jumped out and ran into the registration office. We jumped out and ran in after him to let him know that we didn’t have enough money to stay in a motel and were met by his talk to the hand gesture and “I’m paying for this.” He got us a room for the week. We also only got to pay for one meal the entire week, by snatching the bill and running to the counter to pay it. Arthur Jones was a most generous man. We met his one eyed albino alligator, and saw his countless snake tanks filled with exotic and toxic reptiles. I remember his snake farm near New Orleans when I was a youngster. We also met the Arthur Jones young wife du jour, true to his motto: Younger Women, Faster Airplanes & Bigger Crocodiles.

The first thing he did when he came to pick us up the first day was to throw away all of the food supplements we had brought with us. He believed proper nutrition could be attained by eating the correct foods. He particularly loved eggs. The way he lectured us on eating only the proper foods lends truth to Casey’s claims of not only no steroids, but no food supplements during the Colorado Experiment. I remember one lecture which continued to the airport and into one of his planes at which time we flew out over the ocean and while being educated about balanced nutrition he likened the human body to the carburetor of the plane and demonstrated the results of food imbalance by adjusting the fuel/air mixture to show the results of improper food intake. Needless to say, after going weightless several times we got the picture. Arthur Jones believed in good food and only good food to fuel and build the human body. I know his star pupil, Casey Viator, got this drilled into his head enough times for him to be a believer.

At the DeLand High School gym we learned about the Nautilus principle of direct and variable resistance supplied by the Nautilus spiral pulleys. Again, demonstrated by Arthur in his own inimitable manner, he had an early prototype plate loaded pullover machine with a round pulley which he sat us in with no weights on it and had us bring it down to full contraction. Then he loaded a few plates on and told us to let the bar rotate slowly upwards, grabbing it just as we realized that our arms were about to be removed from their sockets. We learned the value of spiral pulleys!

Casey Viator was out on the track running a few miles to warm up. When he came in to say he was impressive is an under statement. I had never seen a young man under the age of 20 to have achieved such a level of muscular development. We watched in amazement as he pushed himself utterly to the limit on each exercise. High Intensity workout? How about Ultra High Intensity. Arthur told us he was one of the few people he had met who would push themselves as hard as he wanted them to. We tried, with greatly reduced weights of course, but wimped out in comparison to Casey.

We didn’t get to talk to him as much as we would have liked to because he was so focused on this workout routines. The few short conversations we did have with him were about how much he believed in Arthur and how much he had done for him, much like I’m sure Arnold would have said about Joe Weider years before.

Unfortunately I never met Casey again after those few days, although I followed his career as he blazed a trail into the bodybuilding record books.

For information on Casey’s training at that time read Ellington Darden’s article Arthur Jones Trains Casey Viator For The 1971 Mr. America.

Thanks to Donald Duke for sharing these!

If you work out at home or outdoors or travel frequently I recommend making yourself a suspension trainer; a pair of handles or loops on ropes or webbing which can be used to perform a variety of bodyweight exercises like chin ups, rows, and inverted curls when there are no bars or suitable handholds to hang from. They’re lightweight and take up little space in your suitcase, back pack, or car trunk, and they can be quickly and securely anchored between a door and door frame, looped over a bar or an exposed beam or joist, or clipped to an eye bolt securely fastened to a load bearing structure. They can also be looped under the feet or anchored to the ground or a post and used for a variety of isometric exercises or to assist with balance during exercises like bodyweight squats.

A variety of commercial suspension trainers are available, but most are ridiculously overpriced considering how inexpensive the materials are and how easy they are to construct. The popular TRX home suspension training kit costs $200 and many competing brands cost over $100, but you can easily build your own in a few minutes for around $20 using common materials available at any home improvement store and a few basic tools.

The design I describe here cost me less than twenty dollars and only took a few minutes to make.

This could mean a savings of several hundreds of dollars for a gym or personal training studio planning to install multiple suspension training stations if they make them themselves.

Materials

Suspension trainers are typically made with nylon webbing, plastic buckles, and foam covered PVC handles. You can buy a pair of tie down straps made of strong webbing with plastic buckles at home improvement stores for around seven or eight dollars, and a two foot length of three quarters or one inch schedule 40 PVC will cost you a little over a dollar.

If you plan to hang them from a chinning bar or power rack frame one pair of eight foot straps is enough. If you plan to hang them from an overhead beam or anchor them to the top of a door frame you will need to buy another pair of straps for extra length.

Spring clips can be used to prevent the straps from slipping when anchored between a door and the top of a door frame (use them with the clips on the side of the door facing the outside of the frame) or to clip them to eye bolts you can fasten to a beam or joist or to allow you to quickly clip them to a bar.

The webbing I bought was rated to hold up to two hundred pounds and the spring clips were rated for double that, so the pair of straps can handle well over my body weight. Always check the strength before buying anything you plan to hang from or support your body weight on, and err on the strong side with both materials and design.

If you can’t find straps like these at your local home improvement store you can get both heavy duty webbing and plastic hardware at Strap Works very inexpensively (one inch webbing with a breaking strength of over three thousand pounds is only $0.45 per foot)

I bought one inch schedule 40 PVC, which has an outer diameter of around one and a quarter inch. If you plan to put cushioned grips on yours buy the three quarter inch PVC, which has an outer diameter of a little over an inch because the cushioned grip will add around another quarter inch to the diameter. For a cushioned grip, buy a 1×12 padded grip from an exercise equipment parts supplier like Full Circle Padding, cut off the end, and cut it into two six inch pieces to cover the handles.

The set I made included a single pair of straps ($6.97), a two foot section of one inch, schedule 40 PVC ($1.80) and two half inch spring clips ($4.64 each) for a total cost of $18.71, which is a savings of over $180 compared to the TRX.

If you don’t need the spring clips the total cost is only $9.43. If you get an extra pair of straps for more length and a twelve inch padded grip from Full Circle Padding ($5.75 plus shipping) would bring the total up to the mid thirties, which is still a very reasonable price.

Tools

All you need is something to cut the PVC and some sandpaper to smooth the edges and rough up the surface to improve grip if you aren’t going to add padded grips. If you are adding padded grips you’ll also need a scissors to cut them with.

I used a hacksaw and a miter box to keep the cuts reasonably straight. If you don’t have a saw or pipe cutter and don’t want to buy one you should be able to find someone at your home improvement store to cut the handles for you.

You will need a tape measure and a sharpie to mark the cuts on the PVC and grips and mark lengths on the webbing so you can adjust both straps to equal lengths.

Construction

Measure and mark off two six inch lengths on your PVC. If you are adding a padded grip cut the end off and mark off two equal lengths (the halfway point if you purchased a twelve inch grip). Double check before cutting.

Cut the PVC handles.

Sand the outside and inside edges of the ends of the handles and rough up the outside to improve the grip if you don’t plan to put padded grips on them. If you are putting padded grips on the handles spraying them with hairspray first will help keep the grips in place.

You could simply thread the tie downs through your handles, fasten the buckles, and put the spring clips on, but I think using the buckle to create separate loops for the handles and the rest of the strap looks better than using one big loop and it keeps the handles in one place.

Thread the end of the webbing through the handle then through the middle of the buckle frame…

…then back around through the buckle to secure it.

After you do this for both straps, measure off equal lengths from the ends of the webbing and mark them with the sharpie. If you plan to use the straps at different lengths for different exercises, measure and make marks at those lengths for quick reference when making adjustments.

Put the spring clips on if you plan to use them, and you’re set.

While there are other ways to construct these, this is one of the quickest and requires no sewing or additional hardware.

If you have a machine or a heavy duty stitching awl and don’t mind sewing, cut the end with the buckle off one of the straps and thread each end through a handle and sew it into a loop using strong thread, which you can also get at Strap Works. In the example I mocked up with duct tape pictured below I measured off twenty four inches for each loop, and duct taped about the last three inches of the loop together.

Then fold the strap in half creating a loop with the fold, and sew the strap together from about three inches to about six inches from the fold, creating a loop. Thread the other strap through the loop and fasten the buckle. Mark off regular increments on the strap with the sharpie for repeatable positioning if you want. Add a spring clip and you’re all set.

Use

To anchor them to a door frame hang the straps over the top of the door with the clips on the outside of the door frame (the side the door opens towards) as pictured above. If possible, use a door that opens into a room with nobody in it so you don’t have to worry about someone opening the door while you are using them. If not, notify everyone there not to open the door without knocking or place a conspicuous sign  on the door alerting people not to open it.

If you plan to use them outdoors you can either clip the ends together and hang them over a high post or strong tree branch, or wrap the strap over a chinning bar, monkey bar, pipe, or beam and fasten the spring clip as pictured below. Make sure the structure will support your weight and doesn’t have any sharp edges which may cut into or damage the straps.

Many public parks have swing sets with eye bolts or similar mounting hardware for the swings which works well for clipping the straps to. Use them between the swings if the spacing is not too wide (more than a little outside shoulder width).

Like barbells, and dumbbells, there are a few really good exercises you can do with suspension trainers, and an almost infinite variety of relatively ineffective and/or dangerous ones (including most of the exercises recommended in the courses and DVD’s sold with commercial suspension trainers). Suspension trainers work best for exercises requiring you to hang most or all of your body weight from your arms like chin ups, pull ups, and inverted rows and curls, and should be used for these when a fixed bar or handles at the appropriate height is not available.

They also work well for exercises like chest flyes (horizontal shoulder adduction), rear delt flyes (horizontal shoulder abduction) and overhead triceps extensions if they are performed with the body positioned more diagonally than horizontally and with wide foot spacing for stability.

Suspension trainers work very poorly for exercises requiring your arms to support most of your body weight like push ups and dips because the additional effort required to maintain balance and correct body positioning reduces your ability to focus on  intensely contracting the target muscles.

Contrary to the misinformed claims of so-called “functional training” proponents, this instability and additional balance challenge does not make exercise more effective for strengthening the muscles of the trunk or “core” or translate to improved balance in other movements. If your goal is to maximize general improvements in muscular strength and size and overall functional ability you should perform push ups, dips, and similar exercises on a stable surface or bars, not on a suspension trainer.

Suspension trainers should not be looped around the feet or ankles to support the legs for similar reasons. Exercises requiring the feet to be supported in an elevated position should be performed using a stable platform or bar, like the roller pad on the UXS bodyweight multi-exercise station.

However, suspension trainers can be looped under the feet to anchor them for use during isometric exercises for the upper body like compound rows (pictured below), arm curls, and lateral raises, using timed static contraction protocol. These are discussed in detail in the Project: Kratos bodyweight high intensity training program handbook.

If you’ve been considering buying a suspension trainer for your home workouts or your personal training studio or gym, give this a try before you spend way more than you need to overpriced commercial suspension trainer. If you follow the instructions here you will get something that is just as strong and works just as well for a small fraction of the price.

The following are Arthur Jones’ and Dr. Elliot Plese’s accounts of The Colorado Experiment from chapters 15 through 18 of Nautilus Training Principles  Bulletin 3

Chapter 15: The Colorado Experiment Part 1…Purpose of the Experiment

by Arthur Jones

In the previous chapter, I mentioned the circumstances that first led me to suspect that too much exercise might be as counterproductive as too little exercise. During the twenty years that have followed that realization, an enormous amount of information has come to my attention from a variety of sources…the results of research in a number of related fields…improvements in available equipment…and of perhaps greatest importance, enough time to carefully examine as many as possible of the related factors.

More than thirty years ago, when I first became interested in exercise, almost nothing in the way of factual information existed on the subject…but now, the situation may well have reversed itself; perhaps “too much” information is now available…so much information that it has become almost impossible to absorb it all.

Another problem being introduced into equation by the fact that only most of the information is fragmented, exists only in apparently unrelated bits and pieces…an almost unavoidable result when due consideration is given to the actual number of factors involved, physical factors, physiological factors, biochemical factors, neurological factors, psychological factors, an almost infinite number of factors.

Under the circumstances, I realized long ago that the final answers would not emerge during my lifetime; but I also realized that the trend in current training practices was in exactly the wrong direction. While I perhaps didn’t know exactly what was “right”…I certainly could see a number of things that were “wrong”.

If for no other reason, I was clearly aware that many current training practices were wrong simply because they weren’t logical, because they attempted to deny established physical law.

For example; from my own personal experience, and from the experiences of many other people, I was aware that a very rapid rate of muscular growth was at least possible. Why, then, I was forced to ask myself, couldn’t such a rate of growth be maintained right up to the point of individual potential?

A physical law simply states that a given set of circumstances will produce a particular result, invariably. If the law is valid, then the result must be produced…and if the result is not forthcoming, then the only logical conclusion is that the circumstances were not those that were required.

So, if we do something once, and a particular result is produced, then the same result should always be produced…and if it isn’t, then that is clear proof that the circumstances were changed in some manner, even though such a change may have evaded our attention.

In my own case, a certain type and amount of exercise produced a particular result…for awhile, up to a point. But beyond that point, exactly the same type and amount of exercise produced no apparent result at all. Obviously, then, some factor had been changed, the circumstances had been altered.

Eventually I realized that the change in circumstances occurred within my own system, growth was produced as long as I was working within the limits imposed by my recovery ability. But if the demands exceeded the ability of my system to meet them, then growth was literally impossible.

A certain “balance” was obviously required; if the recovery ability exceeded the demands, then growth was at least possible, and if it was being properly stimulated then it would occur…but if the demands exceeded the recovery ability, then growth was impossible, regardless of the stimulation provided.

Practical experience also made it obvious that increases in strength resulting from exercise were not matched by equal increases in the recovery ability. In effect, as we became stronger, we were working closer to the limits of our recovery ability…and, eventually we reached a point where our recovery ability was being entirely dissipated in restoring the energy potential consumed by our workouts, so that nothing was left for growth.

Realizing that a constantly depleted recovery ability made growth impossible, and being unable to increase the recovery ability, the only choice remaining was a reduction in the demands.

When such a reduction in demands was made, the result was immediate growth…because we had thus restored the required conditions for growth.

Having thus been forced to recognize that there was a limit to the amount of exercise that we could stand, we then turned our attention in the direction of trying to determine just how little exercise was actually required. Since we could not increase one factor (the recovery ability) in order to restore the required balance, we were forced to reduce another factor (the amount of exercise) in order to produce the same result.

A logical conclusion, literally an unavoidable conclusion, and a conclusion that was fully supported by practical application. But since it was also a conclusion that ran directly contrary to widespread opinion, I realized that it might not be readily accepted.

So we decided to conduct an experiment under conditions that could not be disputed, realizing in advance that efforts would probably be made in the direction of trying to deny the results…if for no other reason that the fact that many people seem unable to admit that their own theories might be wrong.

Since we have our own training facility in Florida, it would have been far more convenient to conduct the experiment here; but we realized that doing so would leave us open to charges of misrepresentation after the fact. So, instead, the experiment was conducted in Fort Collins, Colorado, under the supervision of Dr. Elliot Plese in the Colorado State University’s Department of Physical Education Laboratory.

Literally dozens of utterly phony “research projects” have been highly advertised during the last thirty years, so I think we can be excused for going to rather great length in our attempts to avoid any slightest chance of misrepresentation. Additionally, since commercial interests amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars of annual revenue might be threatened by the facts that we hoped to establish by the experiment, a certain amount of caution was obviously called for.

Even in the face of the fact of daily flights conducted in the city limits of their home town, it took the Wright Brothers several years to gain acceptance…and such hesitation existed even in a situation where no slightest threat to established commercial interests was involved. So we were not foolish enough to think that human nature has changed enough in the meantime to bring about instant acceptance of something as dramatic as hoped to do.

But we also realized that it had to be dramatic in order to attract the attention that we feel it deserves. The results of the Colorado Experiment will probably be a controversial subject for years to come, but in the end the facts will be clearly established and accepted by almost everybody; so perhaps controversy is a necessary evil, required to bring the truth into the open.

We hoped to establish several points during the course of the Colorado Experiment, and we also hoped to add to our own store of knowledge…now, after the fact, I am still not sure whether we demonstrated more than we learned, or vice versa. We certainly demonstrated what we set out to demonstrate; but in the process we learned a great deal as well.

Among other things, we hoped to demonstrate that (1) very brief workouts are capable of producing rapid and large scale increases in muscular mass and strength…(2) nothing apart from a reasonably balanced diet is required…(3) the so-called “growth drugs” are not required.

But in the course of the experiment we also learned that it is possible to produce large scale increases in muscular mass while actually REDUCING the starting level of fatty tissue. I had always felt that adding fat while increasing muscular weight was neither necessary nor desirable, but I had not previously realized that it was literally possible to increase muscular tissue rapidly while simultaneously reducing fatty tissue. So the experiment was far more than just a demonstration, it was a learning process as well.

 

Chapter 16: The Colorado Experiment Part 2…Background of the Experiment

by Dr. Elliot Plese

Late in 1970 my attention was called to a supposedly new concept in exercise called Nautilus, and a few months later, in June 1971, I visited the Nautilus plant in Florida for the purpose of examining the equipment being manufactured there, and for the secondary purpose of discussing the involved training principles with Mr. Jones, the inventor of the Nautilus equipment.

If the equipment appeared to offer improvements by comparison to conventional exercise machines and barbells, it was my intention to conduct a research project in which such a comparison could be made under controlled conditions.

After observing the training in progress at the Nautilus facility, and after talking to Mr. Jones for a number of hours over a period of three days, and after questioning several other people who had been using the new equipment for various lengths of time, I reached the conclusion that this new theory of exercise and the equipment that was required for its practical application was indeed worthy of serious investigation. In particular, I was impressed by the speed of the workouts, and the overall brevity of the training. Even if the final results proved to be no better than these produced by other methods, I realized that the reduction in training time was an enormous improvement in itself.

At the time of my visit to Florida, Casey Viator was being trained by Mr. Jones for the 1971 Mr. America contest, and after seeing him, I had no doubt that he would win. Which he did. Casey was 19 years of age, and weighed 218 pounds at a height of less than 5 feet, 8 inches. The mass of his muscular structures was far more than anything I had expected, but I was even more impressed by his strength and functional ability. His flexibility exceeded a normal range of movement to a marked degree.

During his last training session prior to the contest, Casey performed only three exercises for his legs, and the entire portion of his training devoted to his legs was completed in less than four minutes. He performed only one set of each exercise and moved immediately from one exercise to the next. Upon testing his pulse rate at the end of the brief leg training session I found it to be approximately 170.

The entire workout was continued at the same fast pace, and repeated checks indicated that his pulse rate seldom if ever dropped below 140 and never climbed above 180. Having devoted a number of years to research projects that were primarily concerned with cardiovascular conditioning of athletes, I realized that Casey was in marvelous condition, and I also realized that the possibilities for applying such a method of training to athletes in almost any sport were apparently unlimited.

I had previously been led to believe that exercise was necessarily divided into two distinct categories, exercises intended for cardiovascular conditioning, and exercises intended for the purpose of increasing strength. But it appeared these previous conclusions were in error, because the Nautilus training I observed in Florida seemed to be performing both functions, building strength and improving cardiovascular condition at the same time. While Casey was undoubtedly the strongest man I had ever seen, he was also in splendid condition. During the leg portion of his workout he started by performing more than 20 repetitions of the leg press with 750 pounds, stopping only when another repetition was impossible. He then moved immediately to the next exercise and performed 20 repetitions of the leg extension with 225 pounds. And this was immediately followed by the final exercise, 13 repetitions of the full squat with 503 pounds.

Each exercise was terminated only upon reaching a point of failure, and no rest was taken between exercises. It was an impressive demonstration of body strength and condition, to say the least.

Two football players from Alabama, the Anderson brothers, Dennis and Walter, were spending the summer in Florida for the purpose of training under the supervision of Mr. Jones, and they trained in exactly the same manner that Casey did, using very heavy resistance and moving immediately from one exercise to the next.

A long talk with one these brothers, Dennis Anderson, brought forth the following information. A year earlier, a four week training program of Nautilus exercises increased his strength in the squat by exactly 50% from 6 repetitions with 280 pounds to 6 repetitions with 420 pounds. Similar strength increases were produced in all areas of movement, as a result of eleven brief workouts performed over a period of 28 days.

His brother Walter, produced equally good results from the same training program, and was also very enthusiastic about the new style of training. “Dennis and I trained with weights for four years,” he told me, “but we gained more from four weeks of Nautilus training than we did from all of our barbell workouts put together. When we went back to school after a month down here, our coach couldn’t believe the condition we were in. And we were faster, too.”

Ellington Darden, a graduate student from Florida State University, was visiting the Nautilus facility at the same time, and he made an interesting comment, “The results are undeniable; but it would be interesting to know what percentage of the results are produced by the Nautilus machines, and what percentage are a result of pushing by Mr. Jones.”

To which Mr. Jones replied, “You can’t push with a rope. No amount of pushing will produce results by itself; the machines are tools, and like any tool they must be used properly if you expect to produce good results. All I do is make sure they use the machines properly; and if that takes pushing, and it sometimes does, then I push.”

Everything I saw in Florida tended to confirm an impression that Nautilus training was perhaps the most significant development in the field of exercise, so I continued to communicate with Mr. Jones after my return to Colorado. Several months later, we agreed to conduct a 28 day test of high-intensity training under my supervision in the Colorado State University Exercise Physiology Laboratory, using Mr. Jones as the only subject. Initially, no thought was given to the use of Casey Viator as a second subject, since he was already very near the limit of his muscular potential.

Casey’s involvement in the experiment came about by accident. In January of 1973, Casey lost part of one finger in an industrial accident, then nearly died when an injection produced an allergic reaction. The result being a loss in bodyweight and strength; on the day of the accident he weighed just over 200 pounds, but lost approximately 18 pounds before being released from the hospital.

Because of the nature of the injury, he was unable to resume training for a period of nearly four months, and during that time he lost an additional 17 pounds, reducing his bodyweight to approximately 167 pounds at the start pf the experiment on May 1st, 1973. But in spite of the loss in bodyweight and several months out of training, Casey proved to be surprisingly strong. During an initial strength test conducted immediately prior to the first workout of the experiment, Casey’s performances were recorded as follow…

Leg press……………………………32 repetitions with 400 pounds

Standing Press………………………8 repetitions with 160 pounds

Supinated-grip chinning…………….7 repetitions with 50 pounds

Parallel dipping……………………..12 repetitions with 50 pounds

A universal machine was used for both the pre-experiment strength tests and the later post-experiment tests, since we were interested in determining strength increases that would not be affected by skill. For the same reason, the above four exercises were selected as tests; since these movements are all basic exercises.

All strength tests were performed in strict style, and were carried to a point of muscular failure.

Bodyweight was determined by weighing nude on a calibrated scale. Muscular measurements were recorded with a paper tape crosschecked for accuracy with a steel tape. And percentage of bodyfat was measured by Dr. James E. Johnson, using the Whole Body Counter in the Department of Radiology and Radiation Biology. Resting pulse rate, breathing rate , and blood pressure were measured and recorded, and a number of tests were conducted with an eletromyograph.

Exactly similar tests were conducted with the second subject, Mr. Jones. With one rather surprising result; his bodyfat level was the lowest ever recorded in our laboratory during a number of years of conducting such tests, and we could find no record of a lower level in any of the literature. Yet Mr. Jones was not in an emaciated or weakened condition; on the contrary, he was in very good condition for a man of any age, and almost unbelievable condition for a man of his age.

The bodyfat levels of both subjects were very low at the start of the experiment; Casey Viator’s starting level of bodyfat was 13.8% and Mr. Jones recorded a level of only 6.3%.

Sixteen Colorado State University athletes that were measured for direct comparison purposes recorded the following levels of bodyfat.

Best, Allen – 19 years / 221.9 pounds / 29.7% bodyfat

Beyhl, Randall – 20 / 256.5 / 38.1%

Chearno, Rick – 21 / 234.3 / 20.7%

Craig, Jim – 20 / 244.9 / 36.3%

Gallas, Dan – 18 / 232.3 / 28.2%

Jones, Kim – 21 / 229.7 / 16.0%

Kirk, Tracy – 22 / 213.1 / 31.2 %

Kuhn, Greg – 20 / 223.7 / 28.2 %

Lang, Andy – 22 / 248.2 / 34.5%

Larson, Robert – 20 / 236.5 / 38.3%

Newland, Ed – 21 / 288.0 / 39.8%

Norman, Dave – 20 / 180.2 / 16.4%

Price, William – 20 / 204.2 / 26.2%

Simpson, Al – 21 / 267.1 / 35.7%

Tracy, James – 20 / 217.7 / 31.2%

Wallace, Tom – 20 / 229.7 / 19.7%

The average body fat level of these sixteen subjects was 29.3 percent. Five other subjects from Florida, members of the party brought to Colorado by Mr. Jones, were also measured.

With the following results.

Jones, Eliza – 29 / 118.14 / 27.8%

Orlando, Nick – 32 / 186.34 / 16.9%

Butkus, Dick – 30 / 257.27 / 35.2%

Perry, Houston – 52 / 223.83 / 46.2%

Perry, Katie – 40 / 145.31 / 42.7%

Dick Butkus, a professional football player for the Chicago Bears, came to Colorado to start a training program under the supervision of Mr. Jones; unfortunately, his schedule did not permit him to stay in Colorado long enough to establish a trend in his bodyfat level resulting from the training.

But an interesting point may haven been illustrated by another member of the party, Houston Perry. Mr. Perry had just lost approximately 30 pounds as a result of a well advertised diet, yet his level of bodyfat (46.2%) was higher than that of any of the other subjects. It appeared that his loss from the diet had consisted of a loss in lean body mass rather than bodyfat. This subject had been employed by Mr. Jones for less than a week, as a pilot, and had never performed any type of systematic exercise.

When compared to the other subjects, it is obvious that both Jones and Viator had very low starting levels of bodyfat; and I fully expected to see a marked increase in body fat content during the experiment; but in fact, quite the opposite occurred. While rapidly increasing in bodyweight, in muscular mass, and in strength, a steady loss in bodyfat was recorded for both subjects. To me, this was the most significant result of the experiment.

 

Chapter 17: The Colorado Experiment Part 3…Conduct of the Experiment

by Arthur Jones

Insofar as I can determine, there is no known drug that will improve the performance, or increase the muscular mass, of a healthy individual. Furthermore, I would like to go record at this point by stating…”I do not believe that such drug will ever be discovered. I think that such a result from any chemical is impossible.”

I am fully aware that some drugs can improve the condition of a weakened individual, in cases of sickness or accident…but I also believe that a state of normal health is possible only in the presence of a very delicate chemical balance that is regulated automatically by the system. If any chemical is added for the purpose of upsetting this balance, the result can only be counterproductive.

In effect, there is no such thing as a “super chemical balance”…if the chemical balance is normal, you are healthy…if not, you are sick…and it matters not whether the state of imbalance is produced by too much or too little of a practical chemical. This has been proven repeatedly in literally thousands of tests conducted with animal subjects, and no slightest evidence exists in support of an opposite result with either animal of human subjects.

Certain hormones will help add muscular mass to a steer, or a gelding…but they will NOT produce the same result with a bull or a stallion. When an animal has been castrated, removing the testicles produces an abnormal situation where normal growth is impossible, giving such an animal the hormone drugs merely tends to restore a normal situation, a situation that would have existed naturally if the animal had not been castrated.

In such cases you are merely removing something and then trying to replace it in another manner; first creating a subnormal condition and then trying to restore normal health.

Yet the widespread bias in favor of such so called “growth drugs” borders on hysteria. Even suggesting that the use of these drugs is anything less than necessary automatically labels you a fool in some circles. And there is certainly no doubt that a lot of people are being fooled on this subject; but you can NOT fool your endocrine system, and when you add an unrequired chemical for the purpose of disturbing a normal balance, you are NOT improving the situation.

Pointing to recent strength records as proof of the value of such drugs actually proves nothing. The fact remains that the single strongest human recorded in history established his records ling before the drugs were ever used. Paul Anderson established records prior to 1958 that have never been approached and androgenic-anabolic drugs were apparently first used in athletic circles in 1960.

Bob Peoples established a deadlift record thirty years ago, lifting nearly 800 pounds at a bodyweight of approximately 180; today, a very few individuals have reached or passed that level of performance…but most of them weigh nearly twice as much as he did, and some of them weigh more than twice as much.

Men who establish such records are merely statistical standouts, literally genetic freaks; they are NOT the products of drugs, regardless of their opinions on the subject.

Great strength is a result of two factors…(1) individual potential, which cannot be improved…and (2) hard training, which will increase the strength of almost anybody.

But a third factor exists as a prerequisite…NORMAL HEALTH, without which, reaching the limits of potential strength is simply impossible. So you can improve a sick individual in some cases, but you can NOT turn a normal individual into a superman by chemical means. Such a result is impossible, and ridiculous on the face of it.

In a later chapter I will cover the use of such drugs in sports in far greater detail; for the moment, it is enough to go on record that drugs are of no value to a healthy athlete. But I am clearly aware that my position on drugs will be considered proof of my ignorance by many people; and that some others will consider it proof of my hypocrisy. In plan English…some people will call me a fool, and others will call me a liar. Simply because, at the moment, thousands of people have been so brainwashed on the subject of drugs that they have literally become “true believers”, looking upon themselves as the only ones in possession of the truth, and considering anybody who takes a different position either a fool or a fraud.

Equally strong superstitions exist on the “need” for high-protein food supplements, and the “requirement” for several hours of daily training; with exactly the same amount of actual proof that exists in support of drugs, NONE.

But again, these beliefs have taken such firm root that it is almost impossible to discuss the real facts with the believers; in many quarters, such beliefs have produced nothing short of a fanatical religion.

So we wanted to clearly demonstrate that rapid increases in both muscular mass and strength could be produced without the use of drugs, with nothing in the way of a special diet, and as a result of very brief training, and we wanted to so under circumstances that would make both the results and the conditions undeniable.

Certain factors are required for the production of increases in muscular mass and strength; these factors are (1) high-intensity exercise…and (2) normal health. Nothing else is needed, and nothing else was provided in the Colorado Experiment.

Thirteen Nautilus Machines were transported by truck from the factory in Florida to the Exercise Physiology Laboratory at Colorado State University. Seven of them were standard production-model machines, identical to thousands of other Nautilus machines. But six of the machines were prototypes…”first of a kind”, experimental machines of a type that we have named OMNI MACHINES.

The Omni series of Nautilus Machines provide the user five options in the style of exercise that can be performed…(1) “normal”, which involves both positive and negative work…(2) negative-only…(3) positive-only…(4) negative-accentuated…(5) “hyper”, which involves maximum-possible positive work and even heavier negative work in the same repetition.

The Omni Nautilus Machines were never mentioned in print prior to the Colorado Experiment, and never have been previously used outside our training facility in Florida. Dr. Elliot Plese was aware of their existence, but had never seen them, the only prior use having been the training of professional football players under strict supervision and with no publicity.

For a period of approximately a year before the Colorado Experiment we conducted research to clarify the relative merits of “negative” exercise as compared to “positive” exercise, and the Omni Machines were a result of this research, designed in such a manner that a user could restrict his exercise to any particular style desired.

POSITIVE EXERCISE, or positive work, is produced when you are lifting a weight. Physiologists also call this CONCENTRIC CONTRACTION, but I prefer the less confusing term.

NEGATIVE EXERCISE, or negative work, is involved when you are lowering a weight. This form of work is also called ECCENTRIC CONTRACTION, and again I prefer the other term; primarily because “concentric” and “eccentric” sound too much alike and are frequently confused.

Most forms of exercise involve both negative and positive work; if you curl a dumbbell, you are performing positive work while the weight is going “up”…and negative work while the weight is going “down”.

If you do parallel dips, positive work is involved as your body is raised…and negative work as you lower your body.

Your muscles have distinct “strength levels”…your POSITIVE strength level is the weakest…your HOLDING strength level is considerably stronger…and your NEGATIVE strength level is the highest.

This simply means that you can “hold” more weight than you can “raise”…and that you can “lower” more weight than you can “hold”. For example. You might find that you can curl 100 pounds in good form, and that anything heavier is impossible…however, if someone handed you 120 pounds, you could hold it motionless in any position of curl. You would not be able to raise it higher, but you could prevent it from dropping. That would clearly demonstrate that your “holding” strength level was higher than your “positive” strength level.

AND…if, instead of 120 pounds, you were handed 130 pounds, you might find that you could lower it under control. It would not jerk your arm straight; instead, you could delay and slow its descent…even though you could not stop the downwards movement. This would demonstrate that your “negative” strength level was higher than your “holding” strength level.

Such relative strength levels are encountered in many daily activities but are frequently overlooked; for example, it should be obvious that you can walk down a flight of steps with a far heavier weight than you can carry up the same steps.

Both positive and negative work is involved in almost all sports activities, and even in our daily lives; but since we will cover the differences in positive and negative work in great detail in later chapters, it is now only necessary to establish that there is a difference.

The great value of “negative-only” exercise was at least suspected many years ago, but performing such style of exercise was difficult; because no equipment existed for the purpose, and it was necessary to involve a number of assistants to lift the weight, rendering such exercise impractical at best.

In negative-only exercises with conventional equipment, the trainee “lowers” a weight that has been lifted by assistants; which makes unassisted training impossible. But even with help, such a style of training is difficult; because a strong man can handle more weight in a negative-only style than two assistants can lift. Many years ago, Bob Peoples, one of the strongest deadlifters on record, was forced to use a tractor to lift a weight so that he could then lower it in a negative-only fashion; and he eventually became so strong that he was forced to help the tractor lift the weight.

Making use of assistants to lift weight, we tried negative-only exercises for a period of several months…with outstanding results. But eventually, several of our trainees became so strong that we were forced to design und build equipment that would lift the weight for them, since we were rapidly exhausting our source of possible helpers. The Omni Machines were designed to solve the “helper problem”, and they did.

For a period of about two years immediately prior to the Colorado Experiment, several companies in the exercise equipment business had been making what we considered to be grossly overstated claims on behalf of so-called “Isokinetic” exercise, a form of exercise limited to positive work.

The nature of an isokinetic device is such that negative work is totally removed…in fact, with isokinetic exercise, negative work is not only removed but is literally IMPOSSIBLE.

Having thus produced exercise devices that removed negative-work potential, the makers of these machines apparently felt called upon to announce that negative work is somehow “bad”, of no-value, dangerous, and counterproductive. From all appearances it would seen they were trying to convince the buying public that an actual shortcoming of their machines was somehow an advantage.

But the truth of the matter is that full-range exercise is utterly impossible without negative-work potential.

And it also happens that the intensity of work provided by negative work is far higher than it is in positive exercise.

So, by removing negative-work potential from their exercises, they were thus making full-range exercise impossible and lowering the intensity of exercise at the same time.

It should be clearly understood that we do NOT consider positive exercise “bad”…but we are clearly aware that negative exercise is better.

When the negative-work potential is removed from an exercise, there is no force available for pulling the muscles into the essential “prestretched” position at the start of an exercise, and no “back pressure” available to provide exercise in the fully-contracted position at the end of the movement; thus there is no resistance at either end of an exercise, and without resistance there is no actual exercise.

We will return to a comparison of negative exercise to positive exercise in later chapters; at this point it is necessary only to establish the fact that we were aware of the relative merits of these two vastly different forms of exercise prior to the Colorado Experiment.

It was my original intention to use negative-only exercise entirely during the Colorado Experiment, to avoid any slightest use of positive exercises; but circumstances made this impossible, since we were scheduled to start the experiment on a particular date and a delay would have involved a postponement of a year or more, and because we did not have a wide enough variety of negative-only equipment for such a program.

But it should be understood that my original intention to use negative-only exercises was NOT based on any thought that such a program could produce the best possible degree of results; on the contrary, we wished only to demonstrate that negative-only exercises could produce very good results.

As it turned out, we were forced by circumstances to use several types of exercise…(1) negative-only…(2) negative-accentuated…and (3) normal. But we did NOT use positive-only exercises.

The positive part of exercise certainly has value…but it also imposes limitations. It is thus essential to recognize the potential value, but equally necessary to be aware of the unavoidable limitations imposed by positive exercise.

Positive work has a far greater effect upon the heart and lungs, so improving cardiovascular condition requires positive work; but negative work is an absolute essential for full-range exercise, and thus a requirement for improving flexibility…and negative work is also better for the purpose of increasing strength. So you need both positive and negative work.

Unfortunately, when both positive and negative work are involved in the same exercise, as they are in all “normal” exercises, you are limited by the requirements to use a weight that you can lift…which weight will not be enough for a proper negative exercise.

In order to perform positive work, you must be able to lift the weight; if you can’t lift it, then no work is possible. But proper negative exercise requires a weight so heavy that you can NOT lift it. Obviously, then, your positive strength level limits your ability to perform negative exercises properly…when both forms of work occur in the same exercise.

If the weight is right for positive work, then it is too light for negative work. But if it is right for negative work, then it is impossibly heavy for positive work. So you can have one or the other, but not both…not at least, with a proper level of resistance.

Thus, when performing exercises in a normal manner, you are unavoidably limited to a level of resistance that is usable during the positive part of the work…which will not be, literally can NOT be, heavy enough for proper negative work. In order to avoid this limitation imposed by positive work, you must remove the positive part of an exercise entirely…when training with conventional equipment, at least.

But…when the positive part of an exercise is removed in order to provide a proper level of resistance for negative work, the result is a form of exercise that has very little effect upon the cardiovascular system. So negative exercise is better for strength building purposes…but worse for improving cardiovascular ability.

The Omni Nautilus Machines were designed in such a way that both limitations were removed; the Omni Machines provide the proper, high level of resistance for the negative work…but do not reduce the cardiovascular work from the exercise. Because, with the Omni Machines, you are still performing the positive part of the work…but doing it with muscular structures that are not involved in the negative part of the exercise.

In fact, the use of an Omni Nautilus Machine Increases the cardiovascular part of the work; because the level of resistance is raised in both the negative and positive parts of the exercise.

So the Omni Machines solved both problems, removed both limitations; providing us with the required high level of resistance for the negative part of the work, and at the same time increasing the cardiovascular effect of the exercise.

For example. In a normal exercise such as the bench-press, you perform both positive and negative work; positive work while lifting the weight and negative work while lowering it. Which style of exercise will have an effect upon your cardiovascular system, and will produce some degree of muscle growth stimulation.

Changing this to a negative-only style of exercises greatly improves the strength building part of the work, but reduces the effect on the cardiovascular system.

However, with the Omni Machines, you would raise the weight with your legs, and lower it with your arms. By taking advantage of the greater relative strength of the legs, you are thus able to use a weight that would be impossibly heavy for the arms, a weight that you could NOT lift with the arms; but you can lift it with the legs, and having done so, you can then lower it in a negative-only fashion with the arms. So you are still doing the positive part of the work, and since you are using more resistance than you can handle in a normal fashion you are thus doing even more positive work; while retaining the advantage of the negative-only style of training for the arms.

The fact that the legs are doing the positive part of the work while the arms are performing the negative part is of no slightest concern; since the heart and lungs neither “know” or “care” which muscles are performing the positive part of the work. Cardiovascular effects of exercise are produced to the amount and pace of work…so some muscles must be performing positive work for the cardiovascular results, but it doesn’t matter which muscles.

Writing for a national magazine nearly a year before the Colorado Experiment, I pointed out the proven value of negative-only exercises for building strength…and I also mentioned the fact that such exercise was of little or no value for improving cardiovascular ability. Which was true at that time, since the available equipment made it necessary to totally remove positive work from the exercises in order to use a proper level of resistance for negative-only work. So, at that time, it was an “either/or” situation…you could have one or the other, but not both.

But the introduction of the Omni Machines changed the situation; it then became possible to increase the resistance to the high level required for negative-only exercise, while increasing the cardiovascular effect at the same time.

In the Colorado Experiment, we were primarily interested in producing rapid and massive increases in muscular mass, together with corresponding strength increases; in order to demonstrate that such a rapid rate of growth was possible…and, secondly, in order to demonstrate that such rapid growth could be produced as a result of very brief workouts.

Increases in cardiovascular ability can be supported on the basis of before and after tests, but increased muscular mass can be seen…provides a more dramatic, more obvious result, the type of result that is sometimes required to make a point.

With the use of “self-powered” machines that do not yet exist in practical form, it would be possible to provide the required high level of resistance for proper negative-only exercises while totally removing the positive part of the work; and if such machines had then existed, we would have used them in the Colorado Experiment…well aware in advance that doing so would have produced little or nothing in the way of cardiovascular benefits, but being willing to pay that price in order to demonstrate that positive work is not required for producing rapid increases in muscular mass and strength.

But since such “pure negative” machines did not exist, we were forced to use normal exercises, some negative-accentuated exercises, and some negative-only exercises performed on the Omni Machines…and a few pure-negative exercises that required the help of assistants to lift the weight.

The end result being that even the Colorado Experiment was not a clear demonstration of the superiority of negative-only exercise for strength building purposes, because other styles of exercises were also involved…and thus it remains impossible to say for sure just what percentage of the results was produced by a particular style of exercise.

Which I not meant to imply that no support for the superiority of negative-only exercise exists; it does, but it remains necessary to repeat and reconfirm our privately conducted experiments under laboratory conditions while being observed by impartial, or even hostile, witnesses. And such experiments must be limited to “pure-negative” exercises, with control groups of subjects using “pure positive” exercises for comparison.

Until and unless that has been done, and repeatedly…many people will remain in doubt on the subject of the relative merits of the two distinct forms of exercise. So it will be done, and done repeatedly…and in fact, it already has been done, but unfortunately such comparisons have not yet been given the publicity that they deserve. But in the meantime, already being clearly aware of the advantages of negative exercise, we can and do avail ourselves of these advantages while many other people are still trying to decide what to do.

The unfortunate part of the situation results from the fact that most people simply don’t know the real facts, and when they are exposed to a barrage of advertising listing the so-called “advantages” of a positive-only form of exercise, they tend to become confused. In the end, the truth will be known…but in the meantime, millions of dollars will have been wasted on equipment of little or no real value, and thousands of trainees will have devoted years of training time to an almost worthless form of exercise. The facts are clear, and undeniable…but the stakes are high, so the facts will de denied in some quarters for years to come.

It would be easily possible for Nautilus Machines to be built with a so-called “isokinetic” form of resistance, thus providing positive-only exercise…and doing so would greatly reduce the cost of the machines, thus affording a much wider market and far greater profits. Be it clearly understood that there are no patents protecting such a form of resistance, it is freely usable for any purpose by anybody.

But incorporating such a form of resistance necessarily means REMOVING negative-work potential, which in turn means that a full-range exercise is then impossible. Because there is no force to provide prestretching at the start of an exercise, and no back-pressure to provide resistance at the end of an exercise.

And it also means a loss of the very high level of intensity that is encountered only in negative work, and with it a loss of a great part of the growth stimulation that is provided by high-intensity work.

So Nautilus Machines will never be built with such a form of resistance…since doing so would greatly reduce their value.

The claims of the people who are now selling and promoting various types of positive-only exercise devices strongly remind me of a man who has designed a new type of automobile…without understanding the function of an automobile. Having removed the engine on the grounds that an engineless car would be cheaper, he might then point to the result as an “improvement.”

In an almost exactly similar situation, the makers of positive-only devices have removed the most important factor required for growth stimulation, negative work…and are now pointing to the result as an improvement.

Perhaps these people simply don’t understand the actual factors involved in exercise, or perhaps they don’t care about the facts…take your pick. But in either case, it is a poor choice; on the one hand, their ignorance is showing…and on the other hand, they are engaged in outright fraud.

Eventually. Ignorance will be corrected…or fraud will be stopped; but in the meantime the public suffers.

Unfortunately, neither ignorance nor fraud are new in the field of exercise; on the contrary, exercise has been so deeply mired in both ignorance and fraud that the actual value of exercise has been overlooked to a great degree. Many – perhaps MOST – people look upon the entire subject of exercise with great suspicion, and with good reason; because, to them, exercise means a fanatic strutting on a beach, or an obviously phony advertisement for overweight women.

Almost nothing is perfect, and we certainly do not consider our present style of training perfect…so we will be more than glad to improve it in any way we can, if and when the necessary information is available to us. But perfect or not, the style of training that we are using now is by far the most productive type of exercise known. And any attempt to compare it to a positive-only form of exercise is utterly ridiculous, on the order of comparing an automobile to an ox-cart.

A strong statement…but, if anything, an understatement; since the two forms of exercise are literally worlds apart.

Nearly twenty years ago, using conventional training equipment, I eventually reached a muscular bodyweight of 205 pounds of less than 5 feet, 8 inches. Five years ago, I was able to reach a muscular bodyweight of 180 pounds after nearly five months of steady training…at which point, additional growth was obviously impossible, for myself as an individual at that age.

Yet, four years later, and four more years removed from an age when my muscular potential was highest…I was able to duplicate those strength increases as a result of only six weeks of negative-only training.

In effect, I produced the same results…but I did so when four years older, at a stage in my life when that four years meant a significant loss in individual potential…and I did so from a tiny fraction of the previously required training time, since my negative-only workouts were much briefer than my previous workouts.

Up to this point in time, every single subject that we have trained in this fashion has produced a similar increase in his previous rate of growth.

When you have been training an individual for years, and when he has already reached a point where his strength is far higher than the average, and when you suddenly switch him to a negative-only style of training…and he immediately starts growing much faster than he ever did before, and rapidly reaches a new high in strength; then that is a significant result. And we have done that repeatedly.

And even while such a result is no proof that our method is yet perfect, it certainly is proof that it is an improvement.

So the Colorado Experiment was more in the way of a demonstration than an experiment…since we knew well in advance that we could do what we set out to do; but as it turned out, we did even more that we set out to do…while producing rapid increases in muscular mass, we also removed a large amount of bodyfat. Which was a result that surprised even us.

The Colorado Experiment was conducted entirely with Nautilus equipment, using as much negative work as it was possible to perform under the circumstances with the available equipment. The workouts were fast and brief, and in almost all workouts we performed one “set” of each exercise.

Each exercise was carried to the point of momentary muscular failure, and all exercises were performed in good form…stopping at both ends of the movement, and avoiding jerking.

We had overlooked only one factor of importance, the altitude. Coming from sea level immediately before the start of the experiment, we were not prepared for the 5,000 foot altitude of Fort Collins, and we were forced to reduce the pace of our workouts…which probably added at least two hours to our total training time during the 28 days.

But in spite of that handicap, Casey Viator still produced a muscle-mass increase in excess of 63 pounds, as a result of less than 8 hours of training…which is certainly significant.

Chapter 18: The Colorado Experiment Part 4…Results of the Experiment

by Dr. Elliot Plese

On May 1st, 1973, a strength test was conducted in the weight-room at Colorado State University. Two subjects were tested, Arthur Jones and Casey Viator. At the suggestion of Mr. Jones, a Universal machines was used for the tests; because, as he said, “If we use our own equipment for the strength tests, a question may then be raised on the subject of basic strength increases.”

A secondary reason for using a Universal machine was the fact that similar exercises performed with a barbell require more skill, and since we were primarily interested in measuring basic strength it was desirable to reduce the factor of skill as much as possible.

Exactly 28 days later, on May 29th, 1973, a second strength test was conducted with one of the subjects, Casey Viator; the other subject, Arthur Jones, was not tested at the end of the experiment, because he became sick on the night of May 26th and was admitted to the hospital with intestinal flu. Which sickness prevented him from completing the experiment as planned. However, all of the workouts that were performed by Mr. Jones were observed and timed by myself and a number of other witnesses, and his rapid increases in strength was obvious from workout to workout.

Having started at a bodyweight of 144.1 on May 1st, Mr. Jones was weighted immediately before his workout on May 26th; in a period of 25 days his bodyweight had increased to 162.375, a net gain in bodyweight of 18.275 pounds. But his bodyfat level had been reduced in the meantime; a bodyfat measurement in the Whole Body Counter on May 23rd indicated a loss in bodyfat of 1.825 pounds, so it is reasonable to assume that his actual gain in lean body mass (muscular tissue) was approximately 20.1 pounds.

But even if we take the figures recorded on May 23rd, the results are very impressive. During the first 22 days of the experiment Mr. Jones gained 13.62 pounds of bodyweight while reducing his bodyfat level by 1.82 pounds, a net gain in lean body mass of 15.44 pounds.

It was the original intention of Mr. Jones to train his entire body, performing one set of an exercise for each major muscle group; but upon arriving in Colorado for the start of the experiment, he was obviously suffering from a deep chest cold. The effects of the cold, in combination with the altitude and his age, made it apparent that he would not be able to train as much as he had planned. I suggested that the experiment be postponed for a month, but that would have been impractical because of other obligations. As a result, Mr. Jones restricted his workouts almost entirely to exercises for the upper body, the arms, the shoulders, the chest, and the back. A few light exercises were performed for the legs, but only enough to maintain muscle tone in that area of the body.

Which makes his gains in muscle mass even more remarkable, since it is well established that rapid weight gains are best produced by heavy exercise for the legs and lower back, a type of exercise that was not involved in his workouts.

The localized nature of his muscle-mass increases was very obvious, with little or no change in the size of his legs but large scale increases in the muscle mass of his torso and arms. His arms increased by one and five-eighths inches (1 5/8 inches).

In the lack of a post-experiment strength test, an accurate determination of his strength increases was impossible; but a reasonably accurate estimate can be based on the changes that occurred in the amount of resistance used in his workouts, since all exercises were continued to a point of momentary failure. For example, during the 1st workout on May 1st, he performed 7 repetitions on a Torso/Arm machine with 225 pounds; then 15 days later, during the 9th workout on May 16th, he performed the same number of repetitions (7) with 300 pounds, indicating a strength increase in that area of movement of exactly 33 1/3 percent. Very similar strength increases were obvious in all areas of movement that were exercises heavily.

Having seen him at the start of the experiment, I seriously doubted that he could produce much in the way of improvement in such a short period of time; but I was wrong, he gained steadily but rapidly, and was actually gaining faster near the end of the experiment. While the other subject’s rate of gaining decreased near the end of the experiment, Mr. Jones showed a faster rate of gains during the final two weeks of his training. Which may have been due to the fact that his chest cold limited his gains during the first two weeks.

The following chart will clearly indicate the actual gains and the rate of gaining of both subjects.

SUBJECT, Casey Viator

DATE BODYWEIGHT GAIN DAILY AVERAGE

5/1/73 166.87 Start Start

5/15/73 195.8 28.93 2.06 pounds per day

5/18/73 199.72 3.92 1.30 pounds per day

5/23/73 205.81 6.09 1.21 pounds per day

5/29/73 212.15 6.34 1.05 pounds per day

SUBJECT, Arthur Jones

DATE BODYWEIGHT GAIN DAILY AVERAGE

5/1/73 144.21 Start Start

5/8/73 148.28 4.07 0.58 pounds per day

5/18/73 153.23 4.95 0.70 pounds per day

5/23/73 157.83 4.60 0.56 pounds per day

5/26/73 162.37 4.54 1.51 pounds per day

It should be noted, however, that the final bodyweight figure recorded for Mr. Jones is somewhat misleading; all of other weights were recorded early in the morning, with an empty stomach, but the final bodyweight listed for Mr. Jones was recorded several hours after a normal weighing time, immediately before his final workout. Previous comparisons had indicated a difference of approximately 2 pounds in this subject’s bodyweight during that span of time; he was approximately 2 pounds heavier just before a workout, by comparison to his bodyweight recorded early in the morning of the same day.

So it would be reasonable to deduct two pounds from his final bodyweight, and if we do so, then the resulting gain would be only 2.54 pounds instead of 4.54 pounds. And the rate of gaining would be 0.84 pounds per day instead of the listed 1.51 pounds.

But in either case it is obvious that his gains were steady throughout the period of training, and equally obvious that his actual rate of gaining was increasing near the end of the experiment.

During the first two weeks of the experiment, Casey Viator gained 28.93 pounds, an average of 2.06 pounds per day. During the final two weeks he gained 16.35 pounds, an average of 1.16 pounds per day. So his rate of gaining declined by approximately 43% during the final two weeks; which was only to be expected. But even during the final six days of the experiment he was still gaining in excess of a pound a day.

Neither subject produced sudden spurts of growth that might have indicated dehydration prior to the start of the experiment; on the contrary, the actual gains and the rate of gains displayed by both subjects remained remarkably steady throughout the experiment.

But remarkable as they were, the bodyweight gains do not indicate the actual results; because both subjects reduced their starting level of bodyfat during the experiment, indicating that they were rapidly adding bodyweight while reducing bodyfat at the same time, a result that I previously considered impossible.

While increasing his bodyweight by 45.28 pounds, Viator reduced his starting level of bodyfat by 17.93 pounds, indicating an actual increase in lean body mass (muscular tissue) of 63.21 pounds.

The results produced by Mr. Jones have been listed above, and when due consideration is given to the great difference in age in these two subjects, I think the final results are equally remarkable.

For his part, Mr. Jones expressed dissatisfaction with his own results; saying that he fully expected to increase his bodyweight by at least 30 pounds. And he promised to repeat the experiment at a later date under better conditions, at an altitude of sea level and without the starting handicap of a chest cold. He also expressed the belief that his starting bodyweight was too low; he feels that he would have gained better from a starting bodyweight of approximately 155 pounds.

Casey’s strength increases were fully on a par with his increases in muscle mass, as the following chart will show.

STRENGTH TEST MAY 1st MAY 29th INCREASE

Leg Press 400/32 840/45 +440 = 110%+

Chinning 217/7 287/11 +70 = 32%+

Standing Press 160/8 200/11 +40 = 25%+

Parallel Bar Dipping 217/12 312/16 +95 = 43%+

During the initial strength test, leg presses were performed to a point of failure on a Universal machine, using 400 pounds; with 32 resulting repetitions. Four weeks later, Viator used 840 pounds in the same exercise, and performed 45 repetitions; the increase in resistance was thus 110%, but the fact that he also performed more repetitions indicates that his actual strength increase was even higher.

Chinning was performed with a supinated (palms up) hand grip, with 50 pounds added to bodyweight in the form of a barbell plate fastened to the waist with a belt. In the final test, 75 pounds of added resistance was used, but in the meantime the subject had increased his bodyweight by 45 pounds, so the actual increase in resistance was 70 pounds. So his strength had clearly increased by 32% on the basis of added resistance, and even more than that when consideration is given to the fact that he also increased the repetitions from 7 to 11.

In the standing press, the increase was 25% on the basis of increased resistance, but the actual increase was even higher, since he also increased the repetitions from 8 to 11.

In the parallel dipping, 50 pounds of weight was added to bodyweight during the initial test, and 100 pounds during the final test, and again the subject had added 45 pounds of bodyweight in the meantime, giving an actual increase is resistance of 95 pounds. On the basis of the increased resistance his strength increase in this movement was 43%, but again he increased the repetitions as well, from 12 to 16, thus indicating an even greater strength increase.

It should also be noted that Viator was still suffering limited use of his right hand as a result of the accident that occurred during the previous January, and this affected him to some degree in all exercises involving the hands, chinning, pressing, and dipping.

Want to learn more?

Get Arthur Jones’  Nautilus Training Principles Bulletin 1, 2 and the previously unpublished Bulletin 3, in a single collection with improved formatting and new appendices, edited with Arthur’s permission by Drew Baye:

The Complete Nautilus Bulletins Collection

I have just learned that bodybuilding legend Casey Viator died yesterday, September 4, 2013.

Casey became a trainee of Nautilus inventor Arthur Jones after they met at the 1970 Mr. America contest in Los Angeles, where Casey placed third. Arthur told Casey he had the potential to become the greatest bodybuilder in the world, but he was training way too often and doing too many sets. He had Casey cut back from training three hours at a time, five days per week on a split routine to performing three much shorter full body routines per week, which resulted in even faster muscle gains and helped him win the Teenage Mr. America, Junior Mr. America, and Mr. America competitions.

 

Casey was probably most famous for his role in the controversial Colorado Experiment, where he increased his body weight by over forty five pounds in only twenty eight days , gaining over sixty three pounds of muscle while losing nearly eighteen pounds of fat as a result of twelve brutally intense workouts consisting mostly of heavy negative-only and negative-accentuated training on prototypes of the Nautilus Omni machines (of which only the Omni multi-exercise was ever made commercially available).

Although these gains seem impossible, consider the experiment took advantage of unique circumstances and should not be construed as an example of what the average person, or even a genetically gifted trainee should expect from training. Casey had previously been injured, losing part of a finger, then almost died as a result of an allergic reaction to a tetanus shot. He lost a large amount of weight while in the hospital, and continued to lose weight afterwards over a period of several months without training and while eating very little. The Colorado Experiment was not so much an experiment as it was a demonstration, since Arthur knew that Casey responded very quickly to training and that muscular size can be regained much faster than it can be gained.

Skeptics have made all sorts of accusations, and an article in Muscle & Fitness magazine entitled “Casey Comes Clean” had Casey claiming he was sneaking out to perform extra workouts, however he never said this. Quite the opposite. When asked about it during an interview with Brian Johnston, Casey replied,

This pretty much was a propaganda article. I might have written thirty percent of what was printed. There was not any sneaking around doing extra exercises or sets. We were working at such a high level of intensity no extra work was needed. We accomplished this study with great success and my sixty pounds was done exactly the way we described it. We knew before the experiment started that I would gain that much weight and nothing has been duplicated close to it since.

If you want the facts, you can read the full details of the Colorado Experiment in Nautilus Bulletin 3, and I have posted all four chapters here: The Colorado Experiment

I never met Casey, but we communicated via email a few times and had once planned to do a video interview. Unfortunately, he had to cancel to deal with storm damage to his house and we never rescheduled. I had hoped to ask him about the Colorado Experiment and his experiences with Arthur, as I had already asked Arthur about it and also discussed it with Mike Mentzer, Ell Darden, and others and thought it would be interesting to get Casey’s perspective and ask about some of the rumors about the experiment.

If you want more information about Casey’s training, you can visit his web site at www.caseyviator.com which contains a link to his last interview in the August 2013 issue of Flex, and Ellington Darden’s book The New Bodybuilding For Old-School Results features an interesting discussion between him and Casey.

The following text is from an interview with John Little from 2006, which originally appeared on John’s Max Contraction web site. It is republished here with John’s permission. It appears exactly as it did on his site except for minor changes to punctuation and the omission of a section promoting the training business I no longer work for.

We cover a lot of ground, including static contraction training, static holds and timed static contractions, max contraction training, the omega set, SuperSlow, Randy Rindfleish’s leverage machines, training for strength versus size, cardiovascular conditioning, etc. While I would make minor changes to some of my answers now, particularly with regards to timed static contraction and what is possible with them with equipment like the RenEx iMachines and some motorized machines in isometric mode, most I would still agree with, particularly the TUL being used by some SuperSlow people being excessive.

An Interview With Personal Trainer Drew Baye

Drew Baye is without question one of the premiere personal trainers in the world. His knowledge of exercise science and its application to one’s personal fitness goals and aspirations is exceptional in the health and fitness industry.

He was a pivotal figure in the Superslow ^TM training franchises, leaving abruptly on principle when he believed that they turned a blind eye to scientific evidence that suggested that extended contraction times were not as effective as shorter ones with heavier weights.

I first heard of Drew Baye when someone e-mailed me a critique he had written on Max Contraction Training. I scanned his critique, prepared to dismiss it as the ramblings of a stooge for the bodybuilding orthodoxy – but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was an intelligent critique and that its author had obviously given the matter considerable thought and that he was quite knowledgeable about exercise physiology. I filed it away with the plan to review it more thoroughly for the purposes of rebuttal when I had more time. And then I received an e-mail from none other than Drew Baye. “This should be interesting,” I thought to myself as I opened it. I was surprised to learn that Drew had continued his research into my protocol by speaking with various physiology professors and experts in the fitness field and had formulated a theory that explained why the position of full muscular contraction (Max Contraction) was the most important position for building size and strength. In effect, he had reversed his previous critique upon discovering new evidence to the contrary that corresponded to certain facts he knew to be true from personal experience. His intellectual honesty impressed me greatly. He retracted his prior critique and shared with his readers the fruits of his own research into the matter. I recall years ago Mike Mentzer telling me, “The idea shouldn’t be ‘who’s right,’ but rather ‘what’s true?’” I recognized this same quality in Drew.

As time passed, we began to correspond more frequently, typically exchanging studies that had been performed in the exercise science arena and comparing notes. I soon discovered that Drew is a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge in exercise science and a tremendous resource for data checking. I asked Drew to write the Foreword to my latest book Advanced Max Contraction Training because I valued his opinion on my latest offering and also because of his knowledge of exercise science. I am very grateful that he agreed and thankful for his honest insights.

In the hopes of broadening people’s awareness of Drew’s background and experiences in training, I am pleased to present this interview with Drew Baye wherein he touches upon what drew him to the fitness field, his break with the Superslow ^TM protocol, his conversion (based upon his own research) to Max Contraction and the Omega Set, and his greatest successes as a personal trainer. True to form, he also detonates a few cherished but erroneous training myths along the way.

– John Little

Background

John Little: What first got you interested in bodybuilding/strength training?

Drew Baye: In general, it was girls, actually.

John Little: (laughing) That’s a solid reason.

Drew: Yeah, I started working out with some friends of mine in a friend’s basement. I was in the seventh grade and our reason for doing it was just because we wanted to have bigger muscles and just be more impressive to the girls. So it wasn’t anything more complex than that at first.

John Little: What was your earliest training program like?

Drew Baye: It was just pretty basic, simple stuff. We didn’t know what we were doing so we just did whatever came to mind. Mostly benching, of course everybody wanted to know just “how much” we could bench. And then it was basic stuff – curls, overhead presses, triceps extensions and chin-ups and, occasionally, just really, really sloppy squats. None of us really knew what we were doing at the time, but for a bunch of kids in Junior High, we didn’t do too badly. I got more into it in High School with football and track and things like that, but I didn’t know really what I was doing then either. And even worse was going way off in the wrong direction because of what was taught to us by coaches and the influence of the muscle magazines that a lot of the other guys were bringing in.

John Little: What was the negative influence of the muscle magazines?

Drew Baye: They had all that high-volume, multiple sets, two hour workouts, six days a week routines and I followed those for a long period of time and just got nowhere. It was just overtraining. It was a ridiculous amount of overtraining.

John Little: What turned you around from that point?

Drew Baye: Well eventually, when I was in college, I started reading Mike Mentzer’s articles in his Heavy Duty ^TM column in IronMan magazine and I just dropped all the high volume stuff and everything else I had been doing and went to one of his programs that only had me training twice a week, following a routine that he had outlined in one of his columns.

John Little: And what were your results?

Drew Baye: Well, after years of making little or no meaningful progress and just grossly overtraining, I was able to go from the low 150s and not much definition, to a fairly lean 180 to 182 pounds.

John Little: And how long did this take you?

Drew Baye: That was over a period of maybe a half-year or so.

Strength And Size

John Little: I like that because one of the strong points of Mike’s writings was that, number one, you had to keep a progress chart, and, number two, the only meaningful way to ascertain progress was strength increases. And there’s been a lot of nonsense going around, particularly in Internet chat rooms, that building strength has nothing to do with building muscular size – which is false on its face. If you were able to build 30 pounds of muscle over six months as a result of what was essentially a “strength-building” program — that puts the lie to that.

Drew Baye: Absolutely. The idea that strength and muscular size are not related is absolutely absurd. A person can improve his performance in an exercise without gaining muscle size, because there are other factors affecting performance, but there is just NO WAY, it is impossible – absolutely impossible – for a person to get bigger muscles without becoming stronger; if you increase the cross-sectional area of a muscle that has to translate to an increase in strength. Nothing else is possible because you have more muscle mass contributing to the force produced when you are contracting with that muscle. It baffles me how anybody can think that you can become larger without also becoming stronger.

John Little: Their argument seems to be that while it’s true that a bigger muscle is a stronger muscle, you have to make the muscle bigger before it gets stronger. And that it is not only possible but preferable for you to remove the strength-building component from your workouts and somehow facilitate a hypertrophic response. Figure that one out.

Drew Baye: Well, I don’t think it’s quite that clear cut. As it’s becoming stronger it will become proportionately larger for that person. I mean if you have an increase in contractile tissue, you have an increase in tissue that is contributing to the force production of the muscle. I think that part of the confusion is the actual amount of strength increase relative to the size increase is going to vary considerably between individuals. For two different people, they can have the exact same increase and one of them might have a much greater relative increase in muscle size. There’s a study ¹, and I can’t remember the exact title, but it had to do with interlukin, or some sort of a receptor, I think I sent you the study a while back, and it actually showed that the difference between the size gains relative to the strength gains strongly correlated with the type of receptors that a person had. Moreover, it theorized that the reason for some people gaining a larger amount of muscle mass relative to strength was that there was actually a compensation for having a lower quality of muscle; the muscle that they had wasn’t producing as much force per cross-sectional area, so, to compensate, the body actually had to make more of it – which also only goes to show how important it is to train at the highest possible level of intensity to get more muscle because the body is resistant to do it.

John Little: Right.

Drew Baye: It’s metabolically expensive and from a survival standpoint, you want to just have enough tissue to get the job done because anything else is going to require you to try and go and bring in that many more calories – which could be scarce – and that much more of a drain on energy and resources that could be going to other vital systems.

The Alure of Science

John Little: Well, as Mike Mentzer said, “a bodybuilding program is essentially a strength training program.” And the dramatic gains you experienced in muscle mass while following his strength-building program are proof of this fact. I’m curious if it was Mike’s writings and, perhaps more importantly, his science-based approach, that caused you to then move more in the direction of science in training? Because you are, in my estimation, probably the most literate person out there in terms of reading – and even wanting to read – the science reports, but digesting them thoroughly and looking at how the studies were done and even having the wherewithal to accurately critique a lot of them.

Drew Baye: Well, there are a lot of people out there who do this. I might just be one of the more vocal ones. There are some guys out there like Ryan Hall, a very sharp dude – he’s usually the guy I ask about new research. He stays on top of it even more than I do. I do my best but there are other guys out there who are really on top of it – Dr. Doug McGuff, too, I would include in there, as staying on top of things. But as I was getting into this I was also studying biology and exercise physiology at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. The plan was to eventually go into medical school. I had a cousin who was a doctor and I just thought it seemed like a good thing to go into. But the more I got into the exercise, the more interested I became in that and the more I wanted to do something in the field of fitness.  Frankly, I think it is probably doing people more good from this end, in helping prevent potential problems than helping fix them after the fact. Not to take away anything from the important work doctors do, but I’d rather have people prevent situations than have to deal with them afterwards.

Considering Max Contraction

John Little: How did you first hear of Max Contraction and what led to your interest in this approach to training?

Drew Baye: I had been working with Ken Hutchins and he had read your Static Contraction Training book (McGraw Hill, New York, 1998), which I believe he had borrowed from Ellington Darden. And we started experimenting with that at the Superslow ^TM facility over here in Altamonte Springs, Florida, where I was working with him at the time. This was where I had first heard of your work – your pioneering work – with motionless exercise. And Ken wanted to use it primarily with people who had different injuries or had difficulty performing full-range exercise for various reasons – joint problems, osteoarthritis, etc. Anybody who couldn’t perform full-range exercise we were using Static Contraction with in a position where they could apply as much force as possible without irritating the joint or whatever was causing the problem. Although Ken’s version of it I think was very, very much modified from what was in the Static Contraction book in that he actually had people going for two-minutes [a much longer hold time than I would recommend – J.L.] and there wasn’t an actual “weight” used. The machine was set in a fixed position, so that you couldn’t lift it and it wouldn’t go down if you let go of it either. And what he would have people do is contract against this for about 30 seconds at a light effort, and then gradually increase it to about a 50 percent effort for another 30 seconds and then almost as hard as they could for another 30 seconds and then as hard as they possibly could for another 30 seconds. And, in retrospect, in thinking about it now, some of my initial negative perceptions of static training could be related to the fact of how Ken had people doing it, which was far from effective. There was no actual back-pressure; they were working against a perfectly immobile resistance and the resistance was entirely dependent upon the volitional effort of the subject. And, you know, a lot of people simply will not contract as hard as they are absolutely are physically capable of if they can get away with it.

John Little: I should think that such an approach would make it difficult to measure not only effort but also to track progress.

Drew Baye: Right. I think a lot of clients were faking it, frankly. If you lift an actual weight into position for them to hold, such as you have always advocated, they can’t fake it. And it also provides you with measurable results from workout to workout. Without that kind of feedback I also think there wasn’t that much incentive for the people to put as much into it, which otherwise they would have. Seeing it done in that way, I think, probably biased me somewhat with regard to isometric or static exercise in general. But then again, it wasn’t really Static Contraction, it was just the odd application of it that was being used; i.e., that there was no real resistance and the time of contraction was probably way too long for them to maintain an absolute, extremely high level of force application. I think they probably would have gotten better results if they had shortened the hold times and focused on going all-out from the very start.

Max Contraction And Cross-Bridge Attachments

John Little: Right. Well, how did you go from a decidedly negative view of Max Contraction – based upon Ken’s interpretation of it – to your present vantage point of believing that the position of Max Contraction is the most productive range for training a muscle?

Drew Baye: Well, during the time that I was working with Ken I didn’t really focus on that point – at least not at that time. However, I had received a lot of questions about it from other people in the Superslow ^TM community who wanted to know what Ken was doing with it. And, of course, Ken was really, really busy, so I ended up answering questions from people. I was on the Internet all the time and Ken just really didn’t get on the Internet much. He was too busy for it and really wasn’t interested in it. So a lot of times I would field questions from people on your protocols of Static Contraction and Max Contraction. And, of course, in answering these questions I had to put a bit more thought into it and one of the things that was brought up by the Superslow ^TM people was the logic behind the position of full muscular contraction that you advocate. Arthur Jones had also indicated that this was the absolute most important position in an exercise.

Now at first I had been thinking that it probably wasn’t so important where in the range of motion a person performed a static contraction or hold with regards to joint position. Arthur had stated that the only position where all the muscle fibers could be fully contracted was in the position of full muscular contraction – but I was thinking at the time, “Well, that’s the only position where they could all be fully shortened, but not all of them would be contracting at the same time because you can only use a limited amount of fibers at any one time; you can only recruit so many motor units.” And from that standpoint the position of contraction probably didn’t make that as much of a difference as long as the weight was heavy enough – as long as the force application was high enough. (laughs) Later on … thinking along totally different lines after hearing a presentation that Ryan Hall did on more recent research on hypertrophy, and considering the mechanics of micro-trauma, I began to see the whole issue of the position of Max Contraction in a different light. I began to look more closely into the role of micro-trauma in the hypertrophy process, how that damage occurs, and that some of it was probably damage to the cross bridges within a muscle during the negative part of a repetition. As you know, as a muscle fatigues there is less calcium ion availability and other things, and you know when a person dies, of course, they go into a state of rigor mortis, where their muscles become stiff. A similar situation – on a much, much smaller scale – occurs as people fatigue during exercise, and you have some cross bridges which might not be able to detach – but of course all the rest of the muscle is attempting to lengthen, so there’s nothing else that can happen except damage to those cross-bridges. And the degree to which cross bridges can be formed depends of course upon the overlap of the myofibrils – and the more overlap, the greater potential number of cross bridges that can be formed. And if you look at it that way it makes more sense to go into the fully contracted position during exercise. And if you’re going to do a static hold there’s really no other place that could be better than the Max Contraction position, because in that position you have the greatest potential for cross bridge attachments to be formed and, if you’re using a heavy enough weight, once you get to a point where you can’t hold it and that muscle has to lengthen, you’ve got more potential cross bridges that aren’t going to be able to let go and that are going to be damaged during that brief lengthening. And of course there’s other structures that are being subjected to some degree of damage as well – cell walls, etc., – but overall being in that position of Max Contraction is what’s going to contribute to the micro-trauma and to the degree of growth stimulation. So if you’re going to do any type of isometric or static exercise, in this case you’re only limited to one position for – well, depending upon the specifics of how you’re going to perform it – at least for most of the time, like on a Max Contraction or in the Omega Set, wherein eventually you are also performing some degree of negative work, but the majority of the contraction is in the Max Contraction position – that’s it. That’s the spot!

John Little: Right – it is the best position to then apply weight or load for optimal growth stimulation.

Drew Baye: Right. Of course that can also depend on the equipment you’re using. If the equipment you have doesn’t allow for a meaningful resistance in the fully contracted position then it really doesn’t help you to the degree it should. You know, some barbell exercises, or some really poorly designed machines, if you go into the fully contracted position and there’s really nothing much there for you to work against, it won’t do you much good. But that’s a fault of the tools being used rather than a fault of the method. In which case the best thing to do is just drop them and get better tools.

John Little: I was impressed as well, of course, in reading your Foreword to Advanced Max Contraction Training, that like most of us in the high intensity field, you have tried all of the various high intensity training techniques to stimulate greater muscle size and strength – positive failure, negative-only, forced positives, forced negatives, etc. I recall doing these while in university, using the old Nautilus protocol of three-days per week and literally cracking my head on a desk in Psychology class as a result of simply being overtrained to the point of exhaustion.

Drew Baye: I think the problem with a lot of that is that trainees take those techniques and apply them at the end of a set – things which just extend the amount of work that a person was performing, which if they were already training extremely hard to begin with, it’s almost like piling on a second set. If you’re already training with an extremely high level of intensity, then you have to be extremely, extremely cautious to avoid overtraining. And it probably would have been more effective if, instead of doing forced reps or forced negatives as an afterthought, if they had planned to incorporate that into the set within a reasonable amount of time. If, for example, they knew that they wanted to do forced reps or forced negatives or anything like that, rather than go to failure with the then standard 8 to 12 reps in 40 to 70-seconds, they should have used the heavier weight that only allowed them to go to perhaps half that time, and then maybe done just a very small amount – maybe one or two forced reps – afterwards. In this manner they would have jumped the intensity way up without extending it for so long that they would have ended up using up so much energy. In other words, make it a lot, lot harder, rather than making it longer. By simply adding these techniques onto their sets they were accomplishing the opposite of what they wanted to accomplish. Besides, if you know going into the workout that you’re going to have to do a couple of forced reps and a couple of forced negatives at the end of a regular set – if you know this going into the workout – I think even people who really push themselves and go all out, still hold a little back knowing that the absolute hardest part is coming right at the end of the set. And if you know it’s going to be shorter, if you know that you’re only going to be doing this much or roughly within a range, I think you’re going to put more into it. And I think that’s a major thing in favor of the very, very brief set times.

The Omega Set ^TM

John Little: I agree with you. Moving on from this, how were your experiences in using the Omega Set ^TM in your training?

Drew Baye: Painful! (laughs) To say the least! The trickiest part for me was in convincing my training partner to repeatedly lift heavier weights for me to get back into the fully contracted position. We were experimenting with Rest-Pause for a while and then just decided to switch over to just do the Omega Set ^TM after I had read the preview you had sent me for the book. And it hurt! I actually first tried it in my garage using a barbell and a squat rack to do curls. I would load up the barbell and then squat down to get into the fully contracted position for a barbell curl and then stand up and lean forward a little bit so that I had meaningful resistance in the fully contracted position. I used a heavy enough weight so that I could only hold it for about maybe a quarter or half a second before lowering it. I did three or four reps like that and … just pain! You could feel the deep fiber stimulation. I mean, my biceps were just, just sore. Of course a feeling isn’t an accurate gauge of an exercise’s effectiveness, but having experimented with that for a while after having done the Rest-Pause training, which we got good results with, I noticed even better results. In my arms in particular, which are traditionally one of the areas that I have most trouble with, responded right away. I mean, my chest, my traps – I could look at a barbell and those grow, but my arms I have always had difficulty with. So the Omega Set ^TM was really helpful. The only time that I had ever made any significant progress with my arms before was doing the old negative chins and negative dips on the old Nautilus Multi-Exercise unit. But this was the first time that I actually saw such rapid progress in my arms. I mean, I didn’t measure them — I wish now that I had, but this was the first time that I actually saw such immediate, noticeable, obvious, “in the mirror” results in terms of arm size — from any type of particular training method.

Returning to Competition

John Little: Speaking of which, I understand that you are now actually preparing to compete in bodybuilding contests again. Is that true?

Drew Baye: Yeah, depending upon how the diet goes I’m probably going to do a show up in Buffalo, New York – the N.G.A. It’s a drug-tested, natural contest. They have another one in Florida in November, so depending upon the situation at the time and the finances if I can swing it – obviously most of my money these days goes to diapers and baby food and whatnot. So, if not the New York show, then the show closer to here in Orlando. And we’ll be using Max Contraction Training in with the regular high intensity training. I’ll think we’ll be using Max primarily to focus in on the weaker bodyparts because it is pretty hard stuff. And if we were going to do it with every bodypart, I think it would just take a long time to recover from.

John Little: Right. Given that you are already advanced, I shouldn’t think you will be adding a lot more size to your frame, but the key is simply improvement. If you can bring up bodyparts that you haven’t been able to bring out to their maximum in the past, and improve your appearance, then that’s success – quite irrespective even of final placings. How frequently will you be training in preparation for your contest?

Drew Baye: Right now we’re doing just once a week – just a full body H.I.T. routine, similar to what Ell Darden has in his last book The New High Intensity Training (Rodale, 2004), but we keep it pretty limited – usually eight exercises or less — and never more than one heavy compound exercise for each major muscle group. Usually one heavy leg movement, one heavy pushing, one heavy pulling movement, and then the rest of it is just the smaller muscle groups – calves, neck, forearms, maybe something for the traps, and then occasionally lower back stuff. But as far as the main muscle groups, we limit it to just one exercise. Any more than that at a really high level of intensity very quickly leads to overtraining.

The Best Max Contraction Equipment

John Little: On a side note, we just received some equipment that is designed for Max Contraction by Randy – from Negative-Edge. In fact, he’s called it the Max Contraction machine, and what a difference it has made for Max Contraction and Omega Set ^TM Training! Not only is it easy on your training partner, but the degree of stimulation is absolutely phenomenal – so you’re right about the “tools.” We had used old generation Nautilus machines because the cams were bigger and the amount of effective resistance delivered to the muscle in the fully contracted position is greater, but it’s nothing compared to the Randy’s Max Contraction machines.

Drew Baye: In my opinion, and I’ve worked on a lot of plate loaded equipment – I’ve worked on Hammer Strength, Hoist, the MedX Avenger equipment, Southern Exercise, Lam Equipment, and even some of the obscure things – but as far as plate loaded exercise machines are concerned, and leverage machines in general, I think the Eccentric–Edge Equipment is the first really big step forward in designs. And mainly because they really, really took into consideration – of course their focus was on negative-only training when they were developing them – but these were really the first machines to allow a person to train in that manner efficiently. Like I said before, to do the Max Contraction Training and the Omega Set ^TM, the hardest part was actually getting somebody else to help lift the weights – or here, training by myself, having to use the squat rack to assist in lifting the amount of weight I needed to thoroughly stimulate my biceps, made it difficult. But with the Eccentric-Edge equipment takes all of the problems out of doing it. You don’t need to have two or three training partners to do it. Even more convenient, because of the leverages you don’t need a ton of plates to provide a lot of resistance, which also saves a lot of work for the training partners and it also saves a lot of energy for you if you have to train by yourself on the equipment. Because if you can’t get somebody else to work with you, and you’re going from machine to machine just doing a regular positive-negative dynamic style of training, you can focus more on your workout, rather than dragging plates back and forth between the weight trees and the machines.

John Little: Right, which becomes a workout unto itself.

Drew Baye: Right. From the standpoint of a trainer, I wouldn’t go with anything else for a training facility. The worst part of working with clients on plate loading equipment is having to load and unload machines all day long. Now with this stuff, because of the leverages, you can get by with much, much less weight. And because of the ability to apply heavier negatives and things of that nature with the lever arms, you can have them train much, much harder without working yourself to death over a period of days. So you can actually save your own progress; you can prevent yourself from overtraining while training your clients.

John Little: Right. I couldn’t believe the difference – even in the short week since we’ve had them in the gym. Particularly with something like the Omega Set ^TM because your partner brings it up to the Max Contraction position right away and you have “zero” rest for the trainee. And the force output has to be absolutely optimal, which of course increases the fiber involvement and stimulation.

Drew Baye: Just phenomenal stuff.

Fitness Industry Fallacies

John Little: I want to now pick your brain a bit on some of the fallacies that are rampant in the fitness industry. I can throw out topics for you to comment on, but I want to start by asking you what is your biggest beef that you encounter now as one of the world’s leading personal trainers? What’s the biggest misconception that people have regarding exercise?

Drew Baye: The absolute biggest misconception that I come across with clients – it’s almost everybody – is the belief that you “have to do” some sort of steady-state activity to improve cardiovascular sufficiency. And it amazes me that it has persisted this long for I would have figured it would have been put to rest in the mid 1970s with Project Total Conditioning at West Point. And even more recently, I think it was in 2004, there was an announcement at the World – I think it was some sort of physician’s conference, actually right here in Orlando, where they presented the results of a study showing that six months of Nautilus style, high intensity training produced the same or better results in aerobic conditioning than an equivalent amount of time doing traditional aerobic exercise. I mean, you can get cardiovascular benefits from going out and jogging and doing all these other activities, but you can actually do it with the strength training without all the risks inherent in all those other activities. You know, the pounding of the joints and the overworking the body and losing muscle.

On a bodybuilding standpoint, a lot of people still believe that you absolutely need to do cardio to “get ripped” – which absolutely isn’t true. The first time I competed I was doing just one high intensity workout a week and no cardio – none. No, actually, scratch that – no “aerobics.” Technically, high intensity training is cardio. In fact, it is the safest and most effective and most efficient form of cardiovascular conditioning. But I got absolutely shredded with no aerobics. The guys that work at our headquarters up in Ohio also competed in natural bodybuilding contests and they were also shredded when they competed – and they also do not do aerobics. What people don’t get is that it’s really just a matter of calories in versus calories out and that just going and doing the additional activity doesn’t really burn enough calories to make enough of a difference and it certainly doesn’t make it worth the amount of time expended. You figure if somebody is just doing activity for the sake of burning calories their time probably isn’t worth very much, especially when you can simply achieve the same effect by not taking in those calories in your diet and preserving more muscle mass in the process because you’re now not out overstressing your body with all that extra activity.

John Little: Absolutely true. And another one I wanted to lob over the plate for you is the idea that you have to roll around on a “stability ball.”

Drew Baye: It’s absurd. Just absurd. The whole idea that you have to do any of that to train stabilizing muscles is ridiculous. The most ridiculous thing about this is that if you ask these people what a “stabilizer” is most of them won’t have the slightest idea. And even the guys who are really into that don’t seem to understand that “stabilizer” isn’t so much a classification of muscle as it is a role that a muscle can play. A muscle that normally acts as a stabilizer in one movement could be the prime mover in another movement; it can be a synergist, antagonist – whatever – it’s just a role. It’s a classification of what a muscle is doing during a particular type of activity or bodily movement. And if you want to get at a muscle the best way to do it is with an exercise that directly addresses that muscle, rather than depending on its involvement just as a stabilizer in another exercise. The muscles in the trunk, for example – obviously you can’t increase your squat or your deadlift to a significant degree without all the supporting muscles also being stimulated. But that’s not nearly as ideal for those muscles as if you were to do a direct exercise, such as a back extension machine or a properly designed abdominal machine. All the rolling around and doing things purposefully… if what they’re trying to do is make the exercise that they’re doing more difficult for the muscles that are acting as stabilizers they should actually – if they actually sat down and thought about it, what they’re trying to when they’re making the exercise unstable is that they are trying to make it more difficult for the muscles that are acting as stabilizers. If they really wanted to make it difficult for the muscles that are acting as stabilizers they would simply do an exercise specifically for those muscles where they could target it more effectively. The whole thing is absurd. It’s actually, oddly enough, a fad that is not new. David Landau mentioned something about it being popular in gymnasiums during the early part of the last century. David’s the history expert.

John Little: Re-treading old tires.

Drew Baye: Oh yeah.

The Giants of Bodybuilding Science

John Little: Who, in your opinion, are really the giants of the bodybuilding science field? The individuals upon whose shoulders we stand as we look to advance this discipline?

Drew Baye: Arthur Jones undoubtedly. His contribution and his influence on everybody else is what really … Arthur brought science to exercise and he brought rational thinking to exercise. And if he hadn’t been involved, given his background as a wildlife film producer, I’m sure the world would have had a lot of really interesting nature films and things of that sort, but the exercise field would probably still be in the dark ages. Mike Mentzer would also come to mind, because Mike was the first one who really took a lot of what Arthur had first said and really thought about how to apply that precisely rather than just a general, overall exercise philosophy without any real specifics as to training harder, training less frequently. He figured out not just “less” but what was the specific amount, the specific frequency that would be appropriate for an individual.

John Little: Those would be the “two pillars,” in my estimation as well, of that whole enterprise. Any other names come to mind or is everyone else pretty much footnotes to those two?

Drew Baye: They are the two big ones that come to mind. I think that Ellington Darden deserves a lot of credit for keeping the torch lit and then running with that. He’s obviously done more than most people I can think of to popularize high intensity training and to keep a lot of Arthur’s exercise philosophy going. And still writing about it! Still putting out sensible information on high intensity training for people. I would also include you, of course, with Max Contraction, and keeping that Heavy Duty ^TM column alive in Ironman – if it wasn’t for the Heavy Duty ^TM column I probably would never have gotten started with high intensity or probably would have gotten around to it later than I did. I would also include Ken Hutchins in there too; I don’t agree with everything that he says regarding exercise, but more than anyone else I think Ken really was the person that made people focus on rep speed as an important factor in exercise. Maybe 10-10 isn’t the best way for everybody to train outside of people with osteoporosis or with injuries requiring a lot of caution, but at least he made people focus on the need to really pay attention to how they’re moving during exercise and on the importance of trying to train in a low force fashion, so that you can get a high level of intensity without wrecking yourself in the process.

John Little: Right. Ken also, I think, credit to him as well in other areas. He was a good slayer of sacred cows in this industry too, and I think that was important. To at least have a point wherein – although we may disagree with certain derivative aspects of exercise, I think that everyone in high intensity is on the same page in terms of fundamentals – but I think Ken defended that very vociferously at a time when there weren’t a lot of people that were willing to do that. And even his rant against physiologists and physiotherapists I think is long overdue.

Drew Baye: Yeah. You’d think that having the scientific background that is required to get into physical therapy that physical therapists would have more of a clue about exercise. But that is something that is changing now I’m pleased to report. When I was working for the Superslow Zone there was discussion – because we had some physical therapists that were involved – there was discussion of comments made at one of the national conventions about the importance of people focusing on high intensity training and that simply having people do these easy exercises with rubber bands wasn’t going to work anymore. If they weren’t going to have people do – and I think they specifically used the phrase “high intensity training” that they were not going to get much out of the therapy. Hopefully that will be a field that will help bridge all that over into the medical community because there are still a lot of doctors – with rare exceptions – that really don’t understand proper strength training.

On The Break With SuperSlow ^TM

John Little: I agree, and for the record – because there has been a lot of rumor and misinformation – do you want to now set the record straight as to why you broke from Superslow?

Drew Baye: A couple of reasons. My main reason was that the Superslow Zone is recommending a protocol that I don’t believe is the most effective way to train and they are recommending it as the way for all of the clients to be trained. They use of course a Superslow repetition speed of 10-seconds up and 10-seconds down, and it simply isn’t necessary to move that slowly for a person to be safe. There have been force-gauge experiments conducted as well as mathematical models provided to me by various professional engineers in different fields which have all shown that once you start going slower than maybe four or five seconds lifting or lowering there’s no significant reduction in force. As long as you’re going about four or five seconds the difference in peak force that you’re exposed to is maybe going to be maybe about 1% or less than that and the 10/10. And even if you’re doing the old traditional Nautilus protocol of 2-seconds up, 4-seconds down, the actual difference in force is only along 3 or 4%. And how you reverse direction is far more important – in terms of safety – -than how long you take to get from the start to the finish; if you reverse direction smoothly that’s going to do far more to make the exercise safer than to go at a particular speed on the way in between.

John Little: And what was the second point that underscored the reason for your departure?

Drew Baye: The second point was that they were still recommending, despite tons of evidence to the contrary, that people do exercises with weights allowing sets going on from anywhere from a minimum of 100-seconds up to a maximum of 180-seconds. They’re talking a minute and 40-seconds up to 3-minutes. And I actually wrote a review of all the available research that had been done on Superslow ^TM  that looked at its effect on strength and in the studies that used a similar Time Under Load – up around a minute and a half to 3-minutes – the strength increases were dismal compared to the studies where Superslow was performed using a more conventional duration of 40 to 70-seconds. And I presented this to them and they still wouldn’t change their position. So I figured, “If they’re still going to do what they’re doing in spite of evidence to the contrary it’s not something I can be involved with.” I still believe that it’s an appropriate way for some people to train under certain circumstances and certain times and it should be used when it’s appropriate – but it’s not the Be-all, End-all. And you can’t train everybody that comes into the facility like they are an 80-year-old woman with osteoporosis. What happened with me leaving them is, in a nutshell, they refused to modify or update the protocol to reflect new information and refused to even consider any information or evidence that contradicted their position on exercise and on the protocol. Most specifically, their refusal to acknowledge new information showing that it was not necessary or even beneficial to move any slower than about a four to five-second lifting and lowering cadence with regards to reducing or minimizing peak forces or that there were no significant improvements in muscular loading moving any more slowly than that, as well as the insistence on continuing to recommend a very, very high Time Under Load – over a minute and a half to three minutes – despite the fact that most of the research on hypertrophy shows a strong correlation between load and growth stimulation, which would indicate that you need heavier weights, which are incompatible with very long set durations. And then there were studies that directly compared Superslow ^TM when performed with both lower and higher Time Under Loads and the longer Time Under Loads produced abysmal strength improvement. I mean there was some strength improvement but you would expect that from any previously untrained subject on any protocol that was at least progressive in nature. But when Superslow ^TM using a minute and a half to three minute Time Under Load is compared with Superslow ^TM using about 50 to 70-seconds – which is what Wayne Wescott used in his studies, it’s obvious that the shorter Time Under Loads are far more effective for stimulating strength – and of course by extension size increases.

John Little: It’s the old intensity/duration continuum.

Drew Baye: I don’t understand why that’s so hard for them to accept but they just refused to change and I could not be involved with an organization that would just outright ignore evidence that contradicted their positions. At least they could have given consideration to it and at least they could have objectively looked at and considered that maybe they needed to make a change.

John Little: It didn’t really have to be an “either-or” scenario; they could have said, “For those of you who are interested in size and strength, here’s your TUL – you can still move the weight up and down at 10/10 but it’s just going to be performed with a heavy enough load that your TUL will be in the neighborhood of 40 to 70-seconds. Those of you looking to rehabilitate or who are elderly or too frail to use the heavier load and shorter TULs, you can use the longer TULs with lighter weight and still make progress with it – albeit perhaps not as rapidly.”

Drew Baye: Yeah. Well, actually even with the elderly it should be used as a “break in” – and nothing else. Research on osteoporosis shows that a heavy load is essential in increasing bone mineral content and bone density – and that’s the biggest benefit of strength training to most elderly people. True, they should start out with a lighter weight and a longer Time Under Load for the purpose of learning how to properly perform the exercises and rehearsing proper form so that they can gradually be eased up to a heavy level. But even with the elderly – even with the very frail people – it should just be used as a start so that they can be eased into it. Eventually though, if they want results, they have to use a meaningful level of resistance and if they’re using a meaningful level of resistance they simply can’t do it for a long period of time.

His Greatest Successes As A Personal Trainer

John Little: Absolutely. Now, focusing on some of your accomplishments now for some people who might want to seek out your counsel for personal training, what would you say are some of your greatest successes as a trainer in terms of training clients for both fat loss and muscle gain?

Drew Baye: The biggest success that I’ve had with fat loss was actually one of my former bosses. Pat Grim, who was a co-owner of Gold’s Gym, Green Bay – now they call it Title Town Fitness – he was tremendously overweight; he was over 300 pounds. And I can’t remember the specific dates but between mid Spring of 1994 and around September of that year, he had  lost nearly 80 pounds of bodyfat while gaining a significant amount of muscle. He went from just above 300 pounds to down in the 220s, so he still had a little bit to go but that was the most body fat I’ve every had anybody lose. Of course, a lot of the credit has to go to the client; I provided the guidance, I trained him but he’s the one who did the work.

John Little: And all you had him do was employ the basic high intensity training principles coupled with a reduced calorie diet?

Drew Baye: Yeah, nothing fancy with the diet, just moderately reduced calorie diet – nothing high, nothing low. Just moderate amounts of carbohydrates, proteins and fats with an emphasis on drinking a lot of cold water too. That was also something we did a lot of with our clients back then.

John Little: And the same training frequency – i.e., once a week hard training?

Drew Baye: He was training once a week. And as a matter of fact we did the routine so many times I can tell you exactly what he did – he did a leg press on a Hammer Strength machine, he did a pulldown also on a Hammer Strength machine – these were somewhat older Hammer Strength machines, before they had the iso-lateral feature – the Hammer Strength Chest Press, the Hammer Strength Row and a Calf Raise. So it was a real basic, real brief routine. He didn’t do a lot of exercise and he didn’t do it that often but he put everything into it. He was incredibly hard working.

John Little: And how about muscle gain? Was he also your best example of muscle gain?

Drew Baye: No, oddly enough my best example of muscle gain quit because he didn’t think he was “gaining enough.” He was an example of unrealistic expectations. In 1997 I had a client come to me who was in the 140s, and he wasn’t a real tall guy, maybe 5’5” or 5’6”. He wasn’t a big guy and he just wanted to be a bodybuilder. He didn’t have what appeared to be the genetics to build a large degree of muscle mass and I tried to explain to him that not everybody can look like that. And that when you go and look at these bodybuilding magazines, most of the people – if not all – are using steroids and a variety of other growth drugs. But I guess he didn’t want to accept that fact, didn’t want anybody to burst his bubble there and ruin his fantasy of someday looking like a bodybuilder. Well we got him up into the mid 150s over a period of about 3 months and to go from the low 140s up into the mid 150s in a few months and have it be just muscle – because he did get leaner – I thought was a pretty impressive transformation. I personally would have been very happy with that rate of muscle gain, but he was frustrated that he wasn’t “bigger” and actually ended up quitting after that. He had excellent, excellent muscle gain but very, very unrealistic expectations from the beginning, which I think is one of the most frustrating things as a trainer: having to let everyone know that not everybody is going to look like a fitness model or Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Mike Mentzer, or Frank Zane or whoever they should happen to want to look like. They’ll have to want to look like the best “them.”

John Little: Even that rate of gain is tremendous. If you stack up the better part of 15 one-pound beefsteaks – and that’s quite a lot of muscle to gain within a three month period.

Drew Baye: I think if he had just stuck around a little longer – not that he would ever look like a bodybuilder; he just didn’t have the skeletal structure for it; he was a short ectomorph; narrow shoulders and didn’t have long muscle bellies. But we managed to take somebody who was below average in his genetics and get him up to at least a respectable level of muscularity. He didn’t look like a bodybuilder by any stretch of the imagination but he did look a lot better than he did when he first came in. I guess it just wasn’t enough for him though.

John Little: He was upset because his station wagon wouldn’t fly him to the moon.

Drew Baye: (laughs) Exactly!

Parting Thoughts

John Little: Any parting comments Drew that you want to touch on that perhaps I might have missed?

Drew Baye: Nothing else really comes to mind immediately except that over the next few months I’m very, very eager to see what kind of results you can produce up there with a combination of Max Contraction Training and that Eccentric-Edge equipment. That equipment will allow you to get the best possible results from that protocol. I mean it’s made for it, so I think it’s the best possible marriage of protocol and equipment.

John Little: Well, I have you to thank for that because Randy got in touch with me after you spoke to him about Max Contraction.

Drew Baye: I told him and Charlie Haire that they had to talk to you about this because that’s what their equipment is for – to make it easy for a trainer to help the user get the heaviest possible weight into position to do a Max Contraction or a Negative-Only or a Hyper – any of the TRULY High Intensity Training — protocol. If you’ve met Randy, you’ll see that he’s got a lot of genetic potential. I think he should focus on Max Contraction for a while; I think he would get even bigger.

John Little: I also wanted to get your opinion on the concept that is bandied about recently that a Max Contraction is good but it should be done when the muscle is fully stretched, rather than contracted. This seems to be ludicrous.

Drew Baye: I don’t think it needs to be fully stretched. There needs to be some negative movement because the majority of the research seems to show that load is the primary factor but during the negative is when most of the micro-trauma occurs. I think the Omega Set is probably the best use of the negative because it’s starting in the fully contracted position, you’re holding an incredibly heavy weight, it causes as much of the muscle – as many motor units as possible within the muscle – to be recruited, and you’ve got all of those cross bridges being formed so that you’re setting the muscle up so that you can get the most micro-trauma out of the negative portion. Obviously you have to recruit as many motor units as possible so that you’ve got the muscle involved in the set so that it can be stimulated, which is going to happen if you’re in that position of full muscular contraction and if you’re using a heavy enough weight, which of course is benefited by using that equipment that allows you to do that. And it probably doesn’t even need to be anywhere near a full range negative – maybe not even half range – there just has to be some negative movement. You know, you are measuring cross-bridges in thousandths of an inch, so you probably don’t have to move them too far to damage them. You might almost be able to stay in or stay close to, or within maybe an inch of the fully contracted position and do real, real short movements – which is what the Omega Set recommends.

John Little: I was impressed with your research into cross bridge attachments and their role in the process of stimulating size and strength increases.

Drew Baye: Well that research is what led me to concur with you about your point about the position of full muscular contraction being the most significant for stimulating strength and size increases. The next couple of years will be interesting. Dr. Stan Linstead who is doing a lot of research on the effects of eccentric action, and Dr. Mike Reedy at Duke University who is doing a lot of research on exactly what’s going on the cross bridge mechanics and what the difference is between the positive and negative portion of a repetition and what is really involved in stimulating increases in muscular size. Of course they’re doing all this for AIDS patients, and people with Multiple Sclerosis and Muscular Dystrophy – people who’s lives, literally, depend on them being able to maintain body tissues. But of course as bodybuilders we can benefit from all the related sciences. But keeping an eye on what those guys are doing will continue to shed more light on information we can use in trying to get bigger and stronger muscles.

Notes:

1.)    Journal of Applied Physiology; Association of interleukin-15 protein and interleukin-15 receptor genetic variation with resistance exercise training responses; Steven E. Riechman,¹ G. Balasekaran,¹ Stephen M. Roth,² and Robert E. Ferrell;¹Department of Human Genetics, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260; and ²Department of Kinesiology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742; Submitted 6 May 2004 ; accepted in final form 16 July 2004.

Abstract:

Interleukin-15 (IL-15) is an anabolic cytokine that is produced in skeletal muscle and directly affects muscle anabolism in animal and in vitro models. The contribution of IL-15 variability in muscle responses to 10 wk of resistance exercise training in young men and women was examined by measuring acute and chronic changes in IL-15 protein in plasma and characterizing genetic variation in the IL-15 receptor- gene (IL15RA). Participants trained 3 days a week at 75% of one repetition maximum, performing three sets (6–10 repetitions) of 13 resistance exercises.Plasma IL-15 protein was significantly increased (P < 0.05)immediately after acute resistance exercise but did not changewith training and was not associated with variability in muscle responses with training. A single nucleotide polymorphism in exon 7 of IL15RA was strongly associated with muscle hypertrophy and accounted for 7.1% of the variation in regression modeling.A polymorphism in exon 4 was also independently associated with muscle hypertrophy and accounted for an additional 3.5% of the variation in hypertrophy. These results suggest that IL-15 is an important mediator of muscle mass response to resistance exercise training in humans and that genetic variation in IL15RA accounts for a significant proportion of the variability in this response.

I enjoy writing and talking about exercise. If I didn’t, I would have quit long ago and would be doing something else. However, this is not just a hobby or recreation for me, it’s what I do for a living. After spending most of the past two decades training people I have decided to focus more on writing and consulting, and to be successful doing so I have to be mindful about how I use my time.

In making this transition one of the most important things for me to do is improve my time management so I can write more efficiently and be more productive. Since I have been writing about exercise on the internet I estimate have spent thousands of hours answering tens of thousands of questions by email, on forums, in social media. In addition to cutting into the time I am able to spend writing articles and books and producing videos and doing the related research, reading, and planning it cuts into time I could be devoting to family and other personal projects. Because of this I have decided to make the following changes to my comment and contact policies.

Comments

I considered disabling comments, but have kept them because I enjoy reading and answering the intelligent and thoughtful comments and questions many of you post which stimulate informative and valuable discussion and often provide interesting material for follow up posts. I appreciate and really look forward to these kinds of responses when I post new articles.

Comments or questions which are off-topic or clearly answered in the article or in previous comments will be deleted without a response. The comments section is not for asking me general or unrelated questions about exercise or nutrition. If you are unable to find the answer to your question in any of the articles on this site I am available for phone and video consultations or personal training if you are in the Orlando area.

Email

I will answer reasonable questions and requests for information about the services and products I provide (personal training, phone and video consultations, speaking and workshops, books, exercise equipment, etc.). For example, if you have purchased a book and have a question about something in it.

If you want me to help you with your training program or diet or design one for you I am available for phone and video consultations or personal training if you are in the Orlando area.

I will not answer questions about exercise or nutrition if you are not a current phone or personal training client.

If you have questions about exercise equipment or setting up a gym or training studio I am available for phone and video consultations.

I do not sell advertising on this web site, and I do not accept unsolicited guest posts or random requests for link exchanges.

Thank You

Thanks to all of you who appreciate and understand the value of the information and advice I provide, and I look forward to these changes helping me to bring you more and better content in the years to come.

The barbell has been around since at least the 1800’s, and the modern plate-loaded version has been around since strength training pioneer George Barker Windship invented the “practical graduating dumbbell” in 1865. Despite this long history, the majority of people still have no idea how to use them correctly, and most of the people who claim to be experts in their use give advice that is relatively inefficient at best, and dangerous at worst.

A comprehensive explanation of the correct performance of various specific barbell exercises is beyond the scope of an article, but the following are general guidelines for the correct use of a barbell if your goal is to stimulate improvements in muscular strength and size and general functional ability without wrecking your body in the process.

Weight Selection

The purpose of a barbell is to increase the resistance your muscles work against during the performance of an exercise. This resistance should be high enough to require significant effort to contract against, but not so high you are not able to perform the movement correctly or for an adequate duration.

Select a weight that is just heavy enough for you to be able to achieve momentary muscular failure within a reasonable time frame with strict form. If you can’t maintain strict form, the weight is too heavy.

A broad range of repetitions or time can be effective for stimulating muscular strength and size increases, but I recommend a conservative minimum of four or five slow repetitions or around thirty seconds time under load. When learning a new exercise err even lighter, since doing it right is more important than doing it hard at first.

Unless you are a competitive weightlifter or powerlifter, the purpose of a barbell is not to show off. The presence of others should not factor into your weight selection and if it does you need to re-examine your priorities when you are in the gym.

Efficient Use

The weight of the barbell is only one of many factors which combine to produce the resistance your muscles contract against during an exercise, along with things like leverage and acceleration. Use correct body positioning and path of movement to modulate the leverage to match the resistance to your changing strength over the range of the exercise, and minimize acceleration when reversing direction to maintain more consistent tension and avoid the potentially harmful peak forces and subsequent deloading caused by rapid acceleration.

In addition to providing relatively consistent, balanced resistance to the target muscle groups over the full range of the exercise, your positioning and path of movement should allow for the joints involved to move in a safe and comfortable manner.

If you can’t instantly stop and hold the barbell motionless at any time and point over the range of motion of the exercise without changing body position you are accelerating too rapidly and moving too fast.

If you can hold the barbell motionless at any point over the range of motion and feel little resistance against the target muscles in that position or if you feel the resistance more in muscle groups other than the ones targeted you are positioned or moving incorrectly.

If an exercise can’t be performed in a slow and controlled manner it is a poor exercise and has no place in a proper exercise program. Accelerating rapidly and moving fast during exercise does not provide any general physical benefit over slow, controlled movement, but reduces the efficiency of muscular loading and increases the stress on the joints and connective tissues and the risk of injury.

If you use a barbell to perform an isometric exercise, hold it in the position where the lever and resistance the target muscles work against is the greatest (but a safe distance from the end of your range of motion), not the position where you can hold the most weight.

Safe Use

Exercising correctly with barbells is one of the safest things a person can do, however incorrect use or misuse of a barbell can be extremely dangerous.

Injuries occur when a tissue is subject to a force that exceeds its structural strength. During exercise, the forces acting on your body can increase significantly if you accelerate rapidly or if you move into position where there is a significant increase in the lever causing tension or compression of some tissue.

Move slowly, minimize acceleration when reversing direction, and don’t throw or drop a barbell onto any part of your body or someone else’s. You’d think the last part would be common sense, but apparently it is not and needs to be mentioned here.

Be conservative with your range of motion. During some exercises a slight to moderate stretch is permissible, but avoid moving into more than a moderate stretch during exercises where the lever and resistance increase towards the start of the range of motion (eg. barbell pullovers, stiff-leg deadlifts on an elevated platform).

When using plate-loaded barbells use collars and check that they are securely fastened.

When performing an exercise where the barbell is over your body and you are unable to safely dump the barbell without dropping it on yourself or being trapped underneath it use a rack with safety pins or spotters. Make sure the rack or spotters are capable of supporting or lifting the weight you are using.

Use the correct equipment for the exercise. If the correct equipment isn’t available wait, or do a different exercise.

Pay as much attention to how you pick up and set down a barbell or how you take it from or hand it to someone as you do how you perform the exercise.

If you see someone else doing something stupid or dangerous with a barbell stay a safe distance away from them. Like any of the things in the following section:

Stupid Things You Should NOT Do With A Barbell

Most of the following is simply good sense and should go without saying, but since many people appear to exhibit a complete lack of sense when using a barbell it is necessary to point these things out.

Do not lift more weight than you are capable of completing an exercise with in strict form. It is just as important to do it right as it is to do it hard.

Do not yank, jerk, heave, or swing a barbell. Lift it slowly and under control. The goal is to stimulate your body to increase muscular strength and size without wrecking it in the process.

Do not drop a barbell  unless you are required to dump it to avoid being trapped or injured. If you can’t set it down properly it’s too heavy for you.

Do not bounce a barbell off of your chest, stomach, pelvis, thighs, face, neck, or any other part of your body. If you can’t hold it motionless for a few seconds at the start point and lift it slowly from a dead stop, it’s too heavy for you.

Do not throw a barbell. The only time it should leave your hands is when you have finished the exercise and it is set on the floor or placed on the bench or rack hooks or pins, unless you are required to dump it to avoid being trapped or injured.

Never, ever throw a barbell to or at someone, or drop it over them. Eventually they will catch it with some body part other than their hands,  like their face or throat. This is battery, and if you do this to someone you deserve to be punched in the face.

Do not perform a barbell exercise on an unstable or highly deformable surface such as a ball, balanced board, trampoline, while balancing or stepping onto or off of something with one leg, or while sitting or standing on another person. Doing so reduces the effectiveness of the exercise for the target muscles, is relatively ineffective for strengthening the muscles involved in maintaining balance, and increases the risk of injury.

Do not use a barbell for one-handed exercises. This is what dumbbells are for. You are not a nineteenth century strongman performer.

Do not mimic non-exercise movements like sport or vocational skills with a barbell. There is no positive skill transfer from these movements to the movements you are mimicking, and they do not work the target muscles as effectively as conventional barbell exercises.

The only good reason to put a barbell on your back is to perform back squats. Do not perform standing trunk twists with a barbell on your back. Do not jump up and down with a barbell on your back. Do not run with a barbell on your back.

Do not try to combine multiple exercises. Doing so reduces the efficiency of loading for all the muscle groups involved, requires you to use the same weight for each exercise rather than the most appropriate for each, requires quick position changes between reps for different exercises, and provides no benefit over performing each of the exercises separately if rest between sets is kept short.

Do not grunt, yell, shout, scream, curse, or make stupid faces at the barbell. It can’t hear you and wouldn’t care or be impressed if it could, nor would anyone else.