In this video I address a lot of the roots of a lot of misunderstanding about how to exercise and the relative long-term effectiveness, efficiency, and safety of different exercise methods I often see on social media and in most other exercise and fitness discussion forums.

I originally recorded this video as an exclusive for the HIT List, but have decided to share it publicly because it addresses so many fallacious arguments against high intensity training and/or for other less efficient and safe methods I’ve been seeing in many forums recently, and because I hope it will encourage more people to join our group and learn to exercise more effectively, efficiently, and safely.

If you would like to ask me questions about anything in this video, or if you would like to watch the other videos I mentioned, you can do so by joining my HIT List forum.

In June we received a combination cable pulldown and seated row machine from Rogue Fitness, which came with both a lat bar and a close, parallel-grip attachment. While the lat pulldown bar works well for wide overhand-grip pulldowns and rows, the straight handle is poor for properly performed front-grip pulldowns (close, underhand grip). So, I decided to design my own handle for front-grip pulldowns with the proper handle angles, based on Ken Hutchins’ design for the SuperSlow Systems and RenEx pulldown handles, and with his input.

The close parallel-grip triangle handles are also very poor for seated rows, but I will address that elsewhere later.

While designing the pulldown handle it occurred to me it would also work well for both cable triceps pressdowns and arm curls if I added another attachment point opposite the handles, which is why there are two.

I sent the drawings to a local machine shop which made the prototype below, which was nearly perfect. After some testing I figured I only needed to raise the angle of the handles a little more, and have already sent the updated drawings to have another made which I expect to have in about a week.

Baye Front-Grip Pulldown Handle Prototype

After picking up the prototype I recorded the following video with a brief explanation of the design.

I am not selling these handles. I made these because I wanted them for my home gym. I am currently far too busy writing books and recording videos to get involved in making and shipping equipment Instead, I am giving you the drawings for free so you can make your own or hire a shop to make one for you. I can also provide a DXF file of the center part by request. If you make or have one made, please share a photo of you using it on social media, and tag me in it and include a link to this page.

I am well aware these are extremely overdesigned for the kind of loads they will be used for. The heavier, bulkier design is a personal stylistic preference (mine is made with 7 gauge tubing and 1/2″ plate). You could have yours made with 14 gauge tubing and 1/4″ plate and it would be strong enough.

Baye Pulldown Handle Handle Dimensions

Baye Pulldown Handle Center Dimensions

Baye Pulldown Handle Top and Side Views

If you build or have one built please share a photo of you using it and let me know how you like it. If you would like to order one from Core Manufacturing contact Alex Losada at alex@core-manufacturing.com and tell him you would like to purchase a Baye Pulldown Handle.

Realize these are heavy-duty pulldown handles that are built to order and cost far more than mass-produced cable attachments. Based on the current price of steel expect to pay $180-220 for a bare-steel pulldown handle, and $280 to $300 for one with a powder-coat finish, plus shipping and handling.

In the September 1971 issue of Ironman magazine, in his article Is It Worth The Price?, Nautilus inventor Arthur Jones wrote,

“…every exercise should be carried to a point of utter failure, where no additional movement is momentarily possible. It is almost literally impossible for most people to work too hard—but it is easily possible for anybody to work too much.”

Fifty years later, despite an ever increasing body of evidence supporting Jones’ Nautilus training principles, you’ll still see most people in the gym doing far more exercises and sets than necessary while barely working hard. I am not exaggerating when I say the vast majority of trainees would get far better results if they spent less than half as much time in the gym but worked at least twice as hard.

Trap Bar Deadlift

What does it mean to work hard, though? Jones’ had an answer for that as well. To paraphrase, he once said if you perform a set of an exercise hard enough you should find it necessary to sit down afterwards. You should not just feel like sitting down, you should have to sit down to avoid falling down.

How do you train harder?

Use better, stricter exercise form

Proper exercise form keeps the targeted muscles working against relatively continuous, balanced resistance, without unloading or underloading and allowing them to rest, resulting in a faster rate of fatigue (inroad/time = intensity!). The stricter your form the harder an exercise is.

Don’t cheat, but don’t stop

Don’t cheat to get more reps as the exercise becomes harder. How well you perform each rep of an exercise is more important than how many reps you perform. Cheating might allow you to do more repetitions, but that is because it makes the exercise easier which is the opposite of what you want. Instead, continue to contract the target muscles as hard as possible without loosening your form.

Safety Bar Squat

Even if the weight stops moving you benefit from continuing to contract and fatigue the target muscles for a few more seconds (up to 10 if you are a beginner, but be more cautious and limit it to 5 if you have been training for six months or more). You my believe you have achieved momentary muscle failure, but if you continue to contract as hard as possible you might surprise yourself and find you are able to continue positive movement, even if just barely.

Let your muscles decide, not your mind

You don’t get to decide when the exercise is over, your muscles do. Regardless of how much your muscles burn, your heart pounds, or how winded you feel, continue to give your best effort until positive movement in strict form becomes impossible. Not unpleasant or uncomfortable; physically impossible. As long as you don’t feel any sharp pain or pain in your joints indicating injury, or become faint, dizzy, or nauseated (or if begin to lose your grip when pulling), continue to contract the target muscles against the resistance and move slowly and strictly until you could not do so even if someone put a gun to your head and threatened your life.

If you perform your exercises in this manner, and you use a level of resistance that allows you to achieve momentary muscle failure within around 60-90 seconds (although some will do better with a little shorter or longer time under load) you only need to perform one set of only one or two exercises per muscle group. Contrary to popular but misinformed opinion you do not need to perform a three or more sets of half a dozen or more exercises for each muscle group or work any muscle group more than twice weekly.

Weighted Chin Up

As an example, below are the two workouts I am currently alternating between which have been producing very good results. I perform the same eight exercises at the start of each, but alternate between different forearm and grip sequences at the end of the A workout and different abdominal and neck sequences at the end of the B workout.

I perform only one set to momentary muscle failure of each exercise, either dynamically using a weight that allows me to complete between two and four SuperSlow repetitions (10 seconds up, 10 seconds down, plus a few seconds for turnarounds and holds depending on the exercise), or statically using Timed Static Contraction (TSC) protocol. I rest only long enough between exercises to avoid becoming light-headed, winded, or nauseated, and am able to complete these workouts in under thirty minutes, for less than one hour of total weekly training time.

I’m doing all the above with free weights, bodyweight and statics, but here are the same workouts if I did them on machines. Of course, you can mix and match depending on the equipment available to you. Keep in mind any workout like this is only a starting point. Just because it works well for me does not mean it will work the same for you or anyone else. You must make adjustments based on your capabilities and how your body responds to exercise.

If you want to give these workouts a try and need help adapting them to your capabilities and available equipment and adjusting them based on your body’s response to exercise, I am available for consultations and online training and also explain this in numerous posts and videos in my private forum for HIT List members.

I explain why the repetition count or time under load (TUL) of an exercise should be considered a measurement rather than a goal, and why the popular advice to always attempt to exceed your previous rep count or TUL or weight when performing an exercise is wrong.

Article by Ken Hutchins, used here with his permission.

My title, admittedly, is not as distinctive as might be required to accurately represent my wish for usage of technically accurate terms when discussing exercise. For instance, what does elevated mean—to you or to me? It does, however, somewhat underscore our challenge to tighten up our terms.

As Drew Baye, Josh Trentine, Gus Diamantopoulos, and I are constantly working to express ourselves in uncharted areas of exercise, we share editing among ourselves to sharpen the accuracy when expressing information. And as a result, there is a newly devised glossary of terms—many of which are not found in my other writings—imbedded within Transitioning from TSC to Feedback Statics freely downloadable from my website at seriousexercise.com.

And as I mention uncharted areas of exercise, I see another needed distinction. Uncharted areas are often new ways to perform an exercise or explanations of totally new exercises. However, the uncharted part—with us—is almost always NOT about explaining a new exercise, but about the finer details required for already existing exercises. And this often requires uncharted areas of language.

 Hopefully, these uncharted areas of language are not newly invented words or expressions. They are already existing terms used in the sciences for which the exercise arena is a late adopter. As a matter of fact, creating unwarranted novel terms for exercise merely creates more confusion—exactly what we are striving to reduce.

My favorite unwarranted novel term among exercise buffs is core. As I have written and stated elsewhere, our bodies have a core, but it has nothing to do with exercise because at the core of our trunks is merely involuntary muscle if any muscle at all. Recently, Mark Sisson—a guy with a biology degree—advises in his article about squatting to “… keep the core tight.” Why not just say to “… keep the abdominals tight?”

Core doesn’t help Mark’s conveyance. And a reader might key into abdominals better since core is a nebulous notion. Most people relate to abdominals and don’t know that the novel notion of core might represent almost the entire torso or trunk, both more worthy and equally adequate as well as being inveterate anatomical terms. Why do we need core, except to sound posh, to go along and get along, and to ensure that we confuse listeners and readers?

If I instruct, “tighten your core,” then—by the so-called core usage—I say to tighten all the muscles enveloping your lower trunk*. I believe that this would include more than just the abdominals as the so-called core is intended to include more than just the anterior part of the lower trunk. However, the abdominals are the only part of the lower trunk over which one has any real deliberate control. So why not just say abdominals?

Midsection is often confused with—more than just anterior trunk—lower trunk.

See how confusing the traditional terms can be if not rigidly thought out and expressed? We would do this for a geometry problem. Why not for anatomy as applied to exercise?

With the issues of midsection and lower trunk (or torso) and abdominals, how can we hope to improve our dialog with the addition of core to the mix?]

And if you can make progress with these explanations you may get—as I did yesterday—the retort that, “But Ken, you’re over thinking this for the listener. We can only get our message through if we use language into which they are already keyed.”

My friend was responding to my criticism that he has a membership in the Resistance Exercise Conference and that resistance is not a distinctive term as resistance is in everything, including the activities that they call nonresistance exercise. Resistance—albeit nonmeaningful for exercise—is even encountered in a weightless environment due to the tonus of the muscles and even at death once rigor mortise sets in.

Beyond my plea for accurate language for just the sake of accuracy—that many readers have observed in my books wherein I share the chapter on Language Sophistication—my friend fails to see emerging problems using the inexact language listeners already know. For instance, where will he be when others leap ahead of his unsophisticated lingo and he sounds uninformed?

Also, in any large audience—while most will relate to and excuse or never notice the inexact language—a few will notice the inexactitude and conclude that he has not really thought deeply about the subject.

And what about the value of raising the bar? A real leader is one who pushes the unlearned to be learned somewhat like we push the weak to be strong. Addressed in a way that promotes benefit for the audience, this will be widely accepted.

There have been times in my life that, at first, I rejected improved  explanations and enhanced verbiage. Hopefully, I kept my recoil to myself long enough to apply the Arthur Jones’ principle that to learn, I must listen to those I strongly disagree with.

As much of technological progress accompanies or is led by improved linguistics and academics continue to pollute thought about exercise on one end of the spectrum while those like my friend advocate dumbing it down on the other end of the spectrum, then how do we improve the field?

An organization in any field that does not allow—yet more, encourage—elevated discourse is promoting inbred ignorance.

I am starting a new video series where I review, discuss, and answer your questions about a new chapter every week from Arthur Jones’ Nautilus Training Principles Bulletins 1, 2, and 3, considered by many to be the “bibles” of high intensity training. I will be talking about what Arthur Jones got right, what he got wrong, some of the things he changed his mind about, and how you can apply the information to your workouts to get even better results, more safely and efficiently.

Click here to join The HIT List community now for access to to the rest of this video series and hundreds more of the best videos on high intensity training.

The following article is copyrighted by Ken Hutchins and used here with his permission.

Breathe!

This one-word imperative statement is the entire command to almost any exercise subject regarding breathing. With the one exception to keep the teeth lightly occluded to somewhat immobilize the tongue in some neck exercises, nothing else is needed to be said and to know… or at least this it how it should be.

Novice exercise subjects arrive to their first sessions with overwhelming head trash regarding many concepts. A prevalent one is that a special scheme to breathing is required for exercise. These errant notions are instilled in them by fitness gurus, physical therapists, occupational therapists, respiratory therapists, yoga instructors, walking programs, life coaches, sports coaches and many other persons and entities promoting their trifling of exercise expertise.

Before SuperSlow^® exercise, ostensibly authoritative rules were decreed throughout the fitness industry at large about proper breathing during dynamic exercise. These rules still prevail:

Exhale when lifting and inhale when lowering.

With the coordinated breathing scheme, the subject must move in what we of SuperSlow persuasion deem fast to achieve the lower end of the respiration rate range—12-20 cycles for a normal, healthy human at rest—and move very fast to achieve the upper end. And this is for someone NOT exercising.

And once his respiration rate elevates to an appropriate rate for exertion—40-60 cycles—the movement is damn fast… explosively fast… ! Of course, these speeds are stupidly dangerous and malpractice for any instructor to recommend.

Coordinated breathing became more idiotic as SuperSlow exercise emerged and allowed for only two or three cycles of excursion per minute. Foolish instructors discovered that elevated heart rates and pulse required more than the typical adult respiration rate of 12-20 cycles. Note that the lower end of this range is 12. Three cycles doesn’t cut it unless hypoxia is the objective.

Then SuperSlow largely moved on to static exercise (SuperStatics^SM). With statics—as there is no longer any raising and lowering—the breathing nuts could no longer espouse their silly coordinated breathing scheme, but they had another equally inane scheme in the wings already being used for activities such as walking since, in these activities, no obvious lifting and lowering was performed. This scheme dictates that the subject breathe in through the nose and exhale through the mouth.

When I, Ken Hutchins, was instructed to do this by my physical therapist as I walked with her in the hospital hallway, I stopped and asked, “Why breathe this way? I hear many therapists recommend this. What’s the reasoning?”

She then admitted that it was just the way she was taught and that she really did not know other than that it was to safeguard against Valsalva.

After returning to my hospital room, I asked her to explain Valsalva. She made an honorable but inadequate attempt. I then explained it to her, which made her realize that she was poorly informed.

Then I explained that if Valsalva was a safety concern—which it is not for the arterial side of the circulatory system—then whether I breathe through my nose or my mouth or through a tracheotomy, etc. is not a factor. Just don’t close off the airway and put abdominal backpressure behind it.

By the way, teeth gritting, gripping the hands, and face grimacing do raise arterial blood pressure and may serve cause for concern.

As I did have a central venous catheter (CVC) for hemodialysis installed and may have recently had it removed, Valsalva was, according to Doug McGuff, MD, a safety concern for me. Any fresh puncture on the venous side can raise this concern.

I begged my PT to hear my scathing reactions to the breathing scheme without taking them personally:

I can barely stand and walk. To walk alongside you, I must negotiate the hallway with a walker while employing your assistance to manage my IV pole. I must maintain heightened focus to balance and to not take too large steps. I must not talk, and I must look straight ahead and not make eye contact with you or anyone else. I must be resolute to not greet people who kindly acknowledge me in the hallway. I am distracted that my gown will barely cover me and remain tied and on me. My life depends on staying in control, and I greatly fear falling. I am greatly challenged to estimate and walk a distance that barely enables me to return to my room.

And on top of all this you want me to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth?

 Are you serious? Are you trying to defocus me? Are you trying to confuse and disorient me? Are you trying to make me fall? Are you trying to get me hurt?

What is the point? There has to be a point to this and you can’t explain it to me because there isn’t one.

Breathing schemes are just one of a seemingly infinite number of wildly incorrect notions disseminated by supposed exercise experts, including medical professionals.

Copyright © 2021 Ken Hutchins, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

When I started working out over three decades ago I believed, as many still do, that there is a load and repetition continuum that determines the adaptations to strength training; that heavy loads and short sets are better for strength, moderate loads and set durations are better for hypertrophy, and lighter loads and longer sets are better for local muscular endurance. Later, I learned from Ken Hutchins and Arthur Jones that this is not the case, that these are related and tended to improve together, although it might not seem that way since the exact relationship between them varies between individuals.

About five years ago, a study came out that confirmed that as long as you train intensely enough—perform exercises to momentary muscle failure—the load and repetition range or time under load (TUL) doesn’t make much difference for improving muscular strength and size:

Morton, R. W., Oikawa, S. Y., Wavell, C. G., Mazara, N., McGlory, C., Quadrilatero, J., Baechler, B. L., Baker, S. K., & Phillips, S. M. (2016). Neither load nor systemic hormones determine resistance training-mediated hypertrophy or strength gains in resistance-trained young men. Journal of Applied Physiology, 121(1), 129–138. https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.00154.2016

Over the past few years, several other studies have confirmed this, with one caveat: although a broad range of loads and repetitions or set durations can be equally effective for increasing both muscular strength and size, if you want to be able to lift as much weight as possible in a specific exercise you must practice performing that exercise with very heavy loads. This has, of course, lead to some confusion since one-rep max attempts are often used to test strength (isolated, static testing should be performed instead to minimize the influence of skill).

Schoenfeld, B. J., Grgic, J., Van Every, D. W., & Plotkin, D. L. (2021). Loading recommendations for muscle strength, hypertrophy, and local endurance: A re-examination of the repetition continuum. Sports, 9(2), 32. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports9020032

Grgic, J. (2020). The effects of low-load vs. High-load resistance training on muscle fiber hypertrophy: A meta-analysis. Journal of Human Kinetics, 74, 51–58.  https://doi.org/10.2478/hukin-2020-0013

While all of this seems to suggest there is no best load or rep range/TUL for strength or hypertrophy (as opposed to optimizing performance of competitive lifts), it is important to consider these are not the only things we desire from exercise. We also want to stimulate improvements in cardiovascular and metabolic efficiency and minimize the risk of acute and overuse injuries. Both of these goals are better achieved with more moderate loads and longer TUL (but not necessarily higher reps, since TUL can also be increased by performing reps more slowly).

Longer, more fatiguing sets have a greater effect on metabolic and cardiovascular efficiency. Using lower loads result in less compression and distraction of joints and makes it easier to maintain correct positioning and the correct path and range of motion. So, although a broad range of loads and repetitions or set durations can be equally effective for stimulating increases in both muscular strength and size, for overall strength and conditioning and long term joint health it is best to use more moderate loads and longer TUL.

In addition to saving time by eliminating the need for separate steady state or sprint interval training for cardiovascular and metabolic conditioning, when performed properly with slow movement (or even statics) and minimal acceleration during the turnarounds, strength training is easier on the joints and spine and has a lower risk of musculoskeletal injuries. Due to greater venous return resulting in higher stroke volume and cardiac perfusion (as long as Val Salva’s maneuver is avoided) high intensity strength training is also safer for the heart than traditional endurance activities.

Since you don’t need to perform exercises with a very heavy weight to maximize muscular strength and size gains you also don’t need long rests between exercises. You can save even more time and create even greater cardiovascular demand by limiting your rest between exercises. I recommend resting at least long enough between exercises so you do not become light headed, dizzy, or nauseated, but not so long your heart rate and breathing return to normal. As your conditioning improves you will find you need less rest between exercises (and you can track this by recording the start and end time and duration of your workouts).

As for load and TUL, while some people may find they prefer or do better with a little shorter or longer times, a good starting point for most is to use a load that allows you to achieve momentary muscle failure between 60 and 90 seconds using very strict form. This allows for around 6 to 10 repetitions at a moderately slow cadence (completing the positive and negative phases in around 4 to 5 seconds and with smooth turnarounds), or 3 to 5 SuperSlow repetitions (completing the positive and negative phases in around 8 to 12 seconds).

I just launched a new video series on YouTube called Fit in Five. In these short videos I give you tips on how to get better results from your workouts, more efficiently and safely, and will occasionally answer questions from readers and viewers.

Here is the first Fit in Five video, where I discuss the biggest exercise form mistake:

Click the link below for the full Fit in Five video playlist, and if you want me to make more videos like these please like, subscribe, and share. To request a topic or ask a question for a future Fit in Five video, post it in the comments here or e-mail me.

Click here to go to the Fit in Five playlist on YouTube