Question:

Hey Drew,

I’m really looking forward to your new book. I read a few comments from people who advise against HIT and I hope you could respond to them. I’m hoping your book will respond to similar questions and comments as well. Here they are:

Noted exercise scientist Paul Ward warns that training to failure results in ischemic reperfusion, or oxygen deprivation, followed by oxygen perfusion. This results in massive free-radical damage to DNA and cell membranes.

International Sports Sciences Association co-founder Dr. Sal Arria cautions that many soft tissue injuries occur when failure terminates a repetition in mid-stroke. “When the weight on the bar exceeds the muscle’s ability to lift it, something has to give and usually, it’s the musculotendinous junction.

Louie Simmons, well known coach to many elite-level power lifters finds that taking sets to failure “has an ill-effect on the central nervous system,” which delays recovery. Simmons is noted for producing scores of high-ranked lifters with relatively low-intensity training.

I know you’ve seen these comments in the past. Could you be kind enough to give a response to these comments?

Answer:

Regarding training to failure and ischemic reperfusion, consider that concentric failure is simply the point in an exercise where fatigue has reduced the strength of the muscles involved to the point where they are no longer capable of shortening against the selected resistance. If a slightly lower resistance was selected and the exercise was stopped just short of failure, the same degree fatigue and associated physiological effects including ischemic reperfusion could have been achieved without failure. There is nothing about training to failure in particular that would make this more or less likely. If anything, overtraining is far more of a problem where free-radical damage is concerned than intensity of training.  If someone is worried about free radical damage they would do better to focus on limiting volume of exercise rather than intensity.

The same goes for the effects on the CNS. The negative effects on the CNS are not due to training to failure, but rather overtraining. The microtrauma caused by training leads to an inflammatory response. If the body is not allowed adequate recovery time between workouts, chronic inflammation results, and cytokines involved in inflammation start to act on the CNS causing the various symptoms associated with overtraining. These cytokines can also affect the hypothalamus, causing increased cortisol levels. I suspect the myth about training to failure and CNS “burnout” resulted from attempts at increasing the intensity of exercise without the necessary reduction in volume.

There is no increased risk of injury when muscular failure occurs during mid stroke. This is complete nonsense. Fatigue reduced the amount of force the muscle can contract with, but has little affect on the amount of strain it can withstand.  A weight you can lift in good form for several repetitions is not heavy enough to tear the involved muscles, whether fresh or fatigued.

Also, muscles are capable of producing more force during static contractions than concentric because slower a muscle shortens the more force it is capable of producing (static is as slow as you can go), and the muscles are stronger in the mid-range position. Both of these have to do with cross-bridges; slower movements allow more cross-bridges to be formed than faster movements (force/velocity curve) and there is more optimal overlap of myofibrils in the mid-range of the exercise also allowing for more cross-bridging. So even if you’ve fatigued the muscles enough to prevent further positive movement, you are more than strong enough to hold the weight as well as to lower it under control.

Over the past 15 years I have put hundreds of people through tens of thousands of high intensity training workouts, and with a few exceptions (initial “break-in” period, working with certain physical problems, etc.) all of them trained to muscular failure on a consistent basis. Not once have any of them been injured or suffered “CNS” burnout as a result of training to muscular failure, and I’m confident whatever free-radical damage they may have incurred as a result of training is far less than what a more conventional, higher-volume routine would have caused, and much of that would be offset by diet if they’re eating enough antioxidant rich vegetables and fruits.

Question:

I have been reading about HIT and it seems great, because I can fit it in to an hour or so in my schedule. I have questions though:

1) I play a bit of Soccer and Basketball. Not seriously, but I enjoy them and would hate to miss out on them. Would it be a bad idea to play on rest days between workouts?

2) Would the lack of cardio affect my endurance in these sports adversely?

Thanks in advance.

Answer:

If you enjoy playing soccer and basketball you should structure your workouts around them, not the other way around. Exercise should contribute to the enjoyment of other activities in your life, not replace them. If you find that you do not recover as quickly between workouts due to the additional activity, then add extra recovery days between workouts.

High intensity strength training produces greater metabolic and cardiovascular benefits than traditional cardio, more safely and more efficiently, so as long as you’re still doing your strength training workouts you won’t be missing anything. Although the metabolic and cardiovascular benefits of HIT are of a more general nature, if you’re playing soccer and basketball regularly you will get all the specific conditioning you require from those.

The following article was originally published on Cyberpump.com in 1998.

Recently I’ve been receiving a lot of e-mail and phone calls from people with questions regarding their workouts. Often, people are surprised at the brevity of the routines I recommend, and ask, “why so few exercises?” To which I respond, why do any more? Why perform any more exercise than the minimal amount necessary to stimulate growth in all the major muscle groups?

It is unnecessary, and even counterproductive to do any more exercise than is minimally required to stimulate growth in all of the major muscular structures. More exercise than this will not stimulate more growth, but it will use up more energy and metabolic resources, which leaves your body with less to recover from and produce the muscular growth stimulated by the workout. While I do not believe that it is possible to exercise too intensely, or that the majority of people train anywhere near as intensely as they are truly capable of, I know for a fact that it is very easy to perform too much exercise and believe that the majority of people would benefit from a reduction in the volume of their training.

It is unnecessary to perform dozens of exercises during a workout, addressing every possible function of every single muscle group. Instead, one should perform a few basic movements that address all of the major muscular structures, and try to avoid overlapping exercises. With a few exceptions, such as rehabilitation and subjects with certain physical conditions or limitations, a workout consisting of a few basic compound exercises and exercises for the neck and calves will provide all of the exercise a person requires. Not only will briefer workouts waste less of one’s recovery energy, they also encourage more intense training, since a person is less inclined to hold anything back during an exercise like they tend to do when they know they’ve got another 6 or 7 exercises to go.

As examples, I present the following very brief, basic routines, with a list of the primary muscles addressed by each exercise.

Basic, Full-Body Routine:

1. Neck Extension: all of the muscles which extend the neck, too numerous to list
2. Neck Flexion: all of the muscles that flex the neck, specifically the sternocleidomastoid
3. Calf Raise: gastrocnemius, soleus
4. Stiff Legged Deadlift: hamstrings, glutes, lumbar extensors, lats, rhomboids, trapezius, posterior and medial deltoids, wrist flexors
5. Squats or Leg Press: glutes, hamstrings, quadriceps
6. Front Grip Pull Down or Chin-Ups: lats, teres major, posterior deltoids, rhomboids, inferiorly oriented fibers of trapezius, biceps, wrist flexors and abs
7. Chest Press or Dips: chest, serratus anterior, anterior deltoids, triceps, coracobrachialis

If for any reason any of the above exercises are not an option, I recommend the following substitutions:

For Stiff Legged Deadlift – Lower Back Machine and Shrugs: hamstrings, glutes, lumbar extensors (Lower Back), trapezius and wrist flexors (Shrugs)

For Front Grip Pull Down – Compound Row Machine or Bent-over Barbell Rows: lats, teres major, posterior deltoids, rhomboids, trapezius, biceps, and wrist flexors

This routine covers all of the major muscular structures in the body, and should take less than 20 minutes to complete if no rest is allowed between exercises. For someone who is either more advanced and training at a higher level of intensity or has a lower tolerance to intense physical stress and requires an even lower volume of exercise, it may be necessary to divide the exercises up over two routines, such as the following split:

Workout 1:

1. Neck Extension
2. Neck Flexion
3. Stiff Legged Deadlift
4. Chest Press or Dips

Workout 2:

1. Squats or Leg Press
2. Front-Grip Pull Down
3. Calf Raise

There are some people who perform even less exercise than this per workout. I know of one person who performs only ONE exercise per workout, and trains only once every 10 to 14 days. His total workout time for a year is less than the amount of time some people spend in the gym in one week. He’s making phenomenal progress though.

Keep in mind that which and how many exercises any particular person uses in their routine will depend on their individual physical condition and the equipment available to them. All I can recommend is that you keep your workouts brief, and stick to the basics. If you are training intensely enough, not only will you not need to perform dozens of exercises, you will actually experience better results if you don’t. As Arthur Jones once said, “…instead of trying to find how much exercise we can tolerate, we should try to find out how little exercise we actually require.”

Current Thoughts – January 2009

I would recommend beginners starting out with more exercises, then gradually cutting back as the weights used and training intensity increased to avoid overtraining.  While everybody is going to have different requirements based on individual physical condition, goals, and response to exercise, the following would be an example of a possible progression from beginner, to intermediate, to advanced trainee, and is similar to how I would start and progress a typical client:

Sample Beginner Full-Body Workout (Free Weight):

1. Barbell Squat
2. Chin-Up
3. Dip or Barbell Bench Press
4. Barbell Row
5. Barbell Press
6. Stiff-Legged Deadlift
7. Weighted Crunch
8. One-Legged Calf Raise with Dumbbell

Sample Beginner Full-Body Workout (Machine):

1. Leg Press
2. Pulldown
3. Chest Press
4. Compound Row
5. Shoulder Press
6. Back Extension
7. Trunk Flexion
8. Calf Raise

When progress starts to slow down, these could be divided into two, alternating routines, either full-body or split. The number of compound (multi-joint) exercises in each routine would be reduced to three: one for the hips and thighs, one upper body pushing, one upper body pulling, and isolation exercises might be added in depending on the specific goals or needs of the trainee.

Sample Intermediate Full-Body A,B Routine (Free Weight):

Full-Body Workout A:

1. Barbell Squat
2. Chin-Up
3. Barbell Press
4. Dumbbell Pullover
5. Dumbbell Chest Fly
6. Weighted Crunch

Full-Body Workout B:

1. Deadlift or Stiff-Legged Deadlift with either a Barbell or a Shrug Bar
2. Dip or Bench Press
3. Barbell or Dumbbell Row (I recommend a supported dumbbell row if back fatigue from the deadlift limits the weight that can be handled with strict form in a barbell row)
4. Barbell or Dumbbell Tricep Extension
5. Barbell Curl
6. One-Legged Calf Raise with Dumbbell

Sample Intermediate Full-Body A,B Routine (Machine):

Full-Body Workout A:

1. Leg Press
2. Pulldown
3. Shoulder Press
4. Pullover
5. Chest Fly
6. Trunk Flexion
7. Calf Raise

Full-Body Workout B:

1. Leg Curl
2. Leg Extension
3. Chest Press
4. Compound Row
5. Tricep Extension
6. Arm Curl
7. Back Extension

Sample Intermediate Split Routine (Free Weight):

Upper Body:

1. Chin-Up or Barbell Row (alternate)
2. Dip or Bench Press or Barbell Press (alternate)
3. Dumbbell Pullover
4. Dumbbell Chest Fly
5. Barbell or Dumbbell Tricep Extension
6. Barbell Curl

Lower Body and Trunk:

1. Barbell Squat
2. Stiff-Legged Deadlift with either a Barbell or a Shrug Bar
3. Weighted Crunch
4. One-Legged Calf Raise with Dumbbell

Sample Intermediate Split Routine (Machine):

Upper Body:

1. Pulldown or Compound Row (alternate)
2. Chest Press or Shoulder Press (alternate)
3. Pullover
4. Chest Fly
5. Tricep Extension
6. Arm Curl

Lower Body and Trunk:

1. Leg Curl
2. Leg Extension
3. Leg Press
4. Back Extension
5. Trunk Flexion
6. Calf Raise

Keep in mind the above are just examples. The specific number and selection of exercises will vary from person to person. For more advanced trainees working at a much higher level of intensity, these routines can either be further reduced or divided. This can be done be done several ways, depending on how the trainee is progressing on the different exercises:

• dropping the isolation exercises
• reducing the number of compound exercises or dividing them between more routines
• splitting the routines into upper and lower body, or upper body pushing, upper body pulling, and lower body, etc.

In most cases, direct adbominal work should be one of the first things dropped. While the current trend is to make a big deal out of “core” training, if you are squatting, deadlifting, pressing, chinning, etc. with heavy weights, your abs are already getting plenty of work. Whether you drop or substitute isolation exercises for compound exercises or divide them between more routines depends on your specific goals and progress on those exercises. Don’t be afraid to cut back if your progress is starting to slow down, though. The biggest mistakes people make with their training are doing too much, too often. While there are other factors involved, often when progress starts to slow down it is an indication that either workout volume or frequency needs to be cut back to allow the body to fully recover from and adapt to the training stimulus.

Eventually, some trainees may progress to what Mike Mentzer referred to as a “consolidation routine”, like those in the original article above, consisting of only two or three exercises. While this may sound incredibly short, especially to those used to reading about the ridiculous high-volume programs recommended by many mainstream bodybuilding magazines and web sites, many people have had very good results on such programs.

As another example, I am currently rotating between the following two workouts, performed roughly once every 5 days:

Workout A:

1. Barbell Squat
2. Weighted Chin-Ups
3. Barbell Press
4. Barbell Wrist Curl
5. Barbell Wrist Extension

Workout B:

1. Shrug Bar Deadlift
2. Weighted Parallel Bar Dips
3. One-Armed Dumbbell Rows
4. One-Legged Calf Raise w/ Dumbbell

I occasionally add direct arm work to these, including barbell curls or dumbbell hammer curls, and either barbell or dumbbell tricep extensions. Once I finish refurbishing my 2nd gen Nautilus 4-Way Neck machine I will be adding neck extension and flexion back to the start of workout B.

My upcoming book on high intensity training includes an entire chapter on routines, covering exercise selection, number, order, and other factors in more detail.

If you buy only one book on exercise this year, I recommend Doug McGuff, MD and John Little’s Body by Science. If you buy only two books, I recommend getting a second copy of it because you’re going to want to share it with friends, and if you’re a trainer you’re going to want to keep one at work to show clients.

Body by Science explains the how and why of high intensity training, balancing enough scientific background to convey key principles and concepts without overwhelming the lay reader, and practical in-the-gym how-to. It is well organized, well researched, and well written, and an enjoyable and informative read. Every one of its eleven chapters contains a wealth of information, clearly explained with the assistance of numerous graphs and diagrams.

The chapters include:

1. Defining Health, Fitness, and Exercise
2. Global Metabolic Conditioning
3. The Dose-Response Relationship of Exercise
4. The Big-Five Workout
5. The Benefits of the Big-Five Workout
6. Enhancing the Body’s Response to Exercise
7. Tweaking the Exercise Stimulus
8. The Genetic Factor
9. The Science of Fat Loss
10. The Ideal Training Programs for Athletes
11. The Ideal Training Program for Seniors

The book thoroughly and conclusively debunks the belief that aerobics or “cardio” is necessary for cardiovascular fitness or fat loss, and provides scientific explanations for why high intensity strength training is the most effective way to accomplish both of these. For those of you still harboring doubts about this, Body by Science will put them to rest. McGuff and Little also explain why high intensity strength training is the safest and most effective exercise protocol for improving:

• resting metabolic rate
• glucose metabolism
• insulin sensitivity
• body composition
• cholesterol levels
• blood pressure
• bone mineral density
• symptoms of arthritis
• lower-back pain
• and enhancing flexibility

All of this is backed up by properly performed studies published in reputable, peer-reviewed scientific journals, comprising nearly 30 pages of references contained at the end of the book.

Body by Science goes into great detail on the dose-response relationship of exercise and proves just how little high intensity exercise is actually required for best results – far less than many people believe – also backed up by scientific research and the results of a combined 30 years of supervising and tracking the progress of thousands of trainees through tens of thousands of workouts.

While the book is not heavy on routines – and once you’ll read it you’ll understand why it doesn’t need to be – it offers a solid starting point along with recommendations for variations using different equipment and for more advanced trainees.

Body by Science also explains the numerous genetic factors determining individual muscular potential and response to exercise, and how this information can be used to fine tune your workouts to get the best results possible. The chapter on genetics also contains an interesting discussion of epigenetics, how high intensity strength training influences the expression of your genes.

Chapter 9, The Science of Fat Loss, destroys numerous myths while explaining how training, diet and other factors combined to produce discriminated fat loss. It further debunks the popular misconception that aerobics or “cardio” are effective or even necessary for fat loss.

Chapters 10 and 11 address the training requirements of athletes and seniors and how the concepts and principles explained in the book should be adapted for those populations, including specific routines for football, hockey, baseball and golf. Chapter 10, The Ideal Training Programs for Athletes, also addresses numerous popular misconceptions about skill training, conditioning, stretching, warming up, and cross-training. Chapter 11, The Ideal Training Programs for Seniors, explains the numerous benefits high intensity strength training has for seniors, including how strength training reverses the effects of aging on the expression of numerous genes.

All in all, Body by Science is one of the best HIT books I’ve read in a long time, and I highly recommend it.

Over the past couple of weeks there have been a few attempts to comment spam some of the articles on this site with links to a web site claiming you can lose “30 pounds in 30 days without diet or exercise” by taking products they sell. Of course, this is complete and utter bullshit.

For starters, the math does not add up. Assuming the claim refers to fat loss, and not loss of water or other tissues, this is impossible. A pound of fat contains 3,500 calories of energy.To lose a pound of fat one would have to expend 3,500 more calories per day than they consume. Many people do not even burn this many calories per day. No supplement is going to cause you to burn this many more calories per day, which would require more than a doubling of metabolic rate for many people, something that would probably also result in enough of an increase in body temperature to kill you.

There is a limit to the rate at which energy can be obtained from fat stores, the average being about 30 calories per day per pound of fat. A person would have to have over 116 pounds of body fat to begin with to lose a pound of it per day, assuming they were able to create a 3,500 calorie deficit. This is highly unlikely.

No supplement is going to cause you to lose a pound of fat per day, or even half that. Even getting injections of a powerful fat-loss hormone like leptin that would cost upwards of $1,000 per day would not produce those kind of results.

Also, there is no proof that Acai berry, the main ingredient in one of the supplements recommended, would have any beneficial effect on fat loss. There is no other benefit to Acai berry supplements over simply eating more fresh fruit – do not waste your money on them.

The other product they recommend, one of the many “cleansing” supplements, would also have no effect on fat loss, and provide no health benefits for someone who already consumes an adequate amount of fiber daily.

The claim that an Acai berry and “cleansing” supplement would cause a person to lose 30 pounds of fat in 30 days without diet or exercise is complete and utter bullshit. Competitive bodybuilders using steroids and other drugs don’t lose fat that quickly with exercise and diet when preparing for competitions.

The more I read this web site, the more it pisses me off. It starts out,

“It seems that I tried every diet and exercise program out there, but nothing seemed to work.”

I hear this a lot. Usually when a person says they “tried” something but it didn’t work, they either didn’t commit to doing it correctly or consistently for a long enough period of time. She goes on,

“But then I discovered something that helped me lose 30 pounds in 30 days. I lost pounds and kept them off, and you can too! I started this blog because I wanted to share my weight loss story.”

Bullshit. First, she certainly did not lose 30 pounds of fat in 30 days, as I explained above, and if she lost any weight at all it was not without at least some change in diet, as the products she credits do not do what she claims. Second, she did not start the blog to share her bullshit weight loss story, she started it to sell bullshit supplements. The bullshit gets even deeper,

“I’m a busy mom of three, and I don’t have TIME to count calories…”

A 4 oz grilled chicken breast is about 190 calories, about 8 spears of asparagus is about 25, and a small orange is about 45.

It took me 2 minutes and 17 seconds to go to a web site, look up the information, and type the above sentence. It might take only a little longer to look it up in a book and write it down in a notebook. Anybody who says they don’t have time to count calories is full of shit or incredibly lazy, and probably both. What’s ironic is, she’s probably one of those people who’d rather spend 15 minutes driving around looking or waiting for a parking spot than just park in the first open spot and walk for only 5.

There are also numerous nutrition tracking web sites and apps which make counting calories and macro and micronutrients fast and easy. It takes a few minutes to sign up and only a few minutes a day to track food intake – less time than it takes to find a good parking spot at the grocery store on Sunday afternoon if you’re too lazy to walk across the parking lot.

“… or go to the gym every day.”

It isn’t necessary to go to the gym every day to lose fat. The absolute most any of my clients work out is 3 times a week, for no more than 30 minutes per workout, which has been very effective for fat loss. Most of my clients train only twice weekly, and some only once weekly. As long as they train hard and consistently and eat properly they lose fat. Many of them work full time and have children, and some of them work full time while also working towards post-graduate degrees.

It isn’t even necessary to join a gym. While not ideal, an effective routine can be performed at home with little or no equipment, requiring very little space, in under 30 minutes. Nobody can legitimately say they do not have time to work out if their health is really a priority. Everybody can make time if it is really important to them.

“After trying lots of different things, I developed a diet that works and fits my busy schedule.”

Taking supplements is not the same as developing a diet.

“The products in this diet are safe, healthy, and they REALLY WORK. Want proof?”

The “proof” she gives is a before and after photo, which could have been taken years apart for all we know, or the before photo might have been taken during or right after a pregnancy. There is nothing about the photo that proves any of the claims she makes. The only thing it proves is her weight was different at the times the photos were taken, and they could have been taken in any order, anywhere from months to years apart.

What really pisses me off about this, even more than the blatant attempts at spamming my site, is that there are millions of people out there who are overweight and who need to be encouraged and taught how to change their eating habits and exercise, and then along come assholes like this making bullshit claims about being able to lose “30 pounds in 30 days without diet or exercise”, discouraging them from the things they need to focus on the most for the sake of a few bucks.

There are no pills, potions, or shortcuts. If you want to make a major change in the way your body looks or performs, it is going to require hard work, discipline, and time. If you’re willing to do what it takes, however, I guarantee you’ll find it’s worth the effort.

References:

Alpert SS. A limit on the energy transfer rate from the human fat store in hypophagia. J Theor Biol. 2005 Mar 7;233(1):1-13.

I was just going through my archived web site files looking for a photo when I came across a folder with an online journal from another site I had from 2001 to 2002. The following are a few training and diet related entries I found I think are still relevant, along with some of the photos originally posted with them.

Tuesday, February 6, 2001

I believe that it is important to perform difficult things, to endure discomfort, even pain, regularly. To test your limits, and push them. There is something very satisfying about difficult achievements or hardships persevered, and the more difficult the achievement, the greater the sense of reward.

Exercise, for example, is not productive unless it is hard. The greater your effort, the more productive the exercise, and the greater the benefits. The essence of exercise is effort. Without intense effort there is no exercise, only movement. Exercise, properly performed, is the single most painful thing I believe a person can endure without actually harming themselves in any way. Your heart pounds in your chest, your pulse races, your breathing labors to keep up with your muscles’ demand for oxygen, and those muscles burn. And that’s where the real exercise is just beginning.

When it’s over, only you know whether you really pushed to your limit. It doesn’t matter how hard everybody else might believe you were working, or not. Only you know if you went the distance, or if you gave up. Only you benefit from your effort, or lose from your lack thereof.

Wednesday, February 21, 2001

Ours is a culture that is obsessed with appearances. Right or wrong, we judge the people and things around us by the way they look. Our purchases are influenced by the visual appeal of product packaging and advertisements. Our social interactions are influenced by the appearances of those with whom we associate. Few of us leave the house in the morning or go out for the evening without first checking in the mirror.

We do this because we associate certain visual elements with the qualities we believe they represent.

The media feeds and fuels these associations.

We perpetuate them.

Everybody, every group, every thing has an “image”.

But “image” is not the same as “identity” and identity is what truly matters. Identity is the nature or qualities of a person or thing, while image is simply surface appearance. Images can be deceiving.

Physical health, for example, is a part of someone’s identity, a quality we associate with a lean, muscular appearance. An appearance we associate with the discipline and effort required to achieve and maintain it.

For those of us who posses those qualities; discipline, determination, perseverance, and apply them to our lifestyle in the form of proper exercise and balanced nutrition, the image of health is a true representation of an aspect of our identity.

For those who achieve the illusion of physical health through cosmetic surgery, liposuction, implants, etc., the image is superficial – a lie. An attempt to reverse cause and effect – to posses the product of a particular lifestyle without having to actually live it.

But once the product has been purchased and removed from the box, the most beautiful packaging and creative advertising in the world can not compensate for it’s faults.

Tuesday, March 27, 2001

Contrary to what the popular bodybuilding and fitness magazines would have people believe, productive exercise is a relatively simple thing. You don’t need sophisticated routines, dozens of exercises for every muscle group, or complicated set and repetition schemes to develop stronger, larger muscles.

What you do need to do is work extremely hard at a few basic exercises for each of the major muscle groups, gradually increase the resistance used for each exercise, allow your body adequate time to recover and adapt between workouts, eat a well balanced diet and get plenty of rest.

It’s that simple.

From Wednesday, May 23, 2001

When most women ask “Does this (item of clothing) make me look fat?”, what they really ought to be asking is whether or not the particular item of clothing sufficiently conceals how fat or helps them appear less fat than they really are.

No, babe, that skirt does not make you look fat. You are fat. The clothes have nothing to do with it. Overeating on a regular basis, drinking too much (alcohol), and/or not exercising properly is what makes you look fat.

While I’ve known numerous women who ask this question despite having incredible, very physically fit bodies, I think most realize on some level that, if you aren’t fat to begin with, nothing you can wear is going to make you look that way.

So why do some insist on blaming the clothes?

From Sunday, June 3, 2001

Recently, while training my friend Jason at the gym he works out at, I was reminded how fortunate I am to have access to a private, by-appointment-only training facility. While custom state-of-the-art equipment and 24-hour access are nice, what I appreciate the most is not having to deal with the circus atmosphere so typical of open-membership gyms.

If you work out regularly at a commercial health club, either you know what I’m talking about, or you’re one of the oblivious meat-heads or gym-sluts who’s behavior I’m referring to.

First, and most importantly, despite the fact that way too many people view going to the gym as more of a social function than a matter of physical conditioning, the function of the facility is to provide a place and equipment for people to exercise, and any behavior that interferes with that activity is out of line.

When you finish using an adjustable barbell or plateloaded machine, unload it. Leaving massive amounts of weight on a bar or machine doesn’t impress anybody, it only pisses off the women and older people who have to get help to unload it. And we know that if most of you were using proper form and performing the exercise full-range you couldn’t use half that much weight any way.

If you sweat a lot, carry a towel with you and wipe the equipment down when you finish with it. While the better gyms will have someone go through and wipe down the equipment with a mild disinfectant several times a day, the staff can’t run around cleaning up after every sweaty pig in the place. Nobody wants to lay down on a bench or sit in a machine someone just sweat all over.

The same goes for chalk. If you make a mess, clean it up.

Enough with the grunting, screaming, yelling and slamming things around. We know you do this to call attention to yourselves, and nobody is impressed. In all honesty, it makes you look like a complete idiot. If you must psyche yourself up, do so quietly and don’t disturb the people who are actually working out, rather than posturing and trying to show off. If you are impressively built, you don’t need to act like a retarded baboon to get people to notice, and if you aren’t impressively built, acting like a retarded baboon isn’t going to convince anybody otherwise. You just make yourself look like a moron.

Gym-sluts aside, there are a lot of women who actually go to the gym to work out, not to be hit on. Leave them alone and don’t interrupt them. No, they don’t want your help. No, they don’t want your advice. And no, they don’t want you to stand in front of them grunting like a constipated boar and flexing in the mirror. If they did, they would ask.

If, on the other hand, the woman in question is wearing a pound of make-up, an outfit consisting of less than a square foot of material, and an entire bottle of perfume, and spends the majority of her time looking in the mirror to check out who’s checking her out, she’s probably a gym-slut who’s only there looking to get laid any way, and is fair game.

Other than the meat-heads screaming and grunting and slamming things like idiots, and the half-undressed gym-sluts, most people do not like to be stared at while working out. Particularly women, and especially while performing exercises requiring their body to be positioned in such a manner as to prominently expose their breasts, pubic area or ass, like chest-flies, hip abduction or adduction, prone leg curls, and stiff-legged deadlifts.

If you are a gym owner, be considerate of the fact that the majority of your female members are probably very self-conscious about their bodies, and position machines which would place them in such positions so that the exposed area is facing a non-mirrored wall. Despite what some people might tell you, they don’t need mirrors to “check their form”. Most people, so-called personal trainers included, don’t know what the hell proper form is any way. The truth is, people want mirrors because they like to look at themselves, and gym owners want mirrors because it gives the facility the illusion of being much larger than it is. Some people, however, don’t want to be looked at, much less stared at while working out. Respect that.

If you’re one of those people who believe it’s necessary to perform multiple sets of an exercise, let other people work in between your sets. They’re paying the same membership dues as you, and have just as much right to the use of the equipment. On the other hand, if you want to work in between someone’s sets on a machine, ask first.

Don’t, however, ask while they’re performing an exercise.

Never, ever, ever walk up and start talking to someone while they are performing an exercise. Don’t hold a conversation right next to someone performing an exercise. Do not walk or stand directly in front of someone performing an exercise. Do not in any way, shape or form disturb, distract, or interrupt someone in the middle of an exercise. The only person who has any business talking to someone while they are performing an exercise is that person’s trainer, spotter or partner, and only for the purpose of instructing or motivation. Anything else is an absolute fucking no-no.

All in all, you just have to respect the fact that some people are actually in the gym to work out, and refrain from any type of behavior that would interfere with their ability to do so.

Get in, get it done, and get out, but don’t get in anybody’s way.

From Monday, August 13, 2001

“A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion of your walks.”

-Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785

A few years back someone posted a link in one of the high intensity training forums to an article by punk rock legend Henry Rollins in Details magazine titled The Iron. Every once in a while I re-read it, and every time I am moved by it. I believe hard physical work builds character, that both physical and mental strength are gained through adversity. In modern society most people’s daily survival requires very little substantial physical effort, and as a result most people are both physically and mentally weak. I believe proper – meaning hard – strength training can change that. And that can change a person’s life.

If you want to give someone something this holiday season – or any time of the year – that will benefit them more than anything else you could buy them in any store in the world, give them an adjustable barbell set and get them started on a hard, basic strength training program.

The Iron

by Henry Rollins

I believe that the definition of definition is reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself.

Completely.

When I was young I had no sense of myself. All I was, was a product of all the fear and humiliation I suffered. Fear of my parents. The humiliation of teachers calling me “garbage can” and telling me I’d be mowing lawns for a living. And the very real terror of my fellow students. I was threatened and beaten up for the color of my skin and my size. I was skinny and clumsy, and when others would tease me I didn’t run home crying, wondering why. I knew all too well. I was there to be antagonized. In sports I was laughed at. A spaz. I was pretty good at boxing but only because the rage that filled my every waking moment made me wild and unpredictable. I fought with some strange fury. The other boys thought I was crazy.

I hated myself all the time. As stupid at it seems now, I wanted to talk like them, dress like them, carry myself with the ease of knowing that I wasn’t going to get pounded in the hallway between classes. Years passed and I learned to keep it all inside. I only talked to a few boys in my grade. Other losers. Some of them are to this day the greatest people I have ever known. Hang out with a guy who has had his head flushed down a toilet a few times, treat him with respect, and you’ll find a faithful friend forever. But even with friends, school sucked. Teachers gave me hard time. I didn’t think much of them either.

Then came Mr. Pepperman, my advisor. He was a powerfully built Vietnam veteran, and he was scary. No one ever talked out of turn in his class.Once one kid did and Mr. P. lifted him off the ground and pinned him to the blackboard. Mr. P. could see that I was in bad shape, and one Friday in October he asked me if I had ever worked out with weights. I told him no. He told me that I was going to take some of the money that I had saved and buy a hundred-pound set of weights at Sears. As I left his office, I started to think of things I would say to him on Monday when he asked about the weights that I was not going to buy. Still, it made me feel special. My father never really got that close to caring. On Saturday I bought the weights, but I couldn’t even drag them to my mom’s car. An attendant laughed at me as he put them on a dolly.

Monday came and I was called into Mr. P.’s office after school. He said that he was going to show me how to work out. He was going to put me on a program and start hitting me in the solar plexus in the hallway when I wasn’t looking. When I could take the punch we would know that we were getting somewhere. At no time was I to look at myself in the mirror or tell anyone at school what I was doing. In the gym he showed me ten basic exercises. I paid more attention than I ever did in any of my classes. I didn’t want to blow it. I went home that night and started right in.

Weeks passed, and every once in a while Mr. P. would give me a shot and drop me in the hallway, sending my books flying. The other students didn’t know what to think. More weeks passed, and I was steadily adding new weights to the bar. I could sense the power inside my body growing. I could feel it.

Right before Christmas break I was walking to class, and from out of nowhere Mr. Pepperman appeared and gave me a shot in the chest. I laughed and kept going. He said I could look at myself now. I got home and ran to the bathroom and pulled off my shirt. I saw a body, not just the shell that housed my stomach and my heart. My biceps bulged. My chest had definition. I felt strong. It was the first time I can remember having a sense of myself. I had done something and no one could ever take it away. You couldn’t say shit to me.

It took me years to fully appreciate the value of the lessons I have learned from the Iron. I used to think that it was my adversary, that I was trying to lift that which does not want to be lifted. I was wrong. When the Iron doesn’t want to come off the mat, it’s the kindest thing it can do for you. If it flew up and went through the ceiling, it wouldn’t teach you anything. That’s the way the Iron talks to you. It tells you that the material you work with is that which you will come to resemble. That which you work against will always work against you.

It wasn’t until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I had given myself a great gift. I learned that nothing good comes without work and a certain amount of pain. When I finish a set that leaves me shaking, I know more about myself. When something gets bad, I know it can’t be as bad as that workout.

I used to fight the pain, but recently this became clear to me: pain is not my enemy; it is my call to greatness. But when dealing with the Iron, one must be careful to interpret the pain correctly. Most injuries involving the Iron come from ego. I once spent a few weeks lifting weight that my body wasn’t ready for and spent a few months not picking up anything heavier than a fork. Try to lift what you’re not prepared to and the Iron will teach you a little lesson in restraint and self-control.

I have never met a truly strong person who didn’t have self-respect. I think a lot of inwardly and outwardly directed contempt passes itself off as self-respect: the idea of raising yourself by stepping on someone’s shoulders instead of doing it yourself. When I see guys working out for cosmetic reasons, I see vanity exposing them in the worst way, as cartoon characters, billboards for imbalance and insecurity. Strength reveals itself through character. It is the difference between bouncers who get off strong-arming people and Mr.Pepperman.

Muscle mass does not always equal strength. Strength is kindness and sensitivity. Strength is understanding that your power is both physical and emotional. That it comes from the body and the mind. And the heart.

Yukio Mishima said that he could not entertain the idea of romance if he was not strong. Romance is such a strong and overwhelming passion, a weakened body cannot sustain it for long. I have some of my most romantic thoughts when I am with the Iron. Once I was in love with a woman. I thought about her the most when the pain from a workout was racing through my body.

Everything in me wanted her. So much so that sex was only a fraction of my total desire. It was the single most intense love I have ever felt, but she lived far away and I didn’t see her very often. Working out was a healthy way of dealing with the loneliness. To this day, when I work out I usually listen to ballads.

I prefer to work out alone. It enables me to concentrate on the lessons that the Iron has for me. Learning about what you’re made of is always time well spent, and I have found no better teacher. The Iron had taught me how to live. Life is capable of driving you out of your mind. The way it all comes down these days, it’s some kind of miracle if you’re not insane. People have become separated from their bodies. They are no longer whole.

I see them move from their offices to their cars and on to their suburban homes. They stress out constantly, they lose sleep, they eat badly. And they behave badly. Their egos run wild; they become motivated by that which will eventually give them a massive stroke. They need the Iron Mind.

Through the years, I have combined meditation, action, and the Iron into a single strength. I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts. Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind degenerate. I wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind.

The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it’s impossible to turn back.

The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.

Over the past 16 years I’ve trained hundreds of people one-on-one and have probably advised thousands through phone and internet discussions. Regardless of the goal, one factor that has consistently made a huge difference in results has been whether the client kept accurate records of their daily food intake, and if they were a long-distance client their workouts.

Studies using double labeled water have shown most people who are overweight significantly underestimate the amount of calories they consume, and people who are underweight tend to overestimate their calorie consumption. If you are not weighing or measuring and writing down what you are eating and drinking, you do not know how many calories or grams of different macronutrients you are consuming.

If you want to lose fat you have to consume few enough calories that your body is forced to make up the difference between expenditure and intake by taking energy from your fat stores, but not so few that energy is taken from any other tissues. You also have to consume adequate protein to maintain your lean body mass and adequate essential fatty acids despite a lower overall food intake.

If you want to gain weight/muscle mass, you have to consume enough calories and protein for your body to build new tissue, but not so much that you gain a significant amount of fat.

In either case, the only way to know if you are consuming the appropriate amounts on a daily basis is to weigh, measure and write it down. Every person I have trained who has done this consistently has gotten good results. Some of the people who did not keep track of their nutrition intake got good results any way, but most did not get the kind of results they wanted. Unfortunately, I can not follow every person I train 24 hours a day and weigh, measure and record their intake for them.

There are many diet books that claim recording calorie and/or macronutrient intake is not necessary to lose fat or maintain a lower body fat level, and they are correct. However, this requires a dramatic change in most people’s eating habits – something that can take a long time for some people to adjust to. In the meanwhile, writing it down makes it easier. Additionally, people tend to be more conscious of and thus make better choices about what they eat when they’re keeping track of it.

On a side note – most of these diet book recommend a way of eating that ultimately results in a lower calorie intake due to an emphasis on nutrient dense but low calorie foods, foods that reduce appetite, restriction or elimination of high calorie foods or some combination.

Another reason to keep track is to be able to evaluate how changes in eating affect appearance, physical and mental performance, mood, sleep and other factors and fine tune your diet. Accurate records make this process much easier.

I’ve had clients who insisted counting calories did not work for them and simply refused to keep a journal. As a result, their actual results fell far short of their potential results.

Often, when a person claims counting calories did not work for them I suspect one of the following problems:

• They were not weighing or measuring their food and drink properly.
• They were not recording everything they ate or drank.
• They did not do it long enough or consistently enough to see results.

Even if a person’s macronutrient ratio and food choices are horrible, if their average daily calorie intake is below their expenditure they will lose fat. And if their macronutrient ratio and food choices are horrible, writing them down is the first step towards being able to analyze and correct the problem.

If you’re serious about your goals, start writing it down.

Every once in a while I come across an article by some well-meaning but ignorant trainer warning people of the dangers of training to failure.

If the point of failure is defined as the moment where it is no longer possible to continue an exercise in the prescribed form, then there is nothing dangerous about training to failure. Unless there is a pre-existing injury or condition which would contraindicate performance of the exercise to begin with, risk of injury only increases when one attempts to continue an exercise beyond the point where they are capable of using proper form.

Due to the greater physical and mental demands of to-failure training, a lower volume of work is necessary. I strongly suspect many of the beliefs about problems with training to failure, such as concerns over injuries, CNS “burnout”, etc., are probably the result of people attempting to train with a high level of intensity without an appropriate reduction in training volume.

I’ve been training people using high intensity training methods for over 15 years, and the majority of my clients train to failure almost all of the time after their first few weeks. None of them have ever been injured as a result, and this includes clients with various neck and lower back problems. There is no merit to the claim that training to failure in and of itself leads to or is associated with injury, and while trainers who say so may mean well, they are mistaken.