donheff
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Reading the recent exercise and mice thread prompted my to start a thread discussing high intensity training and high intensity interval training as compared to the more traditional 6 days a week approach outlined in Younger Next Year. I read Younger Next Year a couple of years ago (probably based on a thread here somewhere - you Al?). I loved the book and it strongly influenced my workout approach. But last week I read Body by Science, by Dr. Doug McGuff (also John Little but his contribution is a distraction). Long story short McGuff spends a couple of hundred pages demonstrating why a series of one rep each of 5 core resistance exercises practiced once a week for about 12-15 minutes is far better for you than multiple reps and multiple sessions. The data is pretty compelling - although how is a lay person like me to really judge? In any event, I decided to give the approach a try and report back here on what I see.
So, I gave the recommended workout a try this morning. OMG - this approach really kicked my butt! The key is taking the resistance excerises to total failure which is very difficult to do. At the next to last lift your body is screaming stop but you have to continue until you can't move the weight at all for 10 seconds. By that time you have depleted your strength by ~40% and (allegedly) kick off a series of metabolic responses that need several days of recovery. According to McGuff's research, repeating this with further reps has no beneficial effects and can impede effectiveness. At the end of the 5 exercises I was huffing like nobody's business. I needed to hold the railing coming down the stairs at the gym. Notwithstanding the effort I hadn't really put my body in any danger since the resistance exercises are performed slowly (10 seconds up, 10 seconds down) which uses a lighter weight than with fast movements. I plan to keep this up for the next twelve weeks and see if I double my strength per the book - I will report back
One problem I have with the book is that it seems to imply (without explicitly stating it) that additional endurance type exercises offer no or little additional benefit. I find that hard to believe. I am an avid cycler (~100 miles a week) and feel better for it. Who knows maybe I won't need it after my 12 minutes but I will keep that up just because I like biking. I also find it hard to believe that some sort of low intensity regular activity (e.g. walking) isn't an important factor in overall fitness. In any event, these things are not going to hurt and are fun so they will stay in my bag.
Another aspect of this subject I would welcome any anecdotes about is high intensity interval training (HIIT) which is similar to the high intensity resistance regime (HIT). HIIT involves short, intense sprints followed by brief slower recoveries. Here we are talking bikes, running or swimming. Like HIT, HIIT involves a short set, not a long endurance set. I plan to research this a bit and may add some stationary bike sprints to the mix if that appears to be called for. As I understand it, we are talking very brief (30 sec - 1 minute) all out sprints followed by 2 minute recovery cruising or something of that nature.
Edit: I should have added a concluding statement differentiating the two approaches. Younger Next Year's mantra is 'work out hard six days for the rest of your life." I have tried to incorporate the lessons but have to admit that I don't really live up to the "hard six days a week" aspects. Body by Science in contrast is saying "for fitness and health - work out briefly but intensely once a week, anything beyond that can be for fun and skill development."
So, I gave the recommended workout a try this morning. OMG - this approach really kicked my butt! The key is taking the resistance excerises to total failure which is very difficult to do. At the next to last lift your body is screaming stop but you have to continue until you can't move the weight at all for 10 seconds. By that time you have depleted your strength by ~40% and (allegedly) kick off a series of metabolic responses that need several days of recovery. According to McGuff's research, repeating this with further reps has no beneficial effects and can impede effectiveness. At the end of the 5 exercises I was huffing like nobody's business. I needed to hold the railing coming down the stairs at the gym. Notwithstanding the effort I hadn't really put my body in any danger since the resistance exercises are performed slowly (10 seconds up, 10 seconds down) which uses a lighter weight than with fast movements. I plan to keep this up for the next twelve weeks and see if I double my strength per the book - I will report back
One problem I have with the book is that it seems to imply (without explicitly stating it) that additional endurance type exercises offer no or little additional benefit. I find that hard to believe. I am an avid cycler (~100 miles a week) and feel better for it. Who knows maybe I won't need it after my 12 minutes but I will keep that up just because I like biking. I also find it hard to believe that some sort of low intensity regular activity (e.g. walking) isn't an important factor in overall fitness. In any event, these things are not going to hurt and are fun so they will stay in my bag.
Another aspect of this subject I would welcome any anecdotes about is high intensity interval training (HIIT) which is similar to the high intensity resistance regime (HIT). HIIT involves short, intense sprints followed by brief slower recoveries. Here we are talking bikes, running or swimming. Like HIT, HIIT involves a short set, not a long endurance set. I plan to research this a bit and may add some stationary bike sprints to the mix if that appears to be called for. As I understand it, we are talking very brief (30 sec - 1 minute) all out sprints followed by 2 minute recovery cruising or something of that nature.
Edit: I should have added a concluding statement differentiating the two approaches. Younger Next Year's mantra is 'work out hard six days for the rest of your life." I have tried to incorporate the lessons but have to admit that I don't really live up to the "hard six days a week" aspects. Body by Science in contrast is saying "for fitness and health - work out briefly but intensely once a week, anything beyond that can be for fun and skill development."