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The Four Steps of Meaningful Progression in The Field of Physical Training

0 comments By admin Filed in Strength Training Tagged with , , April 5th, 2010 @ 7:00 pm

The four steps of meaningful progression in the field of physical training have been (1) calisthenics, (2) gymnastics, (3) weight training, and (4) Nautilus training. In the field of transportation there have been four similar steps, (1) walking, (2) animal-powered transport, (3) internally-powered transport, and (4) aerial transport.

Each step in the field of transportation provided a marked increase in the speed of transportation at first, and eventually a reduction in the cost of transport; in the field of physical training, the various steps have each provided a a way to gain muscle fast, and simultaneously a reduction in the required amount of training (in effect, the “cost”).

Both the increases in the production of results and the decreases in the “cost” (the amount of exercise necessary) were provided by the same factor in all cases – each step produced a marked increase in the possible “intensity of effort”; gymnastics are harder than calisthenics -weight-training is harder than gymnastics (or, at least, it can be and shnbe, and will be if it is properly employed) – and Nautilus training is harder than conventional weight-training, to a degree that literally must be experienced to be understood.

All of this is so obvious that it seems almost needless to even say it -yet, in fact, it must not be obvious to many current weight-trainees, since they train in a fashion that clearly indicates that they are not even aware of the real facts of the matter.

From the very start of the investigations that finally produced the Nautilus methods and systems of training we were clearly aware of “what was needed” – HARDER EXERCISE; the problems have all been concerned with how to provide such harder exercise. I have long been aware that (in physiology, at least), ” . . . the sum of the parts is not always equal to the sum of the parts.”

In order to have an elephant, you must have an elephant’s head, an elephant’s body, four elephant legs, and a number of other parts – but you can have all of the required parts and still not have an elephant. In order to kill an elephant quickly with a .600 Nitro-Express rifle you must hit him in the brain, with a 900 grain bullet delivering an impact force of about 8,000 foot pounds – but you can shoot an elephant ten-thousand times with a .22 rifle delivering a total of both grains of bullet weight and foot-pounds of impact force many times as great as the totals from the .600 and still not kill him, and certainly not quickly, if at all.

In exercise, we find a similar situation – many light movements do not always equal one heavy movement.

In calisthenics you are primarily working against the resistance provided by only a small part of your own body weight – in gymnastics you are working against the resistance of all, or most, of your body weight – in weight-training you are (or should be, where possible) working against resistance far in excess of your body weight – and the only really “break” in this chain of progression from easy exercise to harder exercise to yet-harder exercise comes with the step up to Nautilus training, which provides “harder” exercise in an entirely different manner from that involved in the moves between previous steps; with Nautilus training, you will certainly work against greater resistance, but it isn’t simply a matter of increasing the poundage involved – instead it means that you will be using almost literally all of the mass of the muscles you are trying to work, rather than only a small part of the total mass of the muscles.

Until, and unless, you have experienced Nautilus training, you simply don’t know what “hard training” really is; but since the average person is too lazy to even do calisthenics, and most people are too lazy to do gymnastics, and even almost all weight-trainees are too lazy to use a barbell in an actually “hard” fashion, I do not expect very many people to quickly accept and practice a form of training that makes them all seem like child’s play by comparison – but a few people will, and the results they produce will eventually (and sooner than you might think) produce an entirely new breed of strength athletes.

You can slice it as thin as you can, or pile it as high as you like – but you still end up with cheese; if you started with cheese. You can kid yourself any way you like – but you can’t change facts; hard exercise -and ONLY HARD EXERCISE – will build muscle fast. If you are not willing to work hard, then forget it – there simply isn’t any other way to do it.

Steroids – the so-called “growth drugs”

0 comments By admin Filed in Personal Tagged with , March 30th, 2010 @ 3:27 am

A few years ago, bodybuilders on the west coast were beating-up hippies -today, many thousands of bodybuilders have adopted the hippie style of life, drugs and all. Steroids – the so-called “growth drugs” – have become an almost universal fact of life in the weight-training world; and stupid as such utilization of these dangerous drugs may be, it is at least understandable. But drugs are no longer restricted to the steroid category – at a recent lifting meet, one of the heavyweight lifters was so stoned he literally didn’t know where he was or what he was doing.

There is no rational excuse for the use of nay kind of drugs by healthy individuals – but since it is apparently not in the realm of possibility for me to say anything that might influence people already involved in such practices, I will limit my remarks to a simple statement of the facts as they exist.

Large numbers of young men are attracted to the field of weight training every year – and under the circumstances, it is inevitable that many of them will be influenced by common attitudes and habits that will literally destroy no small numbers of them; in the present state of affairs, the parents of young men attracted to weight training would be well advised to do everything possible to channel this interest into another direction -and if that is not possible, then extreme care should be used in selecting a training environment. If possible, training should be restricted to the home; and for the benefit of those readers who may assume that this is an attempt on my part to sell more equipment, I will add that absolutely nothing in the way of special equipment is required. Very good results can be quickly produced by the use of a barbell, a chinning bar, a pair of parallel bars, and a squat rack – none of which items are manufactured or sold by myself.

The above is not meant to imply that there are literally no decent commercial training environments – there are many; but they do not exist in proportion to the need.

To the young trainee still in doubt on the subject of drugs, I can only say that the use of drugs WILL NOT help you to build muscle fast – regardless of what you may hear or read to the contrary; during the last few months alone, we have observed several cases of very serious effects from the use of drugs by bodybuilders – and no slightest sign of any worthwhile results from their use.

Written by Arthur Jones.

The Incredible Benefits of Weight Training

0 comments By admin Filed in Personal Tagged with , , March 30th, 2010 @ 3:18 am

Are the benefits of weight-training worth the price? If the price is that paid by many – perhaps most – currently-active trainees, then the answer can only be negative; for a physically-normal individual, the possible benefits of weight-training are simply not worth the price of fanaticism -if a man must become a slave to his training, then it simply isn’t justified on any rational basis.

For a physically-subnormal individual, the situation may be entirely different – sometimes almost any amount of training is not only justified but is an actual requirement for anything approaching a normal existence. But in normal situations – in most situations – the value of the possible results must be carefully compared to the price. And if the price really is that which it is assumed to be by most advanced bodybuilders, then the possible results are grossly overpriced. Fortunately, the opinions of advanced bodybuilders can seldom be considered gospel – personally, I have finally reached a point where I am highly suspicious of anything that such people believe; the very fact that something is being supported by advanced bodybuilders is enough, to me, to raise strong doubts on the subject -after thirty years of interest and no small amount of involvement in the field, I have yet to meet a bodybuilder that understood the basic physics involved in barbell training. Somewhat like lemmings – and with very similar final results – they all seem to be rushing blindly in the same direction, simply because everybody else is doing the same thing.

In my carefully considered opinion, most currently-active advanced bodybuilders will never accept an actually-rational method or style of training – primarily, I think, because many of them are too stupid to understand the real factors involved, and too biased to accept them even if they can understand them; which is a far more pitiful commentary on the state of affairs than it might appear to be at first glance – because the actually-important factors that must be understood for the most practical utilization of weight training ( for any purpose) are really very simple, perhaps too simple.

Sour grapes hopefully intended to explain a lack of acceptance of my ideas or my machines? Some people will think so – but opinions don’t change facts; and as a matter of fact, we have been simply swamped by orders for our machines since long before they even went into production on a commercial basis – and with very few exceptions, the people who bought the machines from us at first on a sight-unseen basis have promptly ordered more machines. So, since we have literally ad more business than we could handle up to this point, and since the flow of orders is constantly increasing, it would seem that both my ideas and my machines have achieved at least a reasonable amount of acceptance – in many cases, even if somewhat to my surprise, from advanced bodybuilders.

The simple fact of the matter is that rationally-practiced progressive weight-training is capable of producing results in the way of increases in strength and muscular size that cannot be duplicated by

ny amount of any other type of presently-existing training; strength for any purpose – for a normal life, for sports, for improved health and-or appearance.

And it is equally true that you can build muscle fast with less than four hours of weekly training – very quickly produced; and for individuals with more reasonable goals, and hour and a half of weekly training will produce results within a period of a few months that must be personally experienced to be appreciated.

Weight-training certainly is not the answer to all health problems – but it just as certainly is the answer to a long list of physical problems, many of which can be solved in no other practical manner; and where strength is a factor, it is the only rational choice.

Most people have no desire to be either as big or as strong as Casey Viator – but regardless of your personal goals, it is only common sense to use the most productive method available; and the system of employing the best method is of great importance as well – but the most likely-looking source of information on that score is in fact the poorest possible source of any meaningful information. The simple truth is that advanced bodybuilders in general have no slightest idea what they are doing – or even why they are doing it.

So far without single exception, the advanced bodybuilders that I have trained or closely associated with seem to be unable to progress beyond a certain point if left up to their own devices – and actually good results are to be produced, they must be constantly supervised in their training; if not, they quickly start backsliding. Under the circumstances, I can reach only one logical conclusion; regardless of their statements, the either do not understand or will not accept the validity of the actually important points – and when permitted to supervise their own training, they quickly fall back into habits of overtraining insofar as amount of training is concerned, and under-training in intensity of effort.

For the average person, however, no such drive or self-discipline is required; you can gain muscle fast from a very small amount of the proper type of training.

The Truth Of the Matter

0 comments By admin Filed in Strength Training Tagged with , March 23rd, 2010 @ 10:27 pm

The truth of the matter is that almost every single point of required information on the subject of weight-training is contained in the preceding five brief chapters; now I must make at least some attempt to justify those points – and take a stab in the direction of trying to explain such things as the required “form” (or style of performance) of the most important exercises.

The average trainee would be well advised to keep it clearly in mind that it really doesn’t matter “why” certain exercises work – so long as it is understood that they do work, and so long as the proper form is understood; unfortunately for their own interests, most experienced trainees are unwilling to accept simple statements of fact – and if they cannot at least convince themselves that they do understand the reasons that exercises build muscle fast (or fail to), the tendency is to reject these exercises in favor of others that they feel they do understand. Which attitude is understandable – perhaps even unavoidably natural – but nevertheless unfortunate.

Unfortunate because such an attitude prevents many people from making good use of things that simply can’t be satisfactorily explained. I am reasonably certain that such thinking limits all of us to a greater or lesser degrees, and I certainly do not wish to imply that my own thinking is not so limited – on the contrary, I am quite sure that it is; however, in my own case, I have at least been well aware of this factor for many years, and have tried to be on guard against its possible adverse effects. Twenty years ago, I was handling poisonous snakes in large numbers – literally by the tens-of-thousands – and I eventually developed a style of handling them which appeared (to other people) to border on outright insanity; this method was based on a clear awareness (on my part) that I could literally “read a snake’s mind.” In effect, I knew what a snake was going to do – well in advance of the action; but while I was absolutely certain of the accuracy of this knowledge, I had no slightest idea of “how” I knew it. I could not even explain this ability to myself, let alone to the satisfaction of somebody else.

Now – twenty years and approximately half a million snakes later – I do understand this ability, and I can clearly; explain it to almost anybody; I say “almost” anybody with good cause – because some people are so afraid of snakes that they are literally incapable of rational thought on the subject of snakes. And it is of no small concern to any would-be weight trainee to be aware of the fact that many bodybuilders have a very similar attitude on the subject of exercise and-or diet; having been brainwashed for years, such people are no longer capable of rational thought in this field.

Getting back to the mention of snakes for a moment -because the example is the only one I can think of to parallel a very similar situation in the field of exercise; for a period of at least several years, I was making good practical use of observations of fact – but these observations were entirely on the subconscious level. Snakes clearly “telegraph their punches” – in a manner that is unavoidably obvious, once it has been called to your attention; a rattlesnake does so with its tongue, a chicken snake with its upper lip, a boa constrictor with its neck – and once you know what to look for, almost anybody can handle any of these types of snakes with literally no danger of being bitten. Handle them with their bare hands, I mean.

I can easily demonstrate the validity of these observations to anybody that isn’t simply terrified of snakes – but I made good practical use of this knowledge long before I was even aware that I possessed it; I simply “knew” that a particular snake would not bite me – and if the snake changed its intentions, I was instantly aware of the fact, far enough in advance of any action on the snake’s part to avoid being bitten.

In a similar vein, but in the field of weight-training, I have long been aware of certain things without clearly understanding “how” I was aware of them – I knew that most barbell exercises weren’t quite “right” when I first started using barbells, but it took me over twenty years to explain these shortcomings even to my own satisfaction; and some of the things that were obvious to me as much as thirty years ago have become clear to me only during the last year or two.

It is my firmly-held personal opinion that most bodybuilders keep changing their training schedules primarily because of similar feelings of doubt -apparently they “sense that something is wrong” but can’t quite put their finger on the problem; so they keep altering their schedules in an attempt to find exercises, or an order of exercises, that “feels right to them.”

Eventually; I realized that most of these problems arise from the simple fact that the situation has been approached from the wrong direction – from a direction exactly opposite to that which is really required; many people – including myself – devoted years to attempts to accommodate the available tools. Rather than trying to devise exercises that were suitable for the muscles involved, practically all of the attention was devoted to attempts to “satisfy” a barbell.

Now – and make no slightest mistake about this point; a barbell is an extremely productive tool for the purpose of building strength and muscular size – a far more productive tool than even most bodybuilders realize. But its advantages must be clearly understood – and its shortcomings must be allowed for.

The barbell is almost literally “the perfect tool” for many purposes – but it is useless for some other purposes; some barbell exercises are extremely productive – some others are an outright waste of time and effort. Several dozen people have been after me for a period of at least two years in concentrated efforts to get me to design and build a Calf Machine – but I have simply refused to do so; because no such machine is required – a block of wood to stand on, a heavy dumbbell, and something to hold on to and you are in business, so why do you need a complicated calf machine that cannot do the job any better?

My only real concern is attempting to improve the production of results from weight-training – and in that direction, if new tools are required, then I am prepared to design and build anything that may be an actual requirement, or even a tool that will merely improve the degree of possible results or make worthwhile contributions to better rates-of-progress; but I am not prepared to waste my time in efforts to design or build machines that are not required. At the moment, there is a pile of junked research machines stacked up behind my prototype shop that is literally s big as a house, but every single one of those machines was an effort in the direction of providing an actually-required tool; none of our machines duplicate – or even imitate – barbell exercises. Instead they provide exercise movements that are literally impossible with a barbell – they make it possible for you to actually do what you have been trying to do with a barbell.

But in many cases you actually can do what you are trying to do with a barbell – and in such cases, no other tool is required; and many other cases, you can come so close to doing what you are trying to do that no other tool is justified – in effect, any degree of improvement provided by an improved tool would not be justified on the grounds of expense (or other considerations).

Written by Arthur Jones.

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