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Saturday Sharing MeMe: #7

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Saturday Sharing

Today I’d like to share with you my 5 questions about intensity from your perspective. Your job is to answer the questions in the comments or on your own blog that relate to the topic this week. If you decide to put the list on your own blog, be sure to leave a comment with a link to your blog. Please note that permission is NOT granted top copy the question to a forum or message board for the purpose of having the readers participate in the answering of the topic.

 

 

Topic for Saturday, June 22, 2013: Fat loss techniques.

  1. What is your favorite intensity technique?
  2. How important do you think intensity is?
  3. Without intensity you will not gain muscle: true or false?
  4. Reducing the rest time will increase intensity: true or false?
  5. Going to failure will increase intensity: true or false?

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Why Not Fail?

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failure

It is a discussion that has gone on for decades–train to failure or not? There are good arguments on both sides but I have to ask “Why not fail?” Yes, I am a proponent of taking sets to failure. Should it be every set? Maybe. However, I know that some amount of sets taken to failure is necessary to build muscle. I can tell you this from my own personal experience. I don't care what magazine articles say, what books say or what anyone tells you because I have lived it.

What Happens When You Fail?

As I am sure you are aware, muscle growth occurs when muscle fibers are torn and forced to rebuild themselves. Going to failure insures that the muscle fibers are sufficiently damages to force the body to make them grow. You also tip the metabolic scale when you push things that hard. Intensity can be had in many different ways. Failure is just one of those many ways. However, it is quite an effective way. I would not recommend taking many sets to failure, but I do think it has its place. 

What Is Failure?

Failure is often misunderstood. Most people will stop far short of failure unless they truly get what failure is. I've seen it when training clients. I can clearly see they have more in them, but they stop short. They think they are fooling me, but I know better. Failure is when you cannot move the weight any longer with correct form. When you reach that point you can say you truly failed on your set and walk away a happy trainer. Anything less than that is not failure at all.

This is a seemingly lost art. Apparently intensity isn't something people really strive for today. In a recent article I discussed the origin of intensity in bodybuilding. I talked about how we can get that back. It is something you definitely should read.

My Rant

[pro-player type='video']http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dKFss6cYOk[/pro-player]

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The Best Vegetables for Bodybuilding

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Brocoli

Bodybuilders put there body through tremendous stress. In order to continue to push themselves hard they need proper nutrition at all times. Vegetables are very important for that process to take place.

Categories of Vegetables

Vegetables are divided into five categories. The categories are dark green leafy vegetables, orange vegetables, dry beans and peas, starchy vegetables, and other vegetables. These categories are important to consider when choosing your vegetables.

Benefits of Vegetables

Vegetables are rich in vitamins and minerals. Vegetables are powerful because they are low in calories, they are high in fiber and they are packed with vitamins and pigments.

Vegetables enhance your overall health. They help support a strong immune system. Unfortunately many of the vitamins and minerals in vegetables are water soluble so you have to eat them many times a day.

Vegetables are rich in antioxidants which help slow the aging process. Vegetables also help repair free radical damage and damaged DNA.

Eating vegetables improves cardiovascular health as well as mental health. Veggies are also known to help reduce fat. Additionally the improve muscle building. They provide the correct vitamins and minerals that even a vitamin pill cannot provide.

What are the Best Vegetables for Bodybuilding?

It is best to stick to green vegetables when you are bodybuilding. At the top of the list is spinach as it is high in iron. You can also eat broccoli, collard greens, leafy lettuce, kale, and watercress. Really, any green leafy vegetable should be at the top of the list.

For great snacking get into cucumber and celery. They are low calorie and help keep you filled up from the fibrous content they have. 

Starchy vegetables are next on the list. Eating potato and corn can also help with muscle building. Don't forget these vegetables when planning your meals. Eat them in moderation, but definitely eat them.

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Is Intensity Lost?

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training_intensityIt is my own feeling that in order to get big you have to train with intensity. There is just something about hitting the training as hard as you can that spurs on growth. Arnold Schwarzenegger once said “Work like hell!” He was talking about training intensity.

The Gym in Schwarzenegger's Day

Back in Arnold's day intensity was a necessity in order to build mass. It was a way of life for every bodybuilder trying to gain muscle mass. Intensity was pretty much the theme at Gold's Gym in that day. You could walk into the gym and observe workouts that had extreme intensity involved. The sheer brutality of those workouts is immortalized in the movie Pumping Iron  What happened to this attitude?

The Gym of Today

When you walk into the gym today you hear a lot of people talk about intensity but not show it. They are intensely dressed, have intense haircuts, but just don't have any intensity in their training. At the same time they wonder why their physiques are not changing. They have no idea that they are not training intensely. 

Joe Weider Was the Teacher

I already mentioned that Arnold Schwarzenegger was pretty much responsible for ushering intensity onto the bodybuilding scene but who taught him this concept? Joe Weider not only brought Arnold to the United States, he was the one who taught Arnold about bodybuilding principles. Using Joe's principles Arnold sowed that full blown training intensity would break the mold. Arnold would push himself beyond the pain barrier and sacrifice himself to get the intensity necessary to build his body.

Other Proponents of Intense Training

Arnold is not the only proponent of intense training. Mike Mentzer was a proponent of High Intensity Training, a principle brought to light by Arthur Jones, the inventor of the Nautilus line of equipment. Mentzer modified that principle slightly, but he trained with massive intensity all the time. Tom Platz and Dorian Yates also come to mind as proud warriors who pushed themselves beyond the pain barrier to achieve better physiques. This brings us to the modern day warriors.

Ronnie Coleman trained with massive intensity. Any search of YouTube for his training videos reveals this to you. Ronnie was once asked why it was so hard for others to gain the physique he seemed to attain with ease he responded “Nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weights!” Ronnie Coleman achieved things not many could do. He was 5'11” and carried 275 lbs. of muscle. He had an extremely wide physique. Not many could come close to him which is why he won 8 Mr. Olympia contests.

How to Regain Intensity

I think we need to look back at the history of bodybuilding and realize that those who have been the most successful have always used immense intensity in their training. We should push ourselves to the limit. If there is a saying I would stick with it would be “Go beyond” meaning go past that pain and discomfort you feel. You will reap the benefits of this attitude many times over.

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Mighty Cast: A Podcast Review

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mighty_cast_logo

Today I am reviewing The Mighty Cast, a podcast featuring Chris Young, Nicholas Ritchey and Physio X.  Specifically I am reviewing Episode 65 Push It Real Good, a question of intensity.

The Hosts

I found it difficult to listen to the hosts because their “chemistry” seemed rather forced. In addition the chatter between them was annoying at the start of the podcast itself.

The Content

They started out the discussion by defining intensity as a percentage of the max effort. Of course, because it is an English podcast the weights are discussed in kilograms. They define high intensity as anything greater than 90% workload. I have an issue with this definition of intensity because to me intensity can be taking a set to failure. You don't have to do 90% of your max in order to call it an intense workout. The definition seems far too specific to me.

While these guys seem basically knowledgeable about lifting, they have their own biases. Like the definition of intensity itself, they seem to want to put things into a nice formula each time and that just doesn't work. If forumulas got you better muscles everyone would have them. What angered me was they spoke about “instinctive training” and made a lot of fun of it. They even went so far as to make a joke that “instinctive training” involves sitting on your couch drinking beer. As you all should know from reading my blog I believe in instinctive training and have defined it in a much different manner.

I personally prefer the approach of someone like Layne Norton. He is not afraid to call bullshit when necessary and he has a scientific approach.

My Recommendation

I would say that if you want to learn from a different perspective this is a podcast to put into rotation, but I would not put it i the “must listen to” category at all.  Listen when you have time and skip it when you don't. It isn't that great.

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