Everything You Know About Fitness Is a Lie (2010)
mensjournal.com
mensjournal.com
And I've been doing the Reg Park 5x5 routine ever since, and for the first time in my life I love working out. Short, powerful and intense.
As Mehdi would say: Stop wasting your time with all that bullshit! Get strong!
Interested to know your thoughts on Reg Park 5x5.
But the squat should be the key exercise for everyone who is interested in strength and/or mass. It uses, directly or indirectly, about 2/3 of your total muscle mass (compared to all time favourite gym goer bicep curl, which involves a staggering 2% of your muscle mass), and was reported to be the exercise that causes the highest level of growth hormone release.
BTW, StrongLifts 5x5 employs some principles from hypertrophy-specific training programming which is why it works.
It wipes me out too.
Also, they never mention this anywhere, but do not start a weight training program if you are overweight! It's very difficult to build muscle while eating at a caloric deficit. The absolute best way to get into shape first is to lose weight with a lower calorie diet and cardio. Once you're slim, then you can start bulking if you want more muscle.
You'll hear people say things like "weight training raises your metabolism so you're burning more calories while at rest." This is largely a myth that experimental data has disproven. Men have a difficult time with this because there's a certain machismo factor when it comes to weight lifting, but please resist the urge!
A better way of saying that might be "do not start a weight training program if you are on a calorie-reduced diet".
Some will argue that you're better off converting fat into muscle via a strength program than losing weight, at least to start. That's an individual choice, though.
That's not an individual choice; it's a good indicator that the person you're talking to doesn't know what they're talking about. There is no such thing as "converting" fat into muscle. They're different cell tissues, and if the person dispensing the advice doesn't pay respect to that fact, it's unlikely their advice is worth following.
Think about it from a technology perspective. Having a more subtle understanding of a technology allows you to develop better problem solving strategies. If the depth of one's troubleshooting strategy is limited to "turn it off, then back on again", they might be able to reach a solution most of the time, but they can't help you past the point that their single-vector solution fails.
The same applies to fitness. A better understanding of the human body yields more nuanced advice, and more effective results.
Pedants might make good scientists but they're unlikely to be good instructors.
I'm very lean, not very muscular. I've never used a bench-press in my life. But I can outswim and outrun many 'buff' guys with rippling muscles, because they're utterly unfit.
As someone nowhere near the traditional definition of "fit", I can still out-swim 99% of the people I run across at the gym over short-medium distances, simply because I have technique they don't have from spending 16 years doing competitive swimming.
Stronglifts is a routine for beginners and the 5x5 three times a week soon gets too much as you start squatting heavier amounts - I had to drop to squatting once or twice a weeks once I started squatting about 1x my own body weight (about 250 lb).
Based on personal experience alone I thoroughly recommend Stronglifts and Starting Strength as a good way to obtain good general fitness and to lose weight. Squatting and dead-lifting are whole body exercises that really do work the whole of you - it's surprising how much your abs and glutes hurt after some squats.
A word of warning: you must start with light weights and work on doing each exercise properly - and I mean stupidly light to start with, start with just the bar if you are completely out of shape. If you try and start with impressive-looking heavy weights then you'll be resting up with a bad back before you know it.
The good news is that all my knee problems basically disappeared once I started doing some strength training. Hopefully it'll work for you too.
So yeah the 10 pages are right as far as I'm concerned ;)
IMO, it is probably not more difficult (or obtainable) for most than following a good dietary regime long term.
Barbell Squats 3 sets of 5
Pull-ups 3 sets of 9
Stand-to stand bridge 3 sets of 2
A static exercise on abs - 2x60s
The "secret" is that I move between exercises and sets with very little rest, I.e. do squats, then do pull ups, then back to squats - while the leg muscles get some rest, the back and arms do the work and vice versa. Of course, you need some aerobic fitness for that so you don't run out of breath. I know 2-3 hours are not unheard of, but, unless one plans to compete as a bodybuilder, diminishing returns kick in pretty fast. Even worse, one can overtrain and extra time will be very counterproductive in this case.
Of course, if you are, for example, a competitive powerlifter (I did that for a few years), you should train in a very different way - i.e. only do one exercise at a time, and have longer breaks between set etc., but if your goal is primarily health you may be way more flexible in your approach.
Another example - once a week I run home from work. It's 10 km, so takes about an hour. However, a bus takes at least 40 min, sometimes a bit more. So - I spend only 20 extra minutes, but I get a full hour of exercise! There are always ways to optimise.
It's (almost) always a question of priorities, not lack of actual physical time.
The good news is that a good Crossfit box with a coach that knows what he is doing (personalization of loads and times, periodization, teaching proper technique, etc..) can remove all the problems related to Crossfit as the HQ understands it.
Page 2: For (general)strength, don't sit at isolated-muscle machines. Page 3: Don't stick to low weights and core exercises if you're going to suddenly switch outlook and judge yourself on strength and classic squats etc. Page 4: For strength - low reps Page 5: Again use more muscles
It probably filled ten magazine pages IRL.
Note: I started working out about 7 months ago for my health regardless if it would make me more productive. I haven't noticed an increase in productivity, a better mood, or improved engery levels, but I do have a belief that I'm healthier
And yet, almost no word on that. Anyone has a follow up on how to move on from there? And where does flexibility fit in here? AFAIK, focusing only on strength will make you stiffer, and I'd rather be able to kick at head level than having a larger chest, assuming that's a XOR choice.
The TV thing also helps me maintain a schedule - xyz cop show is on? Time to bust out the weights.
I used to do the same thing, now I don't use music or anything else to help me relieve the stress of exercise.
Funny how I would use a completely opposite statement, i.e. watching tv seemed like a huge time sink to me. So I removed it. :)
A fitness trainer once said that you can have access to the best training program in the world but if you don't actually do the exercises you'll get you nowhere. On the other hand, you can be given a crappy program and if you manage to do the exercises regularly, you'll still get results.
Fitness is simple. Sure there are lots of programs out there, but the basics always stay the same. Once you got the basics down it all comes down to doing.