weights #2386
The Weights Mailing List
Bowflex?
by <Fett...@aol.com>
Re: Bulgarian method
by Thomas Incledon <hps...@mediaone.net>
CORE STABILITY?
by <Mcs...@aol.com>
Re: Dumbells or Barbells?
by Chris Linder <chris...@home.com>
Re: mega-rexia
by Enzo S Torino <enzo....@bms.com>
Re: Music
by Enzo S Torino <enzo....@bms.com>
Re: ONE VS MANY SETS
by Eric Burkhardt <embu...@uci.edu>
Re: ONE VS MANY SETS
by Sherbahadur Khurshid <sku...@pop.bennington.edu>
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Subject: Bowflex?
From: Fett...@aol.com
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 19:21:50 -0700
hello people...
...my name is rob. i am just getting back to starting a
weight program after a back injury, and an arm injury.
i was not injured due to lifting or exercise...
...i was watching television this morning and saw another
bowflex commercial. this time i didn't turn the channel.
i was trying to determine whether or not this is a good
system for home use. does anyone out there have any
advice for me... ...?...
- how much does the thing cost?
- do you continue to use it, or does it gather dust while
you go to the gym?
- how does the company treat you _after_ you've sent
them your dough... ...?...
thanks for any assistance,
- rob ::)
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Subject: Re: Bulgarian method
From: "Thomas Incledon" <hps...@mediaone.net>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 19:23:28 -0700
>Tom, when you cut back to 2 - 3 X/wk, did your gains continue
> for to make steady progress for a long time? It would be nice to only
have
> to train 2 - 3 days/wk, but there is no question in my mind that 4 - 6
> training days/wk will stimulate better progress (assuming that appropriate
> rest and nutrition is in place to facilitate recovery).
Eric:
Using traditional OL routines (6 times times per week with multiple
sessions) I hit a 220 kg total (about 100 snatch and 120 C&J) and was stuck
at this for somewhere around 3-4 years. Once I cut back on the number of
days to 2-3 per week, my total increased to 287.5 - 290 kgs over a 1.5 -2
year period. I competed in my last OL meet in 1998 as I was moving from
NY/PA to FL. I eventually plan on hitting another met. I think some of the
ideas Charles Staley gave me recently will help me to improve my total even
further.
You mention a key qualifier above: "assuming that appropriate rest and
nutrition is in place to facilitate recovery."
>From working with a number of athletes my feeling is that rest and
nutrition are not appropriate for the majority and many succeed despite
themselves, not because of knowing what to do.
> Tom...
>
> I relay this personal account to put things into perspective. It is
> possible to train like the Bulgarians, but the real question is, Is it
> necessary? I think a short 2-3 week cycle may be OK at some point.
> Training all the time like that is ridiculous.
>
> My response....
>
> Maybe 6 sessions/day, 6 days/week is ridiculous, especially for most
> people, but 1, maybe 2 sessions/day, 4 - 6 days/week is reasonable for
> most. I think a quick survey of the top O. lifters would reveal that none
> of them train only 2 - 3 days/week.
The same survey, if it included questions on injuries, aches and pains,
plateaus, etc. would also find they are much higher. Without having the
benefit of training at the Olympic Training Center or working directly with
coaches, I made far more progress than most of their nationally ranked
athletes during the 2 year period above (based upon competition results.
>From my observations, most of these guys had good totals and then only
improved slightly). If training 4-6 days/week was vastly superior, than the
majority of athletes should have made better progress, especially
considering that they were training together, had coaching, and restorative
techniques available to them, and at least some that I know of had chemical
assistance. This makes me think that we should forget about cookie cutter
type training routines and actually pay attention to the athletes we are
training (or in my case what our performance indicates). If one is keeping
a half-way decent training journal, then over time it will become fairly
evident if 4-6 days per week is OK or not. In my mind the number of days,
sets, reps etc is not as important as the progress one makes. Too often
people get caught up with all these other variables and lose sight of what
they were trying to achieve.
My last training cycle was about 4 days per week. I was toying with the
idea of switching to 2-3 days per week. With my current knee rehab, it
will be a while before I am up to my previous performance levels. I have
noticed though that my upper body has gotten stronger in some pressing
movements, after a 20 day break from any weight training. I am not sure why
I would be stronger now other than perhaps there were a lot more benefits
to lifting stones, kegs, logs, etc than I realized.
By the way, on a different thread. I have some ideas for doing some
tentative studies via the web. I would like to start comparing different
diet and exercise programs to see if one is better than the other. I am
trying to arrange for free supplements as incentives to participate. If
all goes according to plan, it should be a really cool way to compare
different training programs as well.
later,
Tom
Thomas Incledon, MS, RD, LD, LN, CSCS, NSCA-CPT
Adjunct Professor of Kinesiology and Nutrition
Math, Science, and Technology
Nova Southeastern University
and
Research Scientist
Department of Physiology and Biophysics
Department of Exercise and Sport Science
University of Miami
Mailing address:
619 NW 90th Terrace
Plantation, FL 33324
954-577-0689
hps...@mediaone.net
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: CORE STABILITY?
From: Mcs...@aol.com
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 22:24:10 -0700
Today, in the fitness and therapeutic world, one of the latest buzz terms
is "core stability" and courses are cropping up everywhere to teach this
amazing new discovery in the world of motor control. The implications are
that an athlete or normal human is somehow seriously deficient if core
stability exercises are not being done in some or other discrete, isolated
fashion.
The belief here, of course, is that isolated core stabilising exercises
necessarily improve balance and postural control. They do not, since most
stabilisation and movement in sports where the hands and feet are in
contact with a surface also depends very strongly on PERIPHERAL contact
with the given surface (some exceptions are diving, airborne gymnastic and
skating manoeuvres, and trampolining.) If this contact is inefficient or
unstable, then no amount of core stabilisation is going to overcome any
deficiency in peripheral stability.
Some simple examples - imagine what would happen to a gymnast or trapeze
artist with poor ankle strength and stability or a huge weightlifter with
great core stability but deficiencies in grip or ankle strength and
stability? One could list a thousand similar examples.
This concept of a separate motor quality called "core stability" leads to
the very faulty belief that core stability is more important and more
central to overall stability than peripheral stability. The fact is that
the body is a linked system of many interacting components, and current
"core stabilisation" dogma happens to be yet another example of
isolationist training. To borrow a somewhat clichéd term from the
vocabulary of the late South African Prime Minister, General Jan Smuts (who
coined the word "holism"), it would be far better to talk about "holistic"
stability training. An emphasis on "core stability" is a step towards
general instability, unless it is matched by peripheral stabilisation.
Once upon a time we had kinaesthetic or proprioceptive training or even
motor skill training - now we have "core stability" training, which is by
no means an suitable modern substitute for what used to be offered.
Possibly it is time for the whole "core stabilisation" industry needs to
carefully re-examine itself and take a step back to its more solid older
roots. "Core stabilisation" may be a new term, but it offers little or
nothing new to fitness, therapy or sports training that was not covered
perfectly well a long time ago.
Dr Mel C Siff
Denver, USA
mcs...@aol.com
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Subject: Re: Dumbells or Barbells?
From: Chris Linder <chris...@home.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 22:24:31 -0700
It is all a matter of personal preference. Having said that, I find that
using a straight bar for curls irritates my elbows and wrists. An EZ curl
bar is curved to reduce the stress on you wirsts and elbows, so I prefer it
over a straight bar. It's a toss up between and EZ curl bar and dumbells
for me.
Hope this helps
Chris Linder
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Subject: Re: mega-rexia
From: Enzo S Torino <enzo....@bms.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 22:26:03 -0700
I train to look damn good. I want my kids to view me as being big and
strong, physically, menatlly and spiritually. I don't think I'm bigorexic,
but I am a bit obsessed with my training. I will not, no matter what skip
a planned workout. My eating habits have been great the last 2 years
(since I started training), but in the last 5 months, I don't even allow
myself a cheat day and have no desire in eating anything that will hinder
my progress. I may be f*ing nuts, BUT, I feel great and have not crossed
the line in where some people that were described in that Bigorexia article
have.
So, IMHO, the media is right on for the majority of the people in the gym.
If I ask other members at my gym, I'm guessing that most will say they are
there so that they can imporve their physical appearance (women included).
I also don't think that theres anything wrong with that.
Just my .02 cents
~E
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Subject: Re: Music
From: Enzo S Torino <enzo....@bms.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 22:26:25 -0700
Loren Chiu wrote:
> After training (eg. driving home/to work): Relaxing music. I found this
> helps, if for nothing else to reduce the aggression I have after training,
> which tends to show up in my driving habits (can you say road rage?).
> Again, country music does the trick for me here.
I wrote:
Adrea Boccelli : Con Te Partiro :o) Brings down the BP! or...Barney the
Dinosaur if the rugrats are in the car.....strangely enough ...this also
brings down the BP... ;o)
~E
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Subject: Re: ONE VS MANY SETS
From: "Eric Burkhardt" <embu...@uci.edu>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 22:36:22 -0700
Joseph Brown wrote...
Mel has basically continued a falsehood that demeans the discussion. Ralph
Carpinelli has done a review of research examining this controversy, and
there is a lot more than just one single study...suggesting that one set
work produces results indistinguishable from three or more sets. A couple
of websites have articles of his (with references, which for me are
the most important part of an article)...<www.cbass.com/newevide.htm> and
<www.mikementzer.com/moreisbet.html>.
Me...
C'mon Joseph. Have you ever trained for maximum strength? Anyone who
believes any of this crap about a single-set creating an equal adaptive
response to that of multiple-set training need look no further than what
competitive lifters are doing.
Joseph Brown....
Also, in the large and very useful book MAXIMIZE YOUR TRAINING (ed. by
Matt Brzycki),
Me....
Sure you don't mean useless book:)?
Joseph...
Carpinelli has an article (again with extensive references)
in which he reviews scores of studies which tested multi-set schemes
against single-set schemes. The overwhelming finding is that one set work
produces results not significantly different from multi-set work. And not
all studies use novices. Some use trained experienced strength athletes.
Me....
Some of his studies used "trained experienced strength athletes"? Hmmm,
let's see if we could get any competitive weightlifters to cut their let
training back to one set of squats per workout. Seeing as how you find
Bryzycki's book so useful, you're probably also under the impression that
squatting more than 2X/wk is overtraining.....Soooo, now we're down to two
sets of squats per week. Hmmm, let's try that with some competitive olympic
style lifters and see how long they can maintain their leg strength.
Joseph....
I understand that there is going to be continuing disagreement, but what I
can't be happy about is misleading comments.
Me....
You seem to be pretty happy about Bryzycki's book and it's loaded with
misleading comments. For example, does he have any comments in there about
how dangerous explosive lifting is??!!
Joseph...
There have been a large
number of studies done now and the results are pretty consistent. And for
those who want to read about Carpinelli's review in a peer-reviewed
journal, see Carpinelli and Otto in Sports Medicine 26(2): 73-84, 1998,
"Strength Training: Single vs. Multiple Sets".
Me...
Maybe I'll pick that one up at the library when I need good laugh.
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Subject: Re: ONE VS MANY SETS
From: "Sherbahadur Khurshid" <sku...@pop.bennington.edu>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 22:38:35 -0700
Hi Tom,
>although you could argue that
>the whole system would get the same hormonal effects and any differences
>are due to mechanical/local effects
That's exactly what I was thinking (you're the only
person who replied that seems to have thought of that
- I posted this question to other lists and everyone
who replied kept arguing about the role of hormonal effects in
such an experiment).
>I have though about doing a study
>similar to what you describe while using hormone blocking agents. This
>would certainly minimize the effects of T and GH.
>I also thought about
>using twins for a single set vs multiset training study, where training and
>other factors are controlled for. One control often overlooked with
>training studies is a standard diet.
I would love to hear of any results of such an experiment.
Here's my thoughts: If the experiment such as the one I was
thinking about was performed, then
1) if the "multiple set half" did better, could one safely
conclude that multiple sets were superior (since one couldn't
argue that the reason the "one set half" did worse was
due to overtraining - the reason could only be undertraining
that area)?
2) if the "one set half" did better, could one safely conclude
that one set was superior (since one couldn't
argue that the reason the "multiple set half" did worse was
due to undertraining - the reason could only be overtraining)?
3) if both types of training generated equal results I realize
it would be a bit inconclusive but it would
still mean that you could cut time spent in the gym (since
you could peform single sets for one half of the body).
Let me know what you think.
Thanks :-)
-Sher
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