Fitness Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm.....

At the risk of dating myself with a late 80's/early 90's reference and the risk of copywrite infringement from either Arsenio Hall (he did the bit "Things that make you go hmmmm." on his awesome talk show) or C and C Music Factory (they had an awesome hit song of the same title) I just had to use this reference because there are so many things in the world of fitness, conditioning, strength training and health that really just make you go hmmmmmm. We looked at BMI in the last post, so I won't talk about that, but let's take a look at a few others:

1.) I don't know if you've heard about the Calorie Restriction Society, by they are an organization that promotes the belief that we can live longer and healthier lives by limiting the amount of food that we eat. If you visit their site you'll notice that they also put up huge warnings about the dangers of cutting out too many calories and cutting calories too quickly which include things like: Loss of strength and lean muscle mass, loss of bone mass, depression, disruption of hormones, diminished sex drive, diminished energy and more.

According to their site they eat an average of 1,400 and 2,000 calories a day.

Now, I want you to notice that a society that's based entirely on eating less still has a bottom number of calories of 1,400 a day for someone to eat because this is what's needed to ensure proper amounts of vitamins, minerals, macro-nutrients, etc.

So, if a society that's all about starving oneself for health never has you drop below 1,400 calories a day because of the dangerous consequences to one's health, why do so many people try to use diets that have them eating as low as 1,200 calories, 800 calories, or 500 calories a day? Hmmmmmm.....and some of these diets even have the word "healthy" in their title; double hmmmmm....

2.) I'm still amazed how often I hear this, "lifting heavy weights for low reps will make you huge, while lifting light weights for high reps will make you toned." Because of this numerous people that don't want to get big and bulky will choose to lift light weights for 100's or even 1,000's of reps and wonder why they're getting nowhere. Let's take a look at this:

 In this photo John Inzer is deadlifting close to 800 pounds. John competed in the 165 pound weight class. As you can see, John's pretty darn toned, those arms and shoulders are pretty damn impressive. On top of that, John moved huge amounts of weight for low repetitions. Yet, John competed while weighing only 165 pounds. Now I don't know about you but 165 doesn't seem huge and bulky to me. I'm personally at 181 or so and I wouldn't consider myself huge or bulky even though I'm almost 20 pounds heavier than that. Hmmmmm......

This picture is of the Great Gama. He was one of the premiere wrestlers in the world during the early 1900's. He stood about 5'7" and weighed in at around 260-265 pounds. I'd say that the Great Gama was a pretty big and powerful dude. Yet his training consisted of hundreds and even thousands of reps of bodyweight training and club swinging. He was performing high reps without the heavy weights, yet he was huge. Hmmmmm.






So is it really true that low reps with heavy weights will make you big and bulky while high reps with lighter weights will get you toned? Hmmmmmmm.....not on your life. Last time I checked muscle tone was caused by tonus, or, residual tension in a relaxed muscle. Tonus, as related to muscle tone, is caused by a mixture of high resistance and high intensity training coupled with a low body fat percentage. Sounds to me like you get get pretty toned from lifting heavy weights for low reps (just check out most of the Olympic lifters and Powerlifters out there, especially as you get into the lower weight classes, Shawn Frankl comes to mind).

3.) How is it that so many marathon runners never actually run the full 26.2 miles while training; instead hitting around 20 miles or so at their tops (usually they'll say that they train this way to avoid injury and over training), but then they're suprised when they hit the 20-mile wall while their actually competing? Hmmmm....isn't this kind of like a basketball player only practicing for three quarters, or a hockey player only practicing for 2 periods, and then wondering why they got gassed during the last period or quarter? Hmmmmm......

4.) It's funny that aside from some plumbing differences and the need to interact with different dominant hormones, men and women's muscle tissue is identical. Identical muscle tissue, technically speaking, will respond to the same stiumli in pretty much the same manner. So why is it then that so many women think that they need to train differently then men in order to get the toned body that they want? Hmmmmmmm

5.) I keep on hearing that Pilates lengthens your muscles. Now, I'm not saying anytihng against Pilates here, but take a look at this picture:

Now tell me, if Pilates is supposed to lengthen your muscles how come no one in this picture is over 7 feet tall. If your muscles actually lengthend your bones would also have to lengthen in order to accomodate the longer muscles, therefore wouldn't your arms and legs, and midsection have to become longer too. Sorry folks, again, not saying naything against Pilates, but you're either born with long muscle bellies or short muscle bellies. You can train them to be the best that they can be, but you can't turn long into short or short into long.

Arnold here could do Pilates until the cow came home and he's never going to look like are dancing guy on the Right. Also, dancing guy could hit the weights all day and he's not going to look like Arnold.

I have nothing against Pilates, but it doesn't actually lenghten your muscles. Exercise will build your body to the best that it can be, but it won't change the type of muscle bellies that you have.

6.) Take a look at these two pictures for a second, if you will:

The one on the left is a gymnast and the one on the right is an Olympic Weightlifter. They're both pretty damn impressive specimens in my book. Both men grew up and train in sports where every workout consists of full body workouts. So they'll usually train 5-7 days a week, training their entire body at each session, and in some cases training their entire body a few sessions per day every day. There's no body part split where they'll train their chest on Monday, their back on Tuesday, their shoulders on Wednesday, etc.

So how come everyone seems to think that you need to split up the body into seperate pieces and isolate every part in order to create an impressive body. To loosley quote Strength Coach Jason Ferruggia, "you don't see a foot ball team working just upper body plays one day and lower body plays the next. You don't see Martial Artists working on just left leg kicks on one day and right hand punches on the next. The football player practices the entire game of football every day and the martial artist practices their entire art everyday."

So why try to split the body up? Hmmmmmmm......

Well, I could go on forever on a topic like this, but I'll stop here. Keep training hard and smart and feel free to leave a comment below.

Yours in strength and health,
Brett Stepan