Exercise Science is Killing Your Gains

[alfresco]

The interview with that dealer who trained with Mentzer was kinda depressing. Saying Mentzer even wanted to have sex with him. Oh they had plenty of Rx stims, they marketed them to housewives who wanted to vacuum the house (serious) among other things. It was all Ayn Rands fault! I feel Mike even smoked due to Rand lol. And Mike said Rand had used stims for decades to no apparent harm.

"I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind — and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression.”

- Ayn Rand

Mentzer smoked because Arthur Jones smoked. And he talked, or tried to talk / sound like him.

My opinion.

 

[Dens228]

I think Mentzer was a smart guy but took the HIT philosophy to an extreme where near the end he was advocating something like one work out per week hitting all body parts that day with one set to failure. I think Mentzers first ideas surrounding HIT made more sense and we’re more moderate and we’re needed at the time as guys were definitely doing excess volume back then with little focus on recovery

The fact in marketing instances is, you sell a program, make money. People get the program, sales slow down, come out with a new "better" program. Sell more books. Social media trainers illustrate and exaggerate this model to the Nth degree.
I especially love the number of posts that start with "90% of you/trainers are doing this wrong" LOL

 

[KillerStack]

Ayn Rand promoted individualism and self-thinking, but created, wittingly or unwittingly, a kind of cult, ironically called "the collective", but I go further and speak of thousands of imitators. I think this is inevitable with any great thinker and is a major problem in the history of thought and philosophy.

That said, it was Edward Bernays who introduced the idea that smoking was cool, he invented a marketing campaign he called "the flame of freedom". Ayn seems to have fallen victim to this brainwashing and it ultimately cost her lung cancer.

Ayn was taking amphetamines to lose weight, it was totally legal, the idea of exercise and dieting didn't seem rational, lol. I guess after a while she saw that her mental activity was better and became addicted.

It's funny when you see the private lives of these geniuses and how the myth collapses, although Ayn was never in favour of banning drugs, she was against altering reality through substances, not unlike escaping reality through religions that she hated so much. In other words, morally she was totally against it.

Thanks, learned something.

It may seem like you are more grounded, it feels that way. Until it goes sideways.

I absolutely loved the Fountainhead as a kid. Then later you see the problems with the philosophy. The learned don't even seem to think she was any kind of real philosopher, just a joke.

I don't know, I've tried to think what Mentzer missed in his training philosophy. One thing might be that he thought there was a definite signal sent at the failure point. Or that it goes like stimulus>recovery>growth, whereas it seems to be that you can grow before you are fully recovered in all ways and you can train to benefit before these stages are complete. Today it appears there doesn't need to be a "breakdown" in the muscle before growth. So Mentzers fault might have been that there was too little science in his training science.

That said, I still believe hypertrophy training is best when it's brief and intense. It's amazing how little you need to promote adaptations and how little additional volume adds to the stimulus.

The fact in marketing instances is, you sell a program, make money. People get the program, sales slow down, come out with a new "better" program. Sell more books. Social media trainers illustrate and exaggerate this model to the Nth degree.
I especially love the number of posts that start with "90% of you/trainers are doing this wrong" LOL

To me it appeared as though Mentzer really believed in what he was saying, it wasn't just for money in his case.

 

[pickapeck]

Ayn Rand promoted individualism and self-thinking, but created, wittingly or unwittingly, a kind of cult, ironically called "the collective", but I go further and speak of thousands of imitators. I think this is inevitable with any great thinker and is a major problem in the history of thought and philosophy.

That said, it was Edward Bernays who introduced the idea that smoking was cool, he invented a marketing campaign he called "the flame of freedom". Ayn seems to have fallen victim to this brainwashing and it ultimately cost her lung cancer.

Ayn was taking amphetamines to lose weight, it was totally legal, the idea of exercise and dieting didn't seem rational, lol. I guess after a while she saw that her mental activity was better and became addicted.

It's funny when you see the private lives of these geniuses and how the myth collapses, although Ayn was never in favour of banning drugs, she was against altering reality through substances, not unlike escaping reality through religions that she hated so much. In other words, morally she was totally against it.

She had no morals. She fucked her students.

 

[EnhancedFatGrappler]

She had no morals. She fucked her students.

Man, where were those crazy horny female teachers when I was at school?

 

[alfresco]

She had no morals. She fucked her students.

Problem?

 

[svenrpb]

I recently deleted all of those science tards of my instagram.

Best decision of the year so far.

 

[qbkilla]

One thing that makes me wonder, these street workout dudes. AAS, genetics, sure that can be why they look good and have size but there has to be an effective training stimulus.

These guys are just Soo tons of dips, pushups, chinups daily. No fear of overtraining, no weights machines or isolation exercises, just guys history their ass doin the basics, no progressive overload just body we for reps reps reps. Bust their ass, train hard as fuck, reps and volume. No rhyme or reason or rpe mechanical tension, yet have built muscle. I'm not talking about the progression/skills crowd who try and use calesthenics to simulate everything we do... making sht complicated...those guys don't have size just lean. But the old school (500 dips 500 pushups) calisthenics guys.

 

[Oldwhitedude]

One thing that makes me wonder, these street workout dudes. AAS, genetics, sure that can be why they look good and have size but there has to be an effective training stimulus.

These guys are just Soo tons of dips, pushups, chinups daily. No fear of overtraining, no weights machines or isolation exercises, just guys history their ass doin the basics, no progressive overload just body we for reps reps reps. Bust their ass, train hard as fuck, reps and volume. No rhyme or reason or rpe mechanical tension, yet have built muscle. I'm not talking about the progression/skills crowd who try and use calesthenics to simulate everything we do... making sht complicated...those guys don't have size just lean. But the old school (500 dips 500 pushups) calisthenics guys.

Just my opinion but I think what you're seeing is a bit of 'survivorship bias', and that is examples of people who have built great physiques doing alternate workouts. You can apply the same lense to Crossfit. The problem is for every street dude who is jacked will equally be 100 who didn't get anything from it except get hurt, or stagnate for the same reasons they stagnated on traditional workouts.

So the question becomes, what route do we take to get a good physique? And I think the answer has always been (and always will be) bodybuilding, because that is literally the prime objective so over time bodybuilding has evolved to where the best practices are what the best bodybuilders do.

I get what you're doing though, and it's normal. You're getting inspired by the street dudes and looking for examples to reaffirm your new position, and that's cool you know? Whatever you need to inspire yourself. I say run with it and good luck.

 

[qbkilla]

Just my opinion but I think what you're seeing is a bit of 'survivorship bias', and that is examples of people who have built great physiques doing alternate workouts. You can apply the same lense to Crossfit. The problem is for every street dude who is jacked will equally be 100 who didn't get anything from it except get hurt, or stagnate for the same reasons they stagnated on traditional workouts.

So the question becomes, what route do we take to get a good physique? And I think the answer has always been (and always will be) bodybuilding, because that is literally the prime objective so over time bodybuilding has evolved to where the best practices are what the best bodybuilders do.

I get what you're doing though, and it's normal. You're getting inspired by the street dudes and looking for examples to reaffirm your new position, and that's cool you know? Whatever you need to inspire yourself. I say run with it and good luck.

Very true. I could just bee seeing the ones it works for. But a counterpoint could be that we see the same with weights or any style of training. Example high volume pump work, or hit, have examples of people who look great but also ones who don't. It's hard to determine why something does or doesn't work for someone because we have no knowledge of their AAS use, diet, sleep, etc.

I think the reason the Street workouts appeal to me is the simplicity "just do hard shit, sleep, repeat, etc"...as everyone knows I'm there worst when it comes to overanalyzing training amd getting into this trap "oh i should do that , change this , bro split, no full body ed"

 

[aHarness]

"just do hard shit, sleep, repeat, etc"

You can do that while using exercise equipment. Idk why you’re so obsessed with calisthenics lately but it’s far from the most efficient way to build a physique. It’s literally just limiting yourself for 0 benefit unless you’re training for them specifically. But do what you want.

 

[stackdizzy]

I just put a little weight on the bar do ten reps.then I put.a little more weight on and do ten more.repeat until i.cant.do six reps. Then I do another exersize, get a good squeeze at the top don't use real heavy weight, dont care to.

 

[qbkilla]

You can do that while using exercise equipment. Idk why you’re so obsessed with calisthenics lately but it’s far from the most efficient way to build a physique. It’s literally just limiting yourself for 0 benefit unless you’re training for them specifically. But do what you want.

Almost one of those things...I'm happy where I'm at just want to try something new, see how my body responds to a new stimulus. Tried just about every program, split, high volume, low volume, etc. ready for something new. Deep deep down, I think part of it is I'm sick and tired of waiting on equipment at all 3 of my gyms and it's only going to get worse with the new years crowd. Benches, cables, reverse pec deck are clogged up ...pull up bar and dip station are always open. Lol

 

[aHarness]

Almost one of those things...I'm happy where I'm at just want to try something new, see how my body responds to a new stimulus. Tried just about every program, split, high volume, low volume, etc. ready for something new. Deep deep down, I think part of it is I'm sick and tired of waiting on equipment at all 3 of my gyms and it's only going to get worse with the new years crowd. Benches, cables, reverse pec deck are clogged up ...pull up bar and dip station are always open. Lol

For sure man, if you’re doing it just as something to bring excitement and joy to training go for it. I just don’t want you to go into it disillusioned that calisthenics are going to bring some sort of magical gains you’ve been missing out on lol.

 

[Muay Thai]

Man, where were those crazy horny female teachers when I was at school?

you mean the butch PE teachers we had? lol my son has hot teachers too im like wtf where was I we had old ladies

 

[Muay Thai]

You can do that while using exercise equipment. Idk why you’re so obsessed with calisthenics lately but it’s far from the most efficient way to build a physique. It’s literally just limiting yourself for 0 benefit unless you’re training for them specifically. But do what you want.

disagree, clearly you have never been incarcerated that argument goes out the window. I have pics of me with bad ass physique from calisthentics only shredded doing muay Thai and chalistentics as my only "lifting", i have pic of me fresh out shredded just from burpees &navyseals while busted - PS THE WORKOUTS ARE MANDATORY. YOU CANNOT SIT OUT OR YOU WILL GET SMASHED so everyone that goes there experiences these results to some degree. Ive seen a few crips who looked like D1 athletes in there

he's going to open up a portal for growth especially in terms of stability muscles and fibers, tendon and ligament strength, core strength, all of this will benefit him when he decides to lay of and hit the weights hard, I've supervised and got so many clients in shape on pure chalistentics bro....natural also

 

[aHarness]

disagree, clearly you have never been incarcerated that argument goes out the window. I have pics of me with bad ass physique from calisthentics only shredded doing muay Thai and chalistentics as my only "lifting", i have pic of me fresh out shredded just from burpees &navyseals while busted - PS THE WORKOUTS ARE MANDATORY. YOU CANNOT SIT OUT OR YOU WILL GET SMASHED so everyone that goes there experiences these results to some degree. Ive seen a few crips who looked like D1 athletes in there

he's going to open up a portal for growth especially in terms of stability muscles and fibers, tendon and ligament strength, core strength, all of this will benefit him when he decides to lay of and hit the weights hard, I've supervised and got so many clients in shape on pure chalistentics bro....natural also

I never said you can’t get shredded or anything like that using calisthenics. Not sure where you go that idea from. I said, in terms of growing tissue, that it’s pointless to limit yourself to them. Which I still believe.

 

[qbkilla]

disagree, clearly you have never been incarcerated that argument goes out the window. I have pics of me with bad ass physique from calisthentics only shredded doing muay Thai and chalistentics as my only "lifting", i have pic of me fresh out shredded just from burpees &navyseals while busted - PS THE WORKOUTS ARE MANDATORY. YOU CANNOT SIT OUT OR YOU WILL GET SMASHED so everyone that goes there experiences these results to some degree. Ive seen a few crips who looked like D1 athletes in there

he's going to open up a portal for growth especially in terms of stability muscles and fibers, tendon and ligament strength, core strength, all of this will benefit him when he decides to lay of and hit the weights hard, I've supervised and got so many clients in shape on pure chalistentics bro....natural also

From what I've researched...seems like there are 2 camps the ones that focus on progression then the "old school calesthenics" that focus on volume...which is better for hypertrophy. I just think the shit will be fun to switch up and perfect timing as I'm moving, looks for a new gym, and the resolution shit happening and I train after work. But agree with you no doubt many of these dudes look good.

 

[Muay Thai]

From what I've researched...seems like there are 2 camps the ones that focus on progression then the "old school calesthenics" that focus on volume...which is better for hypertrophy. I just think the shit will be fun to switch up and perfect timing as I'm moving, looks for a new gym, and the resolution shit happening and I train after work. But agree with you no doubt many of these dudes look good.

Just do 113s G. 100 for crime and 13 for the homeys lol. It's 100 3x pump burpees x navy seals . Every few days. In October I had to do this shit everyday and sound off lol. I could feel the test and gh and slin exit my body slowly. I had zero motivation to workout and was getting sore AF beyond belief from those jail workouts!! I seen an obese paisa get broke off (disciplined but not smashed) they ripped up a few sheets of paper into tiny pieces and forced him to pick every single piece up there must have been 200 and do a freesquat while doing it. He couldn't get out of his bunk/mat the next day and almost pulled my shoulder out of socket trying to help him up. He was like 350lbs and put his entire weight on me because I was kind and the biggest fool in there muscle wise.thid was his punishment for having questionable charges aka paperwork (DV) and not bringing his paperwork back when he went to the freeze bus to court chaingang.

 

[qbkilla]

Here's my question for those who follow the science

They say mechanical tension and effective reps stimulate growth (the last few reps of a set close to failure). They also say volume increases growth up to a point, which makes sense, because more sets per week means more effective reps.

If this is true, why is progressive overload needed?

Person a works chest each Monday bears the book he will grow...

Person b trains chest each Monday but takes a random exercise, but does the same amount of sets to failure as person a...

They both basically have the same number of effective reps and train just as hard. Why is person a going to grow more?