As for the Max Pyramid, no, I have not had a chance to try it yet. At some point in time I may read further into it and give it a shot, but, perhaps not as well. This year is packed with non stop travel and as a result it will be difficult to try anything like that over a meaningful period of time.

Haven’t posted anything here for awhile. Hope you are doing well. Looking forward to seeing what Drew, Bill, and Dr. McGuff had to say at the 21convention. Have you had a chance to try John Little’s Max Pyramid protocol?

2) I know what an isometric contraction is. BBS uses it in a way to extend TUL and increase inroading. Arthur Jones used it in the Colorado Experiment in a similar fashion. I never advocated using only one type of muscle contraction, I was just stating some facts about each. In fact, BBS uses the 3 you mentioned to a very high degree of efficiency.

3) If it is high volume, it is low intensity. If you try to combine the two you end up with moderate volume and moderate intensity. This isn’t opinion, its the laws of physics, as Nicky explained above.

3.5) Let’s remember that we are talking about proper health and fitness, not sport specific conditioning. You are a fighter, and fighters are extremely fit and could easily kick the shit out of me (and have, I’ve fought guys with ten years of training and obviously lost), but just because something worked for you doesn’t mean it’s best for everyone. Again, read The Black Swan; it will improve your critical thinking and logic skills to superhuman levels.

4) I’ve been tracking every workout for the past 2 years, have tried Rippetoe, Stronglifts, Smolov (which was way too advanced for me, I’ll admit), CrossFit, and Pavel’s Kettlebell training. Stronglifts actually worked the best for me in terms of strength gained, but BBS is the most efficient, most scientifically and logically sound, and yields the greatest ROI for my time.

I don’t want to spend hours in the gym. I just want to be lean, healthy, and strong enough that I won’t be held back from doing something because I’m too weak. I want to live long enough to play baseball in the yard with my grandchildren, travel in my sixties, climb a mountain in Italy and spend an afternoon painting the landscape. From what science I’ve found, putting my body under constant stress and raising stress hormones, whether induced by exercise, sleep deprivation, spiked insulin from carbohydrate, or all-nighters finishing that damn report, is a sure-fire way to cut my life short. (Sidenote: insulin sensitivity is a common trait amongst centenarians.)

5) I never gave opinions, just straight facts.

6) The logical thing to do is to produce positive physiological adaptation by working the muscle (or rather, the entire body) in the most efficient way possible. BBS investigates this.

Jeff, I have great respect for fighters, but don’t fall into the logical fallacy of thinking that what works for you is best for the general health and fitness of everyone. I know you have trained many clients, but you’re still operating under the Narrative Fallacy.

That said, one of my goals for my 4 years of college is to learn BJJ and Mauy Thai, mainly for self-defense purposes for when I travel. And also for the body control and presence that martial artists have. I find it absolutely extraordinary that they can react that quickly and still make sense of what’s going on.

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Okay, I’ve stated my views and defended myself. I am now done with these stupid internet flame wars.

Over-complication is by far NOT the answer, and it sounds like you have just spewed out several random source’s opinions rather than creating your own, unique opinion on the matter.

Obviously doing squats will not improve a seated leg press, because you get what you train for. I’m not sure you are even aware of what an “isometric” contraction is, but muscles perform 3 types of contractions:

Concentric (moving against the weight), Eccentric (moving with the weight), and isometric (no movement). In my opinion it is best to contract each muscle in all three ways for optimal growth. Nothing else even makes sense.

I don’t know where you defined my ‘camp’ from, but it is completely inaccurate. My beliefs are HIGH INTENSITY, HIGHEST-POSSIBLE VOLUME before death by exhaustion. Obviously, I’m a professional fighter. Anything less is amateur-level training. That said, I lift once per day, working a different muscle group on a three-day split. Fourth day is recovery, but I fight, wrestle, and sprint/run every day as well.

For the record, My ‘camp’ and Dream’s ‘camp’ are arguably one in the same, even if we don’t see eye to eye on “Health & Fitness” with different levels of ‘intensity’.

I suggest you stop spitting out others theories, and begin to get in-field experience of what actually WORKS FOR YOU. In turn, create your own, indivudual opinion to share based on your results. Arguing about theory won’t make you physically stronger, especially arguing others theories in which you admitted you don’t even understand.

The most logical way to lift weights is by constantly mixing it up and contracting muscles in all three ways, and in every plane of motion (frontal, lateral, transverse), while working towards ifting heavier weights each time.

F=ma is too simple of an equation to explain exercise intensity, just like E=cals in – cals out doesn’t explain obesity (ref: Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes). As normal humans, we look for simplistic answers to complicated problems, which is an extremely dangerous, and unfortunately common, fallacy (ref: The Black Swan by @nntaleb).

You also have to take into account the physiological processes your body goes through and the neuromuscular skill that increases over time specific to a certain exercise. For example, when a is increased, momentum comes into play, which could affect the quality of inroading and other fatigue into the muscles. Also, from Supertraining p.26, “Training with barbell squats for 8 weeks increased 1 RM squatting strength markedly, but caused a much smaller improvement in seated isometric leg press (Thorstensson et al, 1976).”

A very specific example of a affecting fatigue, which I recently found in Supertraining by Mel Siff, is the idea that concentric contractions are less efficient in producing fatigue than isometric contractions because concentric movement allows blood vessels to dilate, thus flushing out lactic acid and delivering oxygen, however minuscule the amount, to the muscle. However, isometric training seems to only produce strength increases at the joint angle being trained (p.27). Protocols such as SuperSlow and Body By Science circumvent this conundrum by advocating slow and controlled movements, thus simultaneously increasing muscle inroading and strength at different joint movements. This could be termed isokinetically quasi-isometric, respectively meaning “constant velocity of motion” and “constant load [aka isotonic] only over a very small range under very slow… conditions of movement for a limited time (since fatigue rapidly decreases tension)” (p.50).

Supertraining is a pretty fucking amazing book that’s organized like a physiology textbook, includes ideas from physics & biomechanics, and condenses everything that pertains only to athletic training. Absolutely phenomenal. It includes unbiased evidence for and against both extensive (low intensity, high volume; JEFF’s camp) and intensive (high intensity, low volume; Dream’s camp) training methods. Of course, it was recommended by Tim Ferriss. In any case, read it if you find yourself becoming confused about the intricacies of exercise. I know I’m confused like ALL THE TIME.

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Interesting evidence for extended rest time, from Supertraining, p. 34 (emphasis not mine):

“Moreover, muscle tissue adapts to increased loading within several days, whereas the connective tissues (such as tendons, ligaments and joint capsules) or systems which contain a high proportion of connective tissue (such as bone and cartilage) only display significant adaptation and hypertrophy after several weeks or months of progressive loading (McDonagh & Davies, 1984). It is vital that the prescription of training takes into account the different rates of all the systems involved and avoids overtraining the systems with the slowest rates of adaption.”

And, directly succeeding that comment, is very logical reasoning for slow-movement protocols (emphasis mine):

“Gradual increase in training load and avoidance of impulsive or explosive methods is essential for minimizing the occurrence of connective tissue soreness and injury, particularly during the general physical preparation phase (GPP) and by relative novices to strength training”

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To each his own, but to me, high intensity strength training.

I saw on some of the new body by science, and they have a new protocol called max pyramid i believe, what do you think of that and have you heard much of that? You been able to check out the body by science question and answer book yet?

http://www.thedreamlounge.net/2009/11/15/the-down-low-on-cardio-and-latest-thoughts/

Free weights are excellent when performed in a correct, congruent fashion

This is your man for the job

http://www.thedreamlounge.net/2009/11/05/interview-with-bill-de-simone-author-of-moment-arm-exercise/

I really wanna get into hardcore BBS training, but the gyms around me don’t have very nice machines and I don’t even have the money to pay for membership. That brings me to my question: is the rest period between exercises that important? How long do you allow for rest (seeing as you cut it out of the video)?

Thanks man. Have fun in sweden.

Not for you. For myself, a World Champion, I will train for this. ( “