The New Old Exercise Revolution

The New Old Exercise Revolution

I have been around the fitness industry and held training certificates of various kinds for over 20 years. There is one thing I can tell you. The quest for new exercise approaches will never outgrow the demand by the public for new. It is the same with supplements.

I once had the privilege of visiting one of my customers and he showed me his vitamin cabinet. It was full of new and old, unused and partially used supplements. He said, “I like yours the best, and it is the only one I take daily.” I suspect that was not 100 percent true, although it was nice to hear. I asked about the rest. The answers were telling. “Well, that company often copies your stuff and just increases the dose to one-up you.” Or, “So-and-so, who has a good reputation, said it would do this or that for me.” And finally, my personal favorite: “I don’t know. It’s just new.”

I am not going to try to dissuade you from new or different in anything, exercise or supplements. But I do want to share what the literature looks like right now on resistance training, specifically weight training.

For most readers, time is the most precious asset. Over the past couple of years I have looked carefully at HIIT (high-intensity interval training) as both an advocate and a skeptic. Now I want to give you my thoughts on the strength training side.

The answer, as always, is “it depends on what you want.” But after careful review and several months of trial, here is where I have landed for resistance training.

1. A slow cadence, with weights or machines, aiming to maximize “time under tension,” is one of the most effective approaches I have used. Arthur Jones, the founder of Nautilus, was right. Slow 2-count up, hold under tension for a second at full extension, 4-count down, until failure.
2. Your actual workout times will be very short, and you may need twice as much recovery between workouts. Move through the workout at maximum safe pace, no more than 60 seconds rest between sets, preferably less.
3. Allow as much post-workout recovery time as needed. One or two intense workouts per week may be all you need.
4. You should still be getting stronger, even if you are only doing one or two sets of a given exercise per workout. If the intensity is there, the results will be there.

Remember the “it depends on what you want” caveat. If you like spending hours in the gym or doing other fitness activities, go ahead. Certain things will require it. High-level endurance training is hard to short-circuit. Long slow distance is just that, and the body adapts to what you train for.

But if short, intense, efficient, exhausting workouts are appealing to you, it is hard to beat the results I have gotten with the slow-cadence approach in the short run.

I will keep you posted. I would like to hear from you if you have your own experience to share.

Dr. Dave

Special thanks to coach Dan Mower for his timely critiques.

— Doc