There are 2 aspects to training success. The first, and most readily observable, is the physical aspect. This involves the practical application of the principles of effective training.

This is the “how to”.

The second aspect is much harder to identify, but there is no denying its existence. This is the mental aspect of training. It includes your reasons for training, your goals, and your attitude toward, and during, your workouts.

This is the “why”, and the “want to”.

The “how to” can be acquired rather easily from many sources, and comes in the form of books, video, audio, and live seminars and classes. In statistical terms, it can be considered the dependent variable, since any workout will obviously consist of some form of a training program.

The mental aspect can be viewed as the independent variable, the “make or break” factor that can mean success for one trainee, and failure for another, who are both using the exact same training regimen.

The “why” and “want to” are not available in your bookstore. They only come from one place-inside of you.

In his book High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way, Mike describes what I’m talking about here as “an attitude befitting a hero”. He goes on to say “Once he enters the gym, all else is forgotten and he is transformed into a valiant warrior with girded loins, ready to do battle with the weights.”

(I’m not exactly sure what girded loins are, but it sounds pretty warrior-like).

It stands to reason that somebody who chooses High Intensity Training as their “how to” should also choose a High Intensity mental attitude to go with it, if he wants to get the best possible results.

I call this high intensity mental attitude the warrior mentality.

Having a warrior mentality means viewing your workout as a challenge-not something to be feared, but something to be conquered.

A trainee with a warrior mentality does not take the easy way out by mindlessly going through the motions with a sub-maximal weight, which is tantamount to surrender. He views the workout as a battle to be won, no matter how high the cost of effort and fatigue.

He enters the gym with a feeling of aggression toward his goals, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings as he shuts out distractions and demonstrates single-minded focus and resolve to take out one target at a time-his next exercise.

But what if the trainee isn’t naturally warrior-like? Is he just fated to have sub-par workouts, and therefore sub-par results?

Cultivating a warrior mentality is a skill, and like any other skill it can be learned.

The foundation of this mentality is, as Richard Machowicz said, “believing so strongly in a cause that you are fighting for that you refuse to quit.” In the case of your training, the “cause” is your personal reason for training in the first place.

Take some time periodically to review your training goals, and why you are committed to them. What does training mean to you personally? Why is it important to you to include this activity in your life? Why is getting good results meaningful to you? Answering these types of questions will reinforce the commitment in your mind, strengthening your resolve.

The more intensely you care about the outcome of your workout, the more intensely you will train during that workout.

Visualization is another valuable technique for developing a warrior mentality. Take a few minutes before your workout to sit somewhere quiet by yourself, close your eyes, get real relaxed, and see yourself in your mind’s eye tearing through your workout, setting new personal bests on every exercise. Picture how you expect to look and feel, in the most vivid detail you can imagine. Once you open your eyes and enter the gym, strive to recreate your vision.

Listening to music or reading something that you find uplifting and motivating can also help you program yourself for a highly intense workout.

Completing successful workouts will provide you with positive memories that you can access to psyche yourself up for future workouts. As they say, “nothing succeeds like success”.

Take the steps necessary to cultivate and maintain a warrior mentality, and you will consistently win your battles in the gym and ultimately be victorious in your mission to achieve your training goals-and for that matter, any other goals you strive for in life.

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In the past few years, a fitness craze has been sweeping the industry-the operative word being “craze”.

They call it “Functional Training”.

I have witnessed this craze reach epidemic proportions in the fitness world, to the extent that many people equate this type of training with the field of personal training: in other words, so many trainers are training people this way, people think that so-called Functional Training is what personal training is, and that’s all it is; that they are one in the same.

I’ve had it.

In this article, and I’m sure in many more ways to follow in the future, I’m going to define and explain what is meant by the term Functional Training, point out the flaws in both it’s theory and methodology, and give my opinion as to why I think it’s a joke.

As my reference point for the definition and explanation of Functional Training, I will use the apparently impartial source Wikipedia.

Wikipedia defines Functional Training as “a classification of exercise which involves training the body for the activities performed in daily life.”

Wait a minute-isn’t that the goal of any form of exercise? The function of skeletal muscles is to produce movement. Therefore, any exercise program that strengthens the muscles will improve the body’s ability to move during “the activities performed in daily life”, whatever they may happen to be. High Intensity Training, as well as many other forms of exercise, can and do result in stronger muscles. Functional Training advocates give the impression that if you train with machines or conventional strength training equipment you are going to end up weak and uncoordinated. It doesn’t work that way. Strong muscles produce strong movements, no matter what your “activities of daily life” might be.

Wikipedia: “Functional training has its origins in rehabilitation. Physical therapists developed exercises that mimicked what patients did at home or work in order to return to their lives or jobs after an injury or surgery. Thus if a patient’s job required repeatedly heavy lifting, rehabilitation would be targeted towards heavy lifting, if the patient were a parent of young children, it would be targeted towards moderate lifting and endurance, and if the patient were a marathon runner, training would be targeted towards re-building endurance.”

First of all, by definition, rehabilitation patients are not functioning at a normal level-if they were, they would not need rehabilitation. As both a Personal Trainer and a licensed Physical Therapist Assistant, I can tell you first-hand that there is a BIG difference between rehab training to get back to a normal, functioning state, and trying to increase your levels of muscular size and strength beyond normal levels. For a person who is not injured or impaired to train with rehab techniques in order to get bigger and stronger constitutes context-switching and is ridiculous.

Furthermore, What if the marathon runner also has young children and works as a furniture mover? Does he do 3 different routines, or just one routine that is 3 times longer? I don’t know about you, but I don’t perform the exact same “activities of daily life” every single day. Does that mean I need to change my workout program every time I train, depending on what I’m going to do that day or the next day? Do I need to lift heavy weights the week I’m going to help my friend move, and lay around at the gym the week before my vacation in the Bahamas?

Wikipedia: “Functional training may lead to better muscular balance and joint stability, possibly decreasing the number of injuries sustained in an individual’s performance in a sport. The benefits may arise from the use of training that emphasizes the body’s natural ability to move in three anatomical planes of motion. In comparison, though machines can often be safer to use, they restrict movements to a single plane of motion, which is an unnatural form of movement for the body and may potentially lead to faulty movement patterns or injury.” (Italics mine)

The three planes of motion referred to here are the transverse (or horizontal) plane, the coronal (or frontal) plane, and the sagittal (or lateral) plane. These three planes of motion are not the exclusive domain of Functional Training; training the various muscle groups at different “angles” has been advocated since weight training was invented. For example, if somewhere in the course of your training program you perform a shoulder press or incline press (sagittal plane), a lateral raise (coronal plane), and a rear deltoid raise (transverse plane), all of which are included in the High Intensity Muscle Building program, you have trained your shoulders utilizing all three planes of movement.

I put the italics in the Wikipedia quote to point out the contradiction. On the one hand, Wikipedia is saying machines can often be safer to use, then they contradict themselves by saying that using machines may lead to injury. What they are probably trying to imply is that if you train on machines, you will be more prone to injury in your “activities of daily living” than if you perform Functional Training.

Here’s why that’s a bunch of crap: properly performed strength training, including High Intensity Training, strengthens the muscles by thickening the individual muscle fibers. This is called hypertrophy.

Hypertrophy is achieved by providing an intense stimulus to the muscle, forcing it to work at the limit of it’s existing capacity, causing it to respond by growing bigger and stronger to be able to successfully respond to such a stimulus in the future. Basically, muscle growth is an adaptation to overload. Just like getting a tan is an adaptation to exposure to intense ultraviolet sun light.

It doesn’t matter whether that overload comes in the form of High Intensity Training using fixed-movement machines, Functional Training using medicine balls and rubber bands, or going outside and lifting logs and rocks-if the stimulus is sufficient, your muscles will grow. Just like it doesn’t matter whether you go to the beach or lay in a tanning bed to get your sun tan.

Which can you break more easily-a pencil, a broom stick, or a baseball bat? The pencil. Why? Because it’s thinner.

Which is harder to injure-a thin muscle fiber, or a thick muscle fiber? (You answer this one).

How do you thicken your muscle fibers? I just told you the answer. Overload. (This is kind of like an open-book test).

Moreover, Functional Training inherently compromises effective overload in 3 ways (probably more, but I could go on forever here, and I’m getting tired):

1. Momentum compromises overload. Utilizing the force of momentum to move a weight decreases efficient musclular loading and increases joint trauma. Both are bad.

2. Instability compromises overload. It’s pretty hard to direct 100% of your possible momentary effort to an exercise when you are trying not to roll off an ustable surface and split your head open. Come to think of it, splitting your head open would probably compromise overload also.

3. Lack of record keeping compromises overload. The essence of proper strength training is progressive overload-increasing weight, reps, or both, in succesive workouts as you get stronger. I have never, ever seen a “Functional” trainer write anything down, or noticed any attempt at systematic progression from one workout to the next. It all appears very whimsical.

In summary, I believe that “Functional Training” is misguided, ineffective and dangerous.

I suggest you build your body using High Intensity Training.

Trust me, it will “function” just fine.

Watch this video to see “Functional Training” at its finest

Comments?

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For many women weight training is an afterthought, something they might play around with after they’re done with their aerobics class if there’s time, or after toning and shaping on the stairmaster or treadmill.

Not Patty.

She understands the value of weight training for weight loss and fat burning by permanently raising the resting metabolic rate via increasing lean body mass.

And she knows what High Intensity Training means, and how to put in a maximum effort.

A credit to the Nation, to be sure.

This workout features a nice double pre-exhaustion sequence–starting with the Med-X sidelying hip extension machine (you probably haven’t seen this before), then isolating the lateral hip muscles with the hip abduction machine, then finishing everything off with one set to failure on the Med-X leg press.

Keep in mind that if you’re going to target a certain body part in a workout with extra exercises, it is wise to decrease the amount of exercises you do for the rest of your body, in order to keep your total workout volume low enough that you will still be able to adequately recover in a timely fashion. You only have one gas tank; if you make one part of your workout longer, you need to make the rest shorter-otherwise you risk overtraining, and your efforts will be wasted because you won’t build muscle.

The rest of Patty’s workout that day consisted of 1 set of chest press, 1 set of seated rows, and 1 set on the old-school pink Nautilus ab machine. That’s it. (The remainder of the workout is shown on the second video below).

Check out this video for the butt-blaster workout:

Check out this one for the rest of the workout:

Don’t forget to leave a comment about Patty’s workout below!

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Mike Mentzer was one of the greatest bodybuilders in history, and the first guy who, through his writing, got me excited about High Intensity Training. I was in my early twenties at the time, frustrated by my lack of progress training 6 days a week with multi-set workouts.

In April of 1996, my wife (then my fiance) Patty and I arrived at Gold’s Gym in Venice, California so I could go through a workout personally supervised by Mike.

We started with a chest workout, which consisted of a pre-exhaustion superset–the Nautilus 10 degree chest fly, followed immediately by the Icarian incline press. The fly, a single-joint exercise, would isolate the pecs; the incline press would then utilize the fresh muscles of the shoulders and triceps to push the pecs to a deeper level of fatigue.

The chest fly consisted of one set to failure, followed by a “static hold”, where I held the arm pads together in the contracted position for as long as I could, then fought the weight inch by inch back to the starting position.

After the static hold, we literally ran to the incline press for a set of 1-3 reps; that set was concluded by performing a few “strongest range” reps, working only in the last 15-20 degrees of movement nearest the lockout position, until no further movement was possible.

After that was over, my chest was fried. The whole thing probably took all of five minutes.

Now it was on to the back workout.

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Once I finished with the incline press, my chest, shoulders and triceps were smoked. Now it was time to work the back, so we made our way over to the pulldown machine, also located in the third room.

Once we got there, I noticed Mike was looking at me kind of funny. He said “you look a little pale. Go walk around for a few more minutes”.

I was so super-motivated working out with him, and so intent on doing my best, that I had pushed myself to the point of almost passing out.

On the back wall of the gym they had garage doors, and since it was nice out they had the door in the third room open. I went over to it, took in a few deep breaths of fresh air, and tried to relax a little.

After a couple minutes I was ready and anxious to continue. I stood before the pulldown machine, and Mike explained this would just be one set to failure-no pre-exhaustion superset (which was fine with me!).

I took a narrow, underhand grip, sat down, and began my set of slow, controlled reps. After several reps I reached the point of failure, where I couldn’t pull the bar under my chin any more. At that point I stood up and re-racked the weight.

As I stood in front of the machine huffing and puffing, Mike said “reset yourself psychologically for a static hold”.

After about 10 seconds I grabbed the bar again, sat down, and pulled it down to my collarbones and “locked it in” there. I held it for as long as I could, fighting every inch of the way back to the starting position as my strength gave out.

My lats, rear delts and biceps were toast. We moved on to shrugs, my final exercise for the day.

We proceeded to a plated-loaded shrug machine, where you stand in between the handles and load barbell plates on to the machine in front of you (sort of like a wheel barrow). This was a great way to do shrugs, since it was more comfortable than using a barbell, and you could really load up the machine safely, unlike using dumbells.

Mike actually had me do a few warm-up reps, mainly to prepare me to lift the heavy weight from the floor for my work set without injuring my low back. “You haven’t done anything to warm up your hips yet”, he said. Safety first.

Once the machine was loaded up, I got into position, lifted the handles and started shrugging. Mike really emphasized getting a full contraction at the height of the movement. “Shrug your shoulders up to your ears, then squeeze it up another fraction of an inch,” he urged.

During the set, a couple of people walked in front of me, and I must have looked at them for a split second, because all of a sudden Mike started yelling really loud: “Don’t worry about these other people! They don’t care about you-they’re all narcissists! I’m the only one here that cares about you!”

Nobody really paid any attention-except me of course. Maybe they were used to it, or maybe he was right about them. Probably both. Anyway, it did the trick and got me re-focused. As with the pulldown, I finished the set at the point of failure, then rested a few seconds and performed one last static hold.

And with that the workout was over. I distinctly remember my arms being numb from the elbows down, and my whole upper body felt swollen. There was no doubt I had activated untapped muscle fibers, and stimulated new growth.

As we walked out of the gym together, Mike turned to me and said, “today you learned something about intensity”. (File that under understatement of the year). And he was right-that one workout made an impression on me that has remained ingrained to this day. It was literally the learning experience of a lifetime.

After the workout, we sat outside in front of the gym where Mike reviewed the workout with me, and gave me a written outline of what to do when I returned home.

The routine was as follows:

Monday:
Chest
1. Pec deck or flat bench dumbell flyes, 6-10 reps
supersetted with
2. incline press (preferably on a smith machine), 1-3 reps
Back
1. Nautilus pullover, 6-10 reps
supersetted with
2. Close grip, palms-up pulldown, 1-3 reps
(every other workout-just pulldown)
3. Regular (not stiff-legged) deadlift, 5-8 reps
(can substitute shrugs occasionally)

Friday:
Legs
1.Leg extensions, 8-15 reps
superset with
2.Leg press, 8-15 reps
3. Standing calf raise, 12-20 reps

Tuesday:
Shoulders and arms
1. Dumbell laterals (preferably Nautilus laterals), 6-10 reps
2. Bent-over dumbell laterals (preferably pec-deck), 6-10 reps
3.Standing Barbell Curl (preferably Nautilus curls), 6-10 reps
4. Tricep Pressdowns, 6-10 reps, superset with
5. Dips, 6-10 reps

Saturday:
Legs
1. Leg extensions, 8-15 reps, superset with
2. Squats (preferably in a Smith machine), 8-15 reps
3. Calf Raises, 12-20 reps

Wednesday:
Start the four workout protocol over with chest and back.

As far as nutrition, Mike instructed me to complete a 4-day food diary and get a daily average of my calorie intake; then on day 5, increase the average calories by 300-400. He advised me to keep the macronutrient percentages at 60% carbohydrate, 25% protein and 15% fat.
After our discussion, we had a “photo-op”, and then Mike was off.

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I started the routine as soon as I returned home, and raised my daily calorie intake to 2900. After about a month, my progress stagnated, and I consulted with Mike by phone to discuss what to do next.

At that point, he told me to take a week off, then begin this routine:

Workout A:
1. Squat or Leg Press, 8-15 reps
2. Pulldown, 6-10 reps
3. Dips, 5-8 reps

5 days later-

Workout B:
1. Deadlift, 4-6 or 5-8 reps
2. Overhead press, 5-8 reps
3. Calves, 12-20 reps

He also told me to raise my calories from 2900/day to 3200/day.

Following this routine, I reached my highest ever body weight (193 pounds), and achieved my highest ever strength levels in those exercises, including 350×5 on the deadlift and bodyweight + 80×8 on dips.

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Tragically, Mike passed away on June 10, 2001 from heart disease. The memories of my experience with him stay with me and motivate me in my training to this day.

Mike Mentzer not only taught me how to train, but also how to think, and apply the lessons learned in training to the rest of my life: to analyze situations with logic and reason, make a plan first, apply the plan with 100% intensity, and reflect and adapt until the goal is ultimately achieved.

He also encouraged and inspired me with my writing, which led to the many training articles I have had published, and most recently my e-book, High Intensity Muscle Building.

He is missed, but the lessons live on.

(Click here to check out Mike Mentzer’s website, where you can also order his books).

Copyright © 2010 by Dave Durell. All rights reserved worldwide.

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1. My girlfriend Patty became my Fiance Patty.

2. I opened a box that contained a letter from Mike Mentzer, stating that Patty had arranged to have him train me sometime in the near future. And wishing me Happy Holidays.

I had recently worked with someone who had been personally trained by Mike, and Patty could tell how cool I thought that was. Somehow, she had figured out how to contact him, and arranged the workout at Gold’s Gym in Venice, CA and subsequent phone consultations.

We planned a California vacation around the workout, which would take place in April of 1996.

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Mike Mentzer was the first guy who, through his writing, got me excited about High Intensity Training. I was in my early twenties at the time, frustrated by my lack of progress training 6 days a week with multi-set workouts.

Early in his bodybuilding career, Mike himself had been in that position too. He placed 10th in the 1971 Mr. America contest, which was won by 19-year-old sensation Casey Viator (who is now my neighbor). Mike befriended Casey, and found out that Casey was using a training system that was radically different than what everybody else was doing-maximum effort, short and infrequent workouts.

Casey told Mike he should talk to Arthur Jones, the guy who had trained him, who was also the inventor of Nautilus exercise equipment.

Mike did that, learned all he could from Jones, developed an unwavering commitment to High Intensity Training, and became the world’s most vocal and well known advocate of the system.

He also became one of the greatest bodybuilders in history.

Mike retired from bodybuilding in the ’80’s, left the scene for a while, then resurfaced in the ’90’s as a trainer.

By training dozens of clients, and consulting with hundreds who sought his advice, Mike had refined his system to what he felt was the most productive methods of High Intensity Strength Training to date.

I was anxious to experience these methods for myself!

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The big day finally comes, and we arrive at Gold’s Gym in Venice. Gold’s Venice is the most famous gym in the world, known as “The Mecca” by bodybuilders. the gym consists of 3 large rooms, each one stuffed with every piece of training equipment you can possibly imagine.

I played around on a few machines to warm up a little and try to control my nervousness. Then Patty told me “he’s here”!

Mike came in, introduced himself, and told me he was running a few minutes late, he had to talk to somebody out in front of the gym, and then he would be in to train me.

Patty and I watched him conversing with the guy through the window. Strangely, all of the sudden the guy started jumping up and down, literally, right in front of Gold’s Gym.

Mike came back in and apologized for the delay. I asked him why that guy was jumping up and down. Mike said it was because he was so excited about his progress since he had started training with Mike, gaining 5 pounds in 3 weeks.

It was time to get down to business, and Mike gave me a choice of 3 workouts: chest and back, shoulders and arms, or legs. I didn’t choose legs because Patty and I had hiking planned in Yosemite National Park later in the week, and something told me if I did legs with Mike Mentzer hiking wouldn’t go too well. I reasoned that my shoulders and arms would get plenty of work in the chest and back workout, so I chose chest and back.

The chest workout would consist of a pre-exhaustion superset–the Nautilus 10 degree chest fly, followed immediately by the Icarian incline press. The fly, a single-joint exercise, would isolate the pecs; the incline press would then utilize the fresh muscles of the shoulders and triceps to push the pecs to a deeper level of fatigue.

Mike believed it was essential to begin the second exercise as quickly as possible after completing the first, as even a 3 second delay would compromise the effectiveness of the superset. I was about to find out just how serious he was about that.

We went to the incline press first to warm up, where Mike coached me up on how he wanted me to perform the exercise: hands positioned as close together as possible, with the elbows flared out wide, away from the body.

Mike explained that this would maximize the range of motion provide maximum stimulation to the pecs. he pre-set the weight he thought would be right for me, and we proceeded to the chest fly machine.

After a few warm up reps, which allowed Mike to “guesstimate” my working weight, the real set began. Mike made sure I moved the weight slowly, under control, with no momentum involved, getting a good “squeeze” in the finish position. When I reached failure and couldn’t move the arm pads any more, Mike helped me get the weight into the finish position and had me perform a “static hold”.

A static hold meant I would squeeze the arm pads together for as long as I could; when they came apart due to my fatigue, I would continue to try to hold them as close together as I could, until inch by inch they ended up back in the start position with the weight stack touching down. This would cause additional growth stimulation by tapping into my static and negative strength levels.

As it turned out, he wasn’t satisfied with first static hold rep I did, so he reduced the weight a little and made me do it again. He said he wanted to make sure I really understood the concept and got a feel for how to do it correctly, and I was very appreciative of that. He obviously wasn’t just going through the motions of training me, he genuinely wanted me to get the most out of the short time we would spend together.

The moment the weight stack came together, Mike helped me out of the machine, yelled “LET’S GO!” and started sprinting to the incline press, located in the next room.

It must have been quite a sight–Mike sprinting at top speed through the gym, with me right behind him, and Patty right behind me with the camera. I’m just glad nobody got in our way, because I have no doubt Mike would have leveled anyone who was in our path.

Once we got to the incline I immediately sat down, positioned myself as I had been instructed, and pushed as hard as I could. The weight felt like a ton, and seemed to take forever to get to the finish position.

I heard Mike say, “perfect weight selection”. I found out later that the rep range on that exercise was 1-3 reps. Mike felt that since this was the second exercise in the pre-exhaustion superset, there was no point in extending the duration of the set, so the weight should be ultra heavy. Trust me, it was.

I got one rep on my own, and then one forced rep with Mike’s assistance, at which point I was convinced I was done. I let go of the handles, and Mike adjusted the height of the handles upward and told me to do as many reps in this position as possible.

Mike called these “strongest range” reps. He explained to me later that the last 15 degrees or so of range of motion on pressing movements provides the least resistance, due to favorable leverage factors. This can be used to advantage at the end of a set, when a full range of motion is no longer possible. Squeezing out a few reps in this small range totally exhausts any remaining strength available on that exercise, allowing you to safely get closer to total failure.

After a few of those, my chest was fried. The whole thing probably took all of five minutes.

Now it was on to the back workout.

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(To be continued)

Copyright © 2010 by Dave Durell. All rights reserved worldwide.
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The first video features a tour of Doug’s facility, with some cool background music. Believe me, he’s got some SICK equipment in there, and plenty of it.

The second video shows Doug himself going through a High Intensity workout in classic style–slow, controlled reps to failure, moving quickly between sets, etc. (Note: check out the attachment Doug has on his leg press to provide continuous tension and avoid letting his muscles rest in the lockout position-excellent Doug!)

The third video is really a sight to see. This one features Doug, a former competitive powerlifter, performing his special once-a-month deadlift routine with over double his bodyweight! And that’s not all–he performs the first several reps standing on a block to make it harder; then when no more reps are possible, removes the blocks and continues! The workout is so intense, the guy on the wall behind him couldn’t bear to watch and had to turn away. Finally, when all that’s over, you will see Doug utilizing proper post-workout recovery nutrition techniques by consuming a special high-carb beverage immediately after his workout. Nicely done Doug!!!

Check out all 3 videos below, the leave a comment for Doug!
P.S. For an appointment at Doug’s Facility, call (318)-219-0098.

Video #1: Gym Tour

Video #2: High Intensity Workout

Video #3: Deadlift Workout

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(The location is so Top Secret, I can’t even tell you what city it’s in. If I did, the video would self-destruct in 10 seconds.)

The Pain Cave is a private training facility that is equipped and set up specifically for high intensity training workouts.

It contains some of the best strength training equipment available on the market, and the machines are arranged so that several high intensity training protocols can be utilized, such as negative only training, static holds, and especially pre-exhaustion.

Admission to The Pain Cave is by invitation only, and as of right now, you’re not invited.

However, in the future I may let you check out some new videos showing some actual high intensity training workouts, so you can get a feel for what actually goes down here.

And who knows–some day I may even invite you to check it out in person.

Blindfolded, of course.

Here’s an exclusive look inside The Pain Cave–leave a comment below and let me know what you think!

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Essentially everybody is performing their exercises very quickly. They throw the weight up. They let it drop back down. Mindlessly flailing their limbs with no apparent focus or concentration, often talking to someone at the same time. They rattle the barbell plates. They let the weight stack slam together. Momentum is utilized to the fullest extent possible. There is no pausing at any point in the entire set. The only time all this high speed of movement stops is between exercises, when the average trainee rests for several minutes, often while socializing, re-setting their I-Pod, texting somebody, watching television or checking their cell phone. It almost seems like they can’t wait to get their set out of the way, so they can get to these other activities with minimal disruption.

Why do people train like that?

I think that one reason they do it is since they see virtually everybody else doing it, they assume it’s the right way to do it, and that the one guy in the gym not doing it (me) is some misguided weirdo who is doing it wrong. This is the way a lot of people make all of their decisions-they go along with the majority, avoiding the painful job of thinking critically for themselves.

Once the trainee starts utilizing this method, they discover that moving the weights faster allows them to lift more weight more easily. Although less effective from a strength and muscle building perspective, this method is more satisfying to the ego. Fast reps also produce less muscular discomfort than slow reps, and avoiding pain is desirable for most people.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is inferior results. Moving the weights quickly lowers the intensity of the activity; and intensity is the stimulus required to cause an increase in muscular size and strength. Thus, the higher the intensity is, the more effective the workout will be. To maximize the intensity of each repetition, the weight should be lifted and lowered slowly, under full muscular control, utilizing the force of muscular contraction alone without momentum.

Going slow is also safer. Increased speed of movement increases the risk of injury. If you have ever witnessed, or been in, a car accident, you already know this.

In addition, going slower makes the workout more time efficient. You put more tension on your muscles in each set, allowing you to place a greater workload on your muscles in one set than the fast lifters get in 3 or more sets.

What exactly do I mean by slow? Here’s how I described proper form in my e-book, “High Intensity Muscle Building“:

“The lifting of a weight (including the weight stack on a machine) should take 2 seconds to perform. The lowering of a weight should take 4 seconds to perform. You should pause in both the start and finish positions on each rep. Thus, every rep you do should take approximately 7-8 seconds to perform. Simply put: lift in 2 seconds; pause; lower in 4 seconds; pause; repeat.”

The goal of your strength training program should be to get the best possible results in the shortest possible time with the least possible amount of effort. Performing slow, controlled repetitions is fundamental to achieving that goal.

Keep it slow to grow,

Dave Durell, MS, CCS, PTA
Author of High Intensity Muscle Building

P.S. This article was originally published in the High Intensity Nation E-Newsletter. For a FREE issue, AND advanced training video AND special report, enter your name and e-mail address to the right or below. I hate spam as much as you do and will never share your e-mail address.

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Talk soon,

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High Intensity Training can help women build shapely muscle, gain functional strength, and melt a way unwanted body fat.

Provided, of course, they have the mental where-with-all to train that hard. No different than us men.

One woman I know lost over 30 pounds of fat (and kept it off), doubled her strength, completely transformed her body and mind, and took on an entirely new career path, all as a result of High Intensity Training.

Actually, I know her pretty well. She also happens to be my wife, Patty.

I’ll let her tell you the details in her own words, in this re-post of an interview I did with her in 2000.

Since the interview, she has been working as a full-time personal trainer, and now offers nutritional guidance on her website, where she is known as “The Weight Loss Dudette”.

Prepare to be educated, entertained and inspired by this interview–and if you are looking for a done-for-you nutrition program, whether you are looking to build muscle or lose fat, I will humbly tell you that hers is excellent, and encourage you to check it out for yourself (you won’t believe the before-and-after pictures!): www.WeightLossDudette.com.

Don’t forget to leave a comment and let Patty know what you think of the interview!

WOMEN H.I.T. HARD TOO-
Interview with Patty Durell

Q- When did you first start weight training?
A- I first started weight training in 1988 when I was approximately 22 years old.

Q- How did you train when you first started and what kind of results did you get?
A- I first started training in a place that had a lot of Nautilus equipment, so I would do their circuit, however it was lined up, and whatever the guy at the gym told me to do, or whatever my friends were doing, is how I would exercise. I would put the pin in the stack at a weight I could handle and do 3 sets of 10. I don’t remember really getting results, other than a feeling of satisfaction that I was doing something good for myself. I would do some type of aerobic exercise, either on the stairstepper or the bike or play racquetball, and then whatever I felt like doing that day, whatever machines were open, is what I would do. Sometimes I was there like an hour and a half and I was a smoker at the time so I might take a break in the middle of my routine and go have a cigarette and then come back and play a game of racquetball or finish my circuit training. I don’t smoke anymore.

Q- How were you first introduced to High Intensity Training (H.I.T.)?
A- I was first introduced to H.I.T. when I met Dave Durell, who is now my husband. That was in January of 1993. He introduced me to a different style of training, and I have used that style of training ever since.

Q- What kind of results have you gotten from H.I.T.?
A- Well, I’m at least 20 pounds lighter than I was when I was when I first started doing this, and at the time when I met Dave I was teaching karate and working out in the gym daily for at least an hour, sometimes 2 hours, so I was doing a lot of aerobic activity and weight training on a daily basis in the gym, so I was training probably 5 days a week in the gym and doing 10 hours or more a week of aerobics. Now, I’m about 20 pounds lighter and in the best shape I’ve ever been. I workout about once every 5 days and I only do aerobic activity for pleasure. I like to ride my bike and it makes me feel good to get out and ride. When I first started training I remember doing leg extensions with 50 pounds. I’m currently using 180 pounds on that machine (note: Patty’s bodyweight is in the mid 120’s). My strength has increased by leaps and bounds, and it continues to increase, although at a much slower rate now as I’ve been training like this for 7 years now. In the beginning I just couldn’t believe the strength gains I was making, or that I had the potential to lift such kinds of weights.

Q- What changes, if any, have you made in your training program as you’ve progressed?
A- When I first started doing this style of training I can remember working out every other day, which was a difficult step for me to make because I was working out every day for a lot of hours and all of a sudden I was working out every other day for maybe 45 minutes at a time. I noticed that I wasn’t progressing like I would like to or like I thought I should, and after a lot of education Dave convinced me to decrease the amount of exercises I was doing and increase my rest time and increase the intensity of my workout, so I started to make gains again. We started to work out every 3rd day, and again reached a plateau, not increasing with strength, and then started to add more rest time again, cut out some of the single joint movements and put more compound movements in and just work at an all out intensity until you just can’t work anymore. I think the plateaus that we reach now are just the end of our genetic limits.

Q- Describe a typical workout.
A- A typical workout for me is, I might do a leg press, I’m currently using 405 pounds on a Cybex leg press, and then I’ll go to a seated calf raise and I’m currently using 140 pounds on that. Then I’ll do a Hammer shrug; I’m currently using 135 on that. Hammer bench, currently using 85 pounds. Pulldowns, I can use 120 pounds. Although I have shoulder problems, I try to add a rear delt or lateral raise in after that exercise, and I try to do some kind of ab work either with that routine or the next routine. I have an A routine and a B routine that I typically use- that was my A routine. The B routine is, I use leg extension-180 pounds, hip abduction and adduction-130 pounds on both of those, Hammer decline-I’m up to 130 pounds on that, Hammer seated row-I’m doing 95 pounds, and again I’ll either do a Hammer lateral or rear delt, whatever I didn’t do on my A workout I’ll do on this workout. Sometimes that’s a little variable; it depends on how worn out I am. Sometimes out of boredom or just for a mental push we’ll change up the routine and we’ll do what we call crazy 5’s where we’ll maybe lower the weight a little bit and do a 5 second positive, hold for 5 seconds and a 5 second negative and do as many of those as we can. Or, we might do what we call 50 percent where we’ll do as many reps as we can with the weight we’re using, rest one minute and then try to get at least half as many reps as we did the first set. It’s just to try and keep it a little more interesting so you don’t get bored with your workout. Other than that we warm-up, maybe a little stretch before, maybe do half your weight for a couple of reps just so your ready and you’ve got good form. Form is essential, to have proper form throughout the whole set. After warm-up, just go for it, do as many reps as you can with proper form.

Q- What kinds of psychological changes and/or benefits have taken place as a result of your training?
A- I’m definitely more confident in myself. I feel stronger, I don’t have as many aches and pains as maybe I used to. I have a very physical job, so it makes my job easier. I’ve kept weight off, which has always been a struggle of mine; my workouts are definitely getting my heart rate into its target heart rate zone every time I have just a weight training workout. I just overall feel like I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in and I like the way I look a whole lot more than I did 7 or 8 years ago.

Q- How do you motivate yourself for your workouts?
A- If my husband isn’t watching a H.I.T. training video right before we go to the gym, which will also motivate me, then I try to think about my workout. On the way to the gym I try to think about what exercises I’ll be doing and how much weight I’ll be lifting and I get psyched up knowing I can move that much weight around, so by the time I get to the gym I try to be in a zone, ready to workout and ready to push as hard as I can until I can’t push anymore. I think knowing I only have to torture myself once every 5 days and push to my limit for only a half hour to 45 minutes also helps me get psyched up, knowing that I can handle that.

Q- What type of diet, if any, do you follow?
A- I follow just a well rounded, good eating diet. I would say I probably eat 60% carbohydrates, 25% protein and 15% fats. I try to stick to that and watch what I eat so that I can maintain the energy to get my workouts done but also maintain my physique. I drink a lot of water; I try to drink a gallon of ice cold water a day. I take a multi vitamin, vitamin A, vitamin C and vitamin E.

Q- What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you in the gym?
A- I guess I would have to say there’s two. The first time I was working out with my husband to the max (he was my boyfriend at the time) and I told him I felt like I was going to throw up, and he thought that was really cool, that I was going to throw up after one set of bicep curls. And in fact I did throw up, and when he realized I had done that he thought that was really cool. The second funniest thing was while I was doing a set of chest flyes on a machine and I was obviously working hard, working my butt off and gasping for every breath I could take, this woman was yelling at me during the set that if I decreased the range of motion on the lever arms and decreased the weight I wouldn’t have to work so hard.

Q- What advice would you give women who read this interview who are interested in starting an exercise program?
A- The first advice I would give them is to get the “I want to tone” idea out of your head and that “if I lift heavy weights I’m going to look big”. I think I’m pretty strong and I think I lift pretty heavy weights and I’m definitely not a Lenda Murray-looking woman. I would say you can lift heavy weights and achieve your desired results without bulking up- I think that’s a genetic response only and not a response to lifting heavy weights. I also think it’s very important to have a good, reliable training partner who has the same goals in mind as you do to achieve through weight training.

Q- What advice would you give women who have training experience but are not making progress?
A- I would say they have to take a close look at the 3 variables to weight training- that’s intensity, duration and frequency. You really need to look hard at what your intensity level is. It’s easy to think that you’re putting an all-out effort into your workout, but I think we all have a little bit more in us that we can push through. So if you’re not making progress, one of those variables needs to be changed. Either you have to increase your intensity, decrease your frequency or increase your rest time. Change those variables accordingly and you’ll probably start to make progress again. You also probably need to take a look at your diet. Maybe you’re not taking in enough energy or fuel to get the job done too. If you are training at a high intensity rate, maybe you just don’t have enough gas in your tank to get your engine to run as hard as it can and as far as it can.

Q- Do you have any parting comments for the readers?
A- GET SERIOUS! Don’t believe everything you see or read, especially when it comes to weight training. As with everything in life, you should apply logic and reason to your decisions. I also recommend doing your own research on proper training techniques. A good place to start would be this website. And of course read articles written by my husband, Dave Durell, for a logical understanding of high intensity and proper training techniques.

Don’t forget to leave a comment and let Patty know what you think of the interview!

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