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Veteran Thread Training to failure and other means of upping the intensity
- Thread starter Mobster
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Veteran Discussion
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My buddy trains for free.
Ahh the kind I'd like doesn't make money.
When I was a teen I had an idea, based on being inspired by the Barbarian Twins, of a gym called ''The Barbarian Training Pit''
I have never heard the term faggy weights before lol, by me it's rare actual gyms exist, planet fitness has bought up all the local small gyms and turned them into commercial planet fitness locations, might be 1 or 2 that exist but by me it's rare, within 80 miles 10 planet locations exist that used to be locally owned more hardcore gyms, they just by the property and build.
I understand the business model. We are kinda insular here so it can feel like everyone is on PEDs all the time. Whereas our part of the market is tiny. IIRC the US a few years ago was circa 300m population. Approx, at that time, 10% trained in some way. So 30m. Roughly 300,000 to 1m are what we might term 'hardcore'. At the very top end we're really looking at 1% or 30,000.
That means something like 90-99% of users of a gym are NOT hardcore. And hardcore need big dumbbells. Many high street gyms here rarely go over 50kg/110lbs and as often as not 35kg or so. My local sports centre, run by the council has dumbbells, which end at 37.5kg. If you own a gym and KNOW full well that only 5% of the users might use the bigger dumbbells why invest what can easily be £10,000+ for the lighter set never mind the bigger.
It was often the model for gyms to make as much as they could selling annual memberships in January knowing full well that most new members rarely last 3 months max. That's still a model of sorts for places like Planet Fitness. Selling more memberships than the gym could handle if everyone actually turned up and used it regularly even at 10-30%USD a month. Even other gyms are easy to see what they aim for based on what proportion of the kit is cardio vs machines and freeweights.
The CrossFit places only work because of the competitive nature many have for doing the WOD (workput of the day). It's almost a clique
There's No Magic In the Numbers
Every so often you'll read (now sold via social media) of some new fangled program. It'll have some variation on a theme numbers wise. Monstro talks about most of his sessions amounting to 25 sets per bodypart. An 80's bodybuilder called Johnny Fuller (look him up) was well known for. 10 sets of 32 reps a bodypart. Serge Nubret (On stage with Arnold in the Pumping Iron movie) was said to do 100's of reps and often train for 4 hours. Ditto Serge Nubret. In more recent times Kai Greene might take an hour warming up. Equally, I've written of Mike Mentzer, Dorian Yates et al doing 1 set to failure.
Is there a broad variation between systems? Sure. However, the great and vast majority will do on 8-12 reps and 3-4 sets. Arthur Jone's, he of Nautilus fame, did some tests which showed only a 3-4 reps range between the highs and lows between individuals for muscle growth stimulus. There's a great rep.range argument to be discussed in strength and endurance than there is in muscle building.
But its no great secret to be discovered and revealed by some scroat on Instragram. I've more chance of winning the Powerball lol
Every so often you'll read (now sold via social media) of some new fangled program. It'll have some variation on a theme numbers wise. Monstro talks about most of his sessions amounting to 25 sets per bodypart. An 80's bodybuilder called Johnny Fuller (look him up) was well known for. 10 sets of 32 reps a bodypart. Serge Nubret (On stage with Arnold in the Pumping Iron movie) was said to do 100's of reps and often train for 4 hours. Ditto Serge Nubret. In more recent times Kai Greene might take an hour warming up. Equally, I've written of Mike Mentzer, Dorian Yates et al doing 1 set to failure.
Is there a broad variation between systems? Sure. However, the great and vast majority will do on 8-12 reps and 3-4 sets. Arthur Jone's, he of Nautilus fame, did some tests which showed only a 3-4 reps range between the highs and lows between individuals for muscle growth stimulus. There's a great rep.range argument to be discussed in strength and endurance than there is in muscle building.
But its no great secret to be discovered and revealed by some scroat on Instragram. I've more chance of winning the Powerball lol
The funny thing about planet is they used to run TV ads with meat heads saying they aren't allowed the body builder type etc... it kind of backfired on them, with how they bought up all the gyms and built planet locations all the body builder types like myself all now workout at planet lol.
Thats why the db only go up into 70lbs and they don't have racks only Smith Machine because the whole intimidating aspect they don't want to have I guess from how they explain it.
You are correct I see people in and out constantly never sticking around for long or very little dedication they just look the same year after year, never mind how they train which is wrong, I don't expect much gym culture at planet.
You are correct the highest membership is 20.00 usd they know most people won't come back or cancel so those people get charged 20 a month over and over again.
I guess I just get sad and frustrated because of what I'm trying to accomplish Long the future and I'm stuck with that gym, I make the best of it but the people and kids really annoy the hell out of me at times they just get in the way.
Training is always the most important part in gaining size and strength. Most people dont know how to train. You have to know how to block out pain. You also need a great training partner to FORCE you to train hard when you are near failure.
I would very much love to hear your take on the different kinds of Isometrics, I’m a very big fan of these especially for injuries.
With some planning I’d like to add even more of them into my program, at the moment I only do overcoming isometrics, but when I was young and practiced a lot of eastern type stuff I used to do a very large amount of yielding isometrics, some of it weighted, would like to add some of that back eventually.
I would buy it immediately
Isometrics
Back when S&H and MD were first out the Isometric thing came to our attention. Bob Hoffman starting selling, via York Barbell, Isometric racks. However, at the very same time DBol had also been discovered by the York gang. So readers thought Isometrics were the next big thing whereas the truth was they were useful but Dbol etc was more 'usefuler' lol
As Ori says they deffo have a role to play for injuries. I'd even say if there's little to no training kit (prison for example) they will be a lot better than nothing.
In powerlifting we often saw two sets of pins in a power rack allowing you to use a lighter weight but push or pull against a sticking point. Now you're more likely to see bands and chains used than the rack. But of course it still works.
A way of using it in bodybuilding would be to pose (because that's 99% isometric) or the static holds I referred to in a previous post. Even (using a curl) having a buddy push down on the hands or bar and you have to push back. Another would be to really f**k a contraction to it's utmost by holding a squeeze at that point. Either with the bit of equipment or isometrically one limb against the other (arm or leg)
Back when S&H and MD were first out the Isometric thing came to our attention. Bob Hoffman starting selling, via York Barbell, Isometric racks. However, at the very same time DBol had also been discovered by the York gang. So readers thought Isometrics were the next big thing whereas the truth was they were useful but Dbol etc was more 'usefuler' lol
As Ori says they deffo have a role to play for injuries. I'd even say if there's little to no training kit (prison for example) they will be a lot better than nothing.
In powerlifting we often saw two sets of pins in a power rack allowing you to use a lighter weight but push or pull against a sticking point. Now you're more likely to see bands and chains used than the rack. But of course it still works.
A way of using it in bodybuilding would be to pose (because that's 99% isometric) or the static holds I referred to in a previous post. Even (using a curl) having a buddy push down on the hands or bar and you have to push back. Another would be to really f**k a contraction to it's utmost by holding a squeeze at that point. Either with the bit of equipment or isometrically one limb against the other (arm or leg)
