PaleoPathologist sat down with his trainer this weekend to do a four exercise, slow movement to momentary muscle failure workout. It was captured on tape. Warning to small children and squeamish adults: PaleoPathologist shows his pain-face a few times toward the end of each set.
The slow, single set to failure method has worked very well for PaleoPathologist who, except for one cramp in lower back muscles, once, has had NO INJURIES in a year and has gone from 90 to 305 lbs on the leg press. BP today at physical was 110/70. Resting heart rate at the physical was…63. And remember this is doing the routine at most once every seven days, sometimes it’s 10, 14 days between workouts.
This protocol sends a very powerful adaptation signal to the body. PaleoPathologist did the 200 breaststroke in College which is a fairly brutal race, and felt about the same amount of lactic acid at the end (about 2:30 in the water) as he does after the 10 minute routine these days. Take a look at the papers referenced in the links above, or take a look at Body by Science website,
or the book. Another site I follow is Drew Baye’s site.
Any questions about how this works? Anyone with alternative experiences? We’d love to hear from you.
I enjoyed this posting quite a lot. I have the pleasure of working with PaleoPath and have for the past year. I have seen his transformation first hand and am glad to finally see him in action. PaleoPath has explained his routine to me many time including his gains in muscle strength and endurance, but coming from an old school world of working out (lift big, lift hard and do it again as soon as you “feel” recovered) I have always been skeptical about training once a week for no more than 20 minutes at a time. My school of thought has always been, once a muscle group feels rested its time to work that group again. It has worked well for me, but I could never boast the kinds of gains the 50+ PaleoPathologist can brag about. 300% increase in leg strength in a year! I’m in my 20s and it has taken me nearly 3 years to make those kinds of numbers. As a personal trainer this idea of slow controlled contractions and almost isometric extensions of the agonist and antagonist muscles in every exercise is vary intriguing. I for one am going to forgo my huge explosive movements and isolation workouts for a few months and give this high intensity to failure routine a try. Thanks PaleoPath for another great insight into the workings of the human body.
Great to have you on board, woodsman. Remind me to send you some articles if I haven’t already.