"Once You Hammer in the Nail, All You're Doing is Damaging the Wall"
Along time ago Mike Mentzer -popular for high intensity training- gave
this statement in one of his seminars that really stuck with me:
"Once you hammer in the nail, all you're doing is damaging the wall"
After more than 10 000 hours of training people, I can tell you he was
right on. There's really two ways people are currently over doing it. It
can happen with volume, which is the amount of work for a given muscle,
and it can happen with intensity - using too much weight that
compromises form.
The way many people exercise today is that they tell themselves they will workout for an hour a day. Unlike the TUT
of the set where the focus should be on the duration of the each set.
The duration of the workout itself should not be the goal. The emphasis
should be on the overall volume of work you accomplish, and if that
means your workout is 15 minutes, that's okay. As a beginner or anyone
for that matter that has taken more than four weeks off of training,
you should start with no more than four sets per muscle group. Once you
have done those four sets you will have accomplished the goal of the
workout.
On the other side of the spectrum there's crossfit training where
people do full body exercises to pure exhaustion in the shortest amount
of time possible often compromising form to reach the desired goal. This
is the opposite effect. As little to no rest is taken, intensity
increases and form is compromised under heavy loads. Do you really need
to suffer like that in order to lose bodyfat, build muscle and be
healthy?
Absolutely not.
Now don't get me wrong, I've tried both these methods with great
results and they have their place when you're working towards a
conditioning goal. One can get 80 percent of the benefit of the
conditioning while still getting just as lean, muscular and healthy,
while not having to deal with the psychological stress that happens
before even starting the workout.
For the person that simply wants to lose body fat, get in shape,
build muscle and be healthy without feeling like death, all you need is
moderate strength training that focuses on manipulating volume combined
with a good nutrition plan.
