Here's the Aretaevian synthesis:
- Muscle is metabolically expensive. As such, you have to think of your body as doing everything it can to minimize muscle mass, while maintaining the ability to do whatever it is you want to do.
- The body can be tricked. Think of the body as an emo teen who you have to get saying "we're gonna die" before it gets ready to adjust muscle mass.
- Building muscle requires rest. Muscle is built via micro-tearing the muscles, and then rebuilding stronger. If you don't give the body time to rebuild, it doesn't.
- It rebuilds better if it has adequate protein. And the speed at which you get protein after a hard workout matters.
This means that if you are exercising to build muscle mass, your goal should be to trick your body into thinking it's in danger of dying from not being strong enough...and then once you're through, you should rest.
This is all part of High Intensity Training (HIT) theory, with Mike Mentzer being one of the founders of the approach.
Superslow is an approach to exercise that refines the above. While HIT has lots of variation, superslow is very narrow in practice. Do weights, primarily focussing on your major muscle groups (Glutes, Quads, Back, maybe others), 1 exercise at a time with each rep being roughly 70% of max press, and as close to perfect form as you can get, and 10 seconds positive and 10 seconds negative. Repeat until muscle failure (you're pushing with everything you've got, weight is moving wrong way...and then try to hold it as best you can.) Do no more than about 30 minutes of lifting 2x a week. As you get stronger / bigger muscles / closer to your biological limits, decrease the frequency, increase the rest. After a year, I was on the 3 exercises 1x a week, maybe 15 total minutes a week plan...and I missed 1 week in 4 ... and was getting stronger still. Superheroes in this pantheon include Mike Mentzer who had shifted towards a 1x/2 weeks protocol...with crazy-high intensity.
If it's interesting to you at all, the smartest guy writing on this topic (that I know) is Doug McGuff, who co-authored this book, this blog, and has his own site here (read his articles). Heretically, I think his stuff is better than the founder's stuff.
Of course, most of the hardcore fitness folks have moved on from Superslow because all it does is give you big muscles, slow-twitch strength, and bone mass. Most of the serious fitness junkies seem to have moved to Crossfit.
I personally like superslow better, and by a lot. 15 minutes 1x a week of tremendously (mentally) hard work is much easier for me than finding the hour a day to do crossfit. And I'm not training to be dangerous...I'm training to be physically healthy.
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Hey Aretae,
I had a read through McGuff's stuff, and while he writes very clearly and logically, his stuff seems to miss out on one vital point, that is evidence.
I can't find any actual data showing that the super slow, HIT approach actually works better than normal approaches.
Instead there are some discussions on how people who don't agree with him are exhibiting various psychological failings. This strikes me as a warning sign rather than reassuring.
Is there some clear evidence pages that I've just missed?
Drpat,
Which McGuff stuff did you read? BBS, or UE, or both?
I had orignally read a little paperback semi-pamphlet (100ish pages) that a friend of his handed me...and it seemed to have evidence in it, but I haven't seen the booklet in 10 years.
OTOH, reading his stuff now, I tend to agree with your assessment. Not much evidence. I haven't read his new book, but Perfidy seems to think there's a bunch of evidence in there.
I know I've seen really good stuff from him on the relative uselessness of aerobic activity. On the other hand, the science of weightlifting seemed to be substantially less good.
At the same time, I am certain I picked up 10-20 pounds of muscle in the year I was doing Superslow under a McGuff Devotee...and that was 3-4 times a month for 1/2 hour or less, depending on schedule. And a collegiate level competitive weight-lifter buddy of mine was super-impressed by its effectiveness, to a point that he barely paid for any sessions he made so many of his friends try it.
The psych-failings issue comes a lot from the Objectivist foundation from Ken Hutchins. Indeed, they do overdo that a lot.
Oddly, I think his science is very strong when attacking other positions. OTOH, I have only results (across a bunch of folks I know) for Superslow/HIT, and the science seems weaker.
Cardio -- I think his science is good, and I've seen enough other stuff to be convinced that unless you're chasing mood elevation, it's not good for you past trivial amounts.
Overtraining -- at the very least, he's demonstrated that for strength and muscle mass, 1/2 hour 1x a week is not significantly less effective than regular 2 hours 5x a week workouts. and 1/20th the cost is a substantial reason to go that way, even if it's not better.
Superslow -- we've demonstrated fabulous results in geriatric patients -- huge strength gains with NO chance of injury (done right).
Other benefits of weight training: Bone mass, general improved health, including cardio function.
Is it better than other weight training? I don't think that's clear, though there's some anecdote (I've read Darden, Mentzer, Hutchins as well, who I think lay out some evidence). I think it's clear that it's at least not MUCH worse, and the time commitment is enormously less.
I've read a lot of UE.
He comes across as really strong when attacking such weak positions as long duration aerobics and huge volume bodybuilding (20 sets per body part).
It's not so much the HIT theory that seems unsupported as the Super Slow, One set to failure approach.
There seems to be a vast amount of very successful programs that can be put under the HIT banner.
I put on about 25 pounds doing the Doggcrapp approach. This is billed as one-set-to-failure, but includes some fairly heavy "warm up sets" and the "work set" is Rest-pause, so you could argue that there is actually about 4 or 5 sets of actual work, many with very short breaks in between.
So HIT seems well supported, it's just the one super slow set to failure that I was after more data on.
The other thing about this approach that worries me greatly is how well it lines up with what we would want to be true.
Better results from less work sounds awfully like lose weight from eating chocolate or attract women by sitting at home surfing the internet.
I know it is sometimes true, but the shear seductiveness of the idea makes me want more evidence.
I read the book last week, and there are studies cited, in places like JAMA and other prestigious-sounding journals. I can pull some from the notes if you're interested.
The tone of the book was not aggressive - more matter of fact. Where the authors disagreed with received wisdom, they explained their reasoning, and there were usually footnotes.
I get where you're coming from on the dream exercise program - 15 minutes a week to get RIPPED! - but the science I'm reading in McGuff lines up with the science in Good Calories, Bad Calories - from different angles, to be sure, but very complementary. Still and all, the idea that you fatigue your muscles thoroughly, quickly, then give them time to heal, well that does make sense to me. I can see how going back before the muscles are ready would not improve results. Unlike eating chocolate - which, never mind the effects of the carbs is still just calories.
Like Aretae said, if this plan was half as effective as regular workout strategies, the fact that it takes 1/20 the time still makes it valuable. And they're saying, and Aretae and his friends are saying, it's more than half as effective.
Looking back, I think the reason I gained more muscle and more strength working concrete was the fact that I was unconsciously doing superslow - occasional supreme effort, with long periods of very moderate effort. All the (non-HIT) lifting and exercise I did in my 20s before that didn't do half - hell, a quarter as much as six months on that crew. I was ripped, and I got paid for it.
So I see anecdotal support, and while I haven't read the supporting documentation for McGuff's book, the arguments he laid out seemed convincing to me.
So........
Spent a long hour in the bookstore reading Darden, Mentzer, Little, Zicherman.
And I reread a lot of McGuff online...but haven't read hutchins again.
Basically, it's about Arthur Jones & his disciples.
HIT... to failure with rest & good form seems to be the key.
Superslow is (IMO) JUST a HIT protocol built to minimize injury and maximize good form. And I think it's obvious that it does those 2 things.
I haven't seen the hardcore controlled study yet (Half HIT, half frequent training)....but I've got a mountain of evidence now that says that at worst, the HIT protocol is no worse for mass/strength building than standard approaches.
And the physiology of muscle growth (microtears and R&R) seems solid too.
Unless you're focused on power/fast twitch or in endurance training or sports or endorphin highs...I see no reason to do anything non-HIT. Except 3-4 hours of mild cardio a week matters...and not sitting too much matters too.
It seems to me that you can do power/fast twitch HIT, but it sure won't be super-slow.
It looks like the only way to be sure is to try it, so I did the first SS workout Wednesday night.
One huge advantage that nobody has mentioned yet: You can get by with spending much less money on weights, as you don't need anywhere near as many kg when doing 10/10 counts.
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