"If I had more time, I'd work out more"
"Some is good, more must be better"
"You should do something every day"
These are some of the common statements from the conventional world of health and fitness. Obviously, we believe the opposite. Better statements might be:
"Exercise should be brief and intense"
"We should take days to recover"
"Exercise is different from recreation"
One of the great gurus of the High Intensity/SuperSlow movement uses a phrase he calls Dose/Response. If someone has an infection he can be prescribed an antibiotic. To get a positive "response" he takes a specific amount and waits for the healing. It would be wrong to take a whole bunch in the name of "some is good more is better." The benefits of proper exercise works the same way. It's the body's reaction to the stimulus that creates the benefit. This is why exercise needs to be so intense. Low grade; going through the motions, "exercise" doesn't stimulate anything (except, maybe, an appetite). Walking, using light weights, "just moving" all are examples of "exercise" that creates zero stimulus. So often when we meet new people and ask them what they are currently doing for exercise, they quote these kinds of things. It's truly incredible how much time they put in and how deconditioned they end up being.
There is one subtle benefit to high intensity training: confidence. Anyone can walk around the block; few people can get that last rep out. It's positively gratifying to watch people of all ages learn how to work harder than they ever have.
Two more important points:
1.) With great irony, a phrase has been extricated from the normal and acceptable fitness verbiage: No pain; no gain. Usually, I disagree with conventional wisdom. But this phrase has validity with one qualifier: We separate bad pain from good pain. "Good pain" occurs with our workout; it is simple fatigue taken to a very high level. What you really feel in your last two critical reps is intense muscle burn. This is the body reacting to the much needed stimulus. It is just that reaction we need to create the response by the body to come back stronger. "Bad pain" means if something hurts i.e. shoulder or knee. In the case of "good pain", we want you to fight through it as much as possible. In the case of "bad pain", we want you to stop immediately. Our paramount goal is injury avoidance.
2.) Even doing a SuperSlow workout at our facility, it's possible to just go through the motions. It's possible to "fake" out our trainers as to how hard you are working. The success of our clients is much more important to us than any financial remuneration. Please make your workouts productive. Fire up and give it your all. Then you can take your many days of rest.
