Another Look At High Rep Work And Heavy Lifting

Doing high rep training does have its benefits but it's not worth training for it daily. It's not a requirement, for most people, it's a choice and if it works for them cool, keep at if it's important to you. Where in the real world are you planning to do a pull-up somewhere that you'll be doing it more than once? The military? That's really the only place where you'll be doing that or if you're training for a sport. Pull-Ups are essential and have solid benefits but in reality, you don't need to do a ton of them in a row unless that's part of your training regimen. Now if you did them using tension and can only do a few, that may be more beneficial than just banging them out half assing it. 

Don't get me wrong, I'll do a few in sets myself but that's really about it, I get just as strong and I'm content with doing a few at a time. Telling people you can do as many as 25 perfect ones or something in a row and not actually have footage, you're lying you ass off and you're proving doing that many may be impressive but to who really? Same with Push-ups, shit I'd rather do a push-up that lasts a minute or longer on one rep than bang out whatever number trying to be a part of a group of those who do hundreds a day, that's awesome you can do that but what situation would you be doing hundreds of them for? See where I'm going with this.

The most common people who do any form of high rep training is either a person in prison, a pro athlete, a maniacal fitness fanatic or a movie star preparing for a role, the majority aren't required to do it. The prisoner does it because it's needed for survival because what else is he going to do during the day? He's locked up and has a small window of time to go outside in the yard and have a couple quick meals (unless he's in Solitary Confinement and he's in there 24/7) and that's it, not that big of a life and has be on his toes cause his life may depend on it. 

These are opinions more than anything but in my experience, it's not always pretty when you push yourself so hard it can lead to an injury and you don't let the body adapt and let things heal up. I've gone so hard at times that I needed to just heal and focus on Joint Loosening or Isometrics the next day and that's more than enough. Too many fall for this notion that if you do countless reps daily it's going to put you in elite classes, sure for a while but when you're starting to hurt more than feeling good like with bad knees, elbow problems, shoulder imbalances, ankle issues and your back has just been taking a beating, is it really worth all that effort? 

As of right now, when it comes to high rep training it's either with Bands, Step Ups or Hammer work and neither of these occur all the time, otherwise I'm doing Isometrics, One Arm Carries, Slams, Animal Movements, Chest Expander and the PUGS where I often don't do more than 50-60 in a workout cause they're that intense, did 100 once and haven't done that many since. Fuck I've done Isometric Holds on those and that's brutal. Physically, I don't have knee pain, no elbow problems, shoulders feel great and my back is just as strong and durable as ever, None of which came from doing high reps all the time, I've tried that and had to back off cause it burned me out and had to switch things up. 

When it comes to heavy weights, going hard on them too often or not understanding the mechanics can lead to tragedy more than triumph. Unless you're training for competition or whatever, it's not worth your health for things outside the gym or your garage. Can lift 500 lbs? Cool, so have other people, it's impressive from a weight training point of view and shows incredible strength but it's only temporary strength. People may not like me saying this and that's ok. Where other than the gym are you lifting 500 lbs? In most places, you'd either be crushed or need a forklift cause not every place has things that are the same as a barbell. My best bench is 305, there are plenty of guys who can do far more than that but overall, is it really that important to be praised for? I don't train bench much at all anymore and can still go into a gym and press up close to 300, last time I hit about 290. Great, how about them Giants?

The point is, if you're goal oriented to do high rep work frequently or do heavy weights to get stronger, that's all well and great and hope you're successful and have less chances of getting injured but from a realistic point of view, it's better to focus on things that not only make you durable and have solid conditioning but to be strong for a long period of time instead of only seconds in comparison. There's also less chances of needing surgery later down the road. I've only been in the hospital for something needed done once in the the last 14 years, unless I was getting test done or getting a physical (which I've only done once or twice since I was in my 20's), I haven't been checked into a hospital for anything severe and haven't had to be cut open to have something repaired since 2005. The closest thing I've come to checking in myself for was a chiropractor to fix some stuff in my neck and my back, that's it LOL. When I was laid up with my sciatica injuries, I never went to the hospital, not once, I took some painkillers, slept on a mattress on a floor space, gave my body time to heal, do Isometrics and eventually DDP Yoga and I made it through. 

Train according to your needs and goals, you don't have to listen to me either, if you want to do all that stuff, awesome and make the best of it and make it worth it for you. Just giving you an idea of what things can occur and what you can do to prevent certain things. You got the power to do something great for yourself, just don't sacrifice your well being for it otherwise it'll just lead to misery and pain. Doing high rep work too frequently can have consequences that you don't want later in life, same thing can be said about heavy weights; it can bite you in the ass if you don't do things properly and understand that very few things outside of that have benefits in real life situations. Do what's possible and be aware.

Here's an idea of what I mean.....

Be amazingly awesome and take care of your body. Strengthen those bones like they were Vibranium, make those tendons like steel cords and develop muscle that is functional and lasts. 

Pros And Cons Of High Volume Training

 Depending on your goals, high volume work can be beneficial and have you building a solid physique. There's nothing particularly wrong with doing workouts that go high up in reps but there are drawbacks just like anything else. High Volume can be time consuming even if you do them throughout the day so it's important to be wise with what you're willing to do. 

Bodyweight exercises are specifically more geared to high volume training since you're using nothing more than yourself as resistance. Doing exercises like Squats, Push-Ups, Sit-Ups, Lunges and others work well for this and they can be done anywhere, anytime. Two distinctive athletes that did well with High Volume in this manner was the Great Gama & Herschel Walker, both excelling in their chosen sports of Wrestling & Football. They were doing repetitions well into the thousands almost daily and had success in that manner. The drawback to this is, not everyone can do thousands of reps everyday and they've got lives that do take up some of their time like work, kids, all kinds of things. These 2 men lived on training and were practicing stuff all the time so when it came to their conditioning, they had to maintain that elite level and not do a whole lot of anything else.

When it comes to weight training, this was more along the lines of bodybuilding from guys like Arnold, Lee Haney, Lou Ferrigno, Robbie Robinson and others who trained more than 3 hours a day along with their diet, maintaining steroid cycles, recovering and other things. For a regular guy, it's not the most ideal but if it helps them and they make that kind of commitment, it can work well in their favor. It takes a different mindset to train this way. Wrestlers are known well for their conditioning and doing rep after rep of calisthenics, weight training, drills and other forms in order to take on incredible extremes. Dan Gable was a master at this and during his coaching career, he pushed athletes in ways that other colleges didn't have. It's the reason he won 15 NCAA Championships as a coach and dominated college wrestling with fierce competitiveness. High Volume work does work in ways we can't imagine.

The cons to doing high volume work in many cases is the risk factor of injury. The more you do, the greater the risk. The other thing is that some who do high volume, aren't always in control of the movements themselves. They tend to screw the form and be explosive which has its own pros and cons but in this case, if you do too many reps that aren't complimentary to the movement, you can cause some serious damage. Doing a thousand squats and push-ups a day can work for a while and some people can get away with it but others have had joint problems, muscle tears, bad knees and shoulder issues due to high volume work. It can take a toll especially if you can't recover enough and you keep doing it over time. Some people go to extremes and think they're fit enough to withstand certain levels of stress. Doing exercises like Burpees in the hundreds is far from anything beneficial other than making some kind of record. There's no value in it that can have you sustain a good quality of life. The exercise itself is very exhausting and works many muscle groups at the same time and has a higher risk factor for damaging joints. Now if you were to do this exercise a couple times a week using intervals that are reasonable, that's more beneficial and less daunting plus there's better form of recovery.

It is important to be wise in order to make high volume work well for you. I do it with exercises like Step Ups, Circuit Training and using the Chest Expander but I don't go so far as to do them for so long its going to burn me out or hurt me which I've learned the hard way. It's not worth your health to do high volume to impress anybody or think you can train the same way as a pro athlete or an Olympian. They go through rigors of training you don't see in the magazines or on the news or sports channels, it's hours upon hours of countless repetition in order to perfect the craft, the majority cannot do this especially for years on end. Be mindful in how you go about it and listen to your body. Some days, you won't always have it and pushing so hard in order to prove something becomes ego training instead of practicality and sustainability. 

The pros of high volume in my opinion is that they can give levels of conditioning and endurance that would put you above many and with the right recovery and having good joint health, it can get you into incredible shape and do things that many can't. Strength lasts longer and you're going that extra mile making things happen. It's just a different level of training, that's all it truly is when you look at the big picture. Many can go long and do well with it but it's not for everyone and that's ok. You do what works best for you and makes you successful. If it's high volume, awesome and keep killing it but don't make it a dogmatic approach and tell people that's the only way to train, that's a sales pitch and more about ego than anything else. 

High Rep Training Or Isometrics: Which One Is Better As You Get Older?

 With advances in science, nutrition and fitness training, it still boils down to how an individual adapts and maintain throughout their lives. High rep training can be very beneficial when it comes to being in top condition, hell I'll do up to 500 Step Ups in a workout and have written about it a time or two, also do 500 total reps in circuit workouts with the Dopa Band. To an extent, it has its perks and can do wonders. However, certain exercises are not meant to be done in high reps like one arm push-ups or hundreds of burpees, what's to be gained from that? Where's the long term benefit? 

The greasing the groove method of high rep training is a lot more beneficial than trying to hundreds of reps within a fixed time. Do pushups here and there throughout the day, pull-ups or whatever BASIC movement. Gives you time to rest and be fresh when you get to a new set. Herschel Walker was a big advocate for this and other athletes. Do what works for you. As you get older, you might need to do as high of reps or total reps. You're not going to see many people do hundreds of squats and pushups at 70 or 80, some can at that age and it's incredibly impressive but how necessary is it?

With Isometrics, it can benefit just about anybody. If you've never worked out a day in your life or are a seasoned vet, you can enjoy the benefits of Isometrics. Once you feel it, even at a small percentage, it can work your musculature like a charm and develop strong tendons and ligaments. There are different types of Isometrics but the Yin & Yang are Overcoming & Yielding Isometrics. Overcoming is doing a hold at a fixed point and you can't go any further. Going against something immoveable. Yielding is holding a position where you fight against gravity and keeping that position as best as possible (plank, horse stance, wall sit, L Sit etc.). Now there's a way to combine the two called Super or Hybrid Isometrics where you take a position where there's a stopping point but you're fighting to keep that position using a strap or a loop like putting a strap on your legs to squat up but you stop and hold that position while fighting gravity at the same time. 

Isometrics can be extremely adaptable and virtually done anywhere and depending on the intensity, it can be short or long with the type of goal you're going for. Isometrics can be used in a variety of ways to warm ups, cool downs, in between sets, working around injuries, strengthen an area of the body to even things out, a workout in and of itself or as a method to use for purely strength training and do activities the rest of the time. 

What method of training is better for you as you get older? In a nutshell, neither is better or worse than the other. It comes down to what benefits you the most and gives you the type of quality training that helps you live long and prosper (for you Trekkies). Both have their pros and cons but both can be used in different ways. They can be used on alternate days, used for recovery, used as supersets, do splits for certain muscle groups, whatever keeps you strong and going. We all follow different things and make changes but it doesn't mean we can't do what we love. Train to what helps you. I've done both in the same workout and on different days or done one exclusively for a period and changed it up. 

Keep training and make the most of what's possible and learn the basics. Have an amazingly awesome day. 

Numbers For Step Ups

 The number 500 seems to be the "gold standard" for certain exercises, mainly bodyweight like Squats and such so why have such an arbitrary number? Karl Gotch believed 500 Squats was to get into the door even though some guys were doing far more than that at one point like up to 1000 or more. He himself could do that in his sleep, I never truly understood it but it has been the go to number in many wrestling schools like Verne Gagne's camp back in the day when guys like Flair & Steamboat trained under him. 

For someone like Bob Backlund who was doing bodyweight stuff and weight training throughout his career, forgot more about conditioning than most people will ever know but his true calling when it came to Fitness was the Step Ups & Ab Wheel. He would do hundreds of either one with ease almost daily and is still considered to this day one of the most conditioned athletes of any era and he's in his 70's. I like the Ab Wheel and have done hundreds of reps myself but the Step Ups are a godsend of an exercise. In my opinion, it's not how many reps you can do, it's really how long can you go. Backlund could go for an hour or more if he felt like it, for me, 30 minutes to an hour is more than enough lol.

Once I set a goal for myself to do high reps, I just went for time from then on. Sometimes I'll see how many reps I can do in a certain amount of time or just pick a number and go. I don't go for more than 1000 in a workout and the fastest time for me was about 41 minutes. In most workouts whether in a row or over the course of a workout, 500 Step Ups or more seems to be the norm and I get more out of that than doing 500 Squats. In reality, 500 Step Ups is really just a number that just happen to be a certain standard that I made for myself, I never found in my research someone doing 500 reps in a workout as a number someone has to achieve to make anything worthwhile, it was just a choice. 

In my Dopa Workouts (10% OFF using Discount Code POWERANDMIGHT), I would superset the band with bodyweight Step Ups or do an exercise for a few minutes and then do sets of 25-50 per leg of Step Ups. In 3 workouts for example, the numbers came out to 500-800 Reps total. Some days, I just do Step Ups for one workout and do other the things at different times in the day. When I do circuits that are inspired by Darebee, I would substitute the squats with Step Ups and end with 300 or more total reps at the end. When I do Step Ups for time, some days I'll do 10-30 minutes and just go with it. My fastest 500 in a row was around 23 minutes and that was doing a countdown. When I do 1000, I'll use my deck of cards for that workout. 

I don't have any desire to go for hours like Mr. Backlund because for one, ADD and two, I don't want to so damn high that I can't even think straight the rest of the time. I want to do other stuff too and enjoy being in the moment and not stare at the ceiling. Is there really a "Gold Standard", not really because everybody is different and it's important to have a variety to do. If you want to do 100 one day, 300 the next or 500 or more, that's up to you, do what you can for that day and know you got something in. This is probably the only exercise now that I like to do 100's of and feel happy about it, others whether for upper body or lower body is really roughly 100 or more and don't go beyond a couple hundred if that. 

Step Ups can be done with bodyweight, with weights, a weight vest, a backpack; they can be done slow or fast. They strengthen the legs, less impact on the knee joints, great for conditioning for any sport. They are truly underrated and have enormous benefits for your health. Get in some Step Ups today and have fun with them, not ready for high reps yet? That's ok, start with small numbers and work your way up, don't rush it and be mindful. They will test your conditioning that's for sure. Be amazingly awesome.