OVERLOAD PERSONAL TRAINING FACILITIES

JOHN: I also wanted to touch on the fact that you are presently heading up a whole new training facility in Florida. I guess it’s the first of many franchises that will focus exclusively on high intensity training principles. Could you tell us a bit about this?

DREW: Yeah, I was approached by Josh Trentine and Jeff Tomaszewski, they run Overload Personal Training up in Beachwood, Ohio. They had been looking to start opening some new facilities and they knew me through the Superslow™ Exercise Guild and from my having worked for the Superslow Zone for a while. And they wanted to open an Overload facility down here and asked me if I would manage it for them, and if I would help them with various materials they were going to work on – a manual for their trainers, a book that Josh is writing, and different things. Right now I’m trying to get our facility up and running down here and hopefully we’ll have that ready to go in another week or two and working on various materials for all of the Overload facilities to help new trainers get up to speed on high intensity training principles and how best to apply those to different clients based on what those clients’ goals are and the clients’ individual response to exercise and general physical condition.

JOHN: That sounds great. And if people wanted to book an appointment with you or to contact you how would they go about doing that?

DREW: They could go and do it through the website. They could contact us at www.overloadfitness.com or they could call us by phone: (407) 260-6768.

THE GIANTS OF BODYBUILDING SCIENCE

JOHN: Who, in your opinion, are really the giants of the bodybuilding science field? The individuals upon whose shoulders we stand as we look to advance this discipline?

DREW: Arthur Jones undoubtedly. His contribution and his influence on everybody else is what really … Arthur brought science to exercise and he brought rational thinking to exercise. And if he hadn’t been involved, given his background as a wildlife film producer, I’m sure the world would have had a lot of really interesting nature films and things of that sort, but the exercise field would probably still be in the dark ages. Mike Mentzer would also come to mind, because Mike was the first one who really took a lot of what Arthur had first said and really thought about how to apply that precisely rather than just a general, overall exercise philosophy without any real specifics as to training harder, training less frequently. He figured out not just “less” but what was the specific amount, the specific frequency that would be appropriate for an individual.

JOHN: Those would be the “two pillars,” in my estimation as well, of that whole enterprise. Any other names come to mind or is everyone else pretty much footnotes to those two?

DREW: They are the two big ones that come to mind. I think that Ellington Darden deserves a lot of credit for keeping the torch lit and then running with that. He’s obviously done more than most people I can think of to popularize high intensity training and to keep a lot of Arthur’s exercise philosophy going. And still writing about it! Still putting out sensible information on high intensity training for people. I would also include you, of course, with Max Contraction, and keeping that Heavy Duty™ column alive in Ironman – if it wasn’t for the Heavy Duty™ column I probably would never have gotten started with high intensity or probably would have gotten around to it later than I did. I would also include Ken Hutchins in there too; I don’t agree with everything that he says regarding exercise, but more than anyone else I think Ken really was the person that made people focus on rep speed as an important factor in exercise. Maybe 10-10 isn’t the best way for everybody to train outside of people with osteoporosis or with injuries requiring a lot of caution, but at least he made people focus on the need to really pay attention to how they’re moving during exercise and on the importance of trying to train in a low force fashion, so that you can get a high level of intensity without wrecking yourself in the process.

JOHN: Right. Ken also, I think, credit to him as well in other areas. He was a good slayer of sacred cows in this industry too, and I think that was important. To at least have a point wherein – although we may disagree with certain derivative aspects of exercise, I think that everyone in high intensity is on the same page in terms of fundamentals – but I think Ken defended that very vociferously at a time when there weren’t a lot of people that were willing to do that. And even his rant against physiologists and physiotherapists I think is long overdue.

DREW: Yeah. You’d think that having the scientific background that is required to get into physical therapy that physical therapists would have more of a clue about exercise. But that is something that is changing now I’m pleased to report. When I was working for the Superslow Zone there was discussion – because we had some physical therapists that were involved – there was discussion of comments made at one of the national conventions about the importance of people focusing on high intensity training and that simply having people do these easy exercises with rubber bands wasn’t going to work anymore. If they weren’t going to have people do – and I think they specifically used the phrase “high intensity training” that they were not going to get much out of the therapy. Hopefully that will be a field that will help bridge all that over into the medical community because there are still a lot of doctors – with rare exceptions – that really don’t understand proper strength training.

ON THE BREAK WITH SUPERSLOW™

JOHN: I agree, and for the record – because there has been a lot of rumor and misinformation – do you want to now set the record straight as to why you broke from Superslow?

DREW: A couple of reasons. My main reason was that the Superslow Zone is recommending a protocol that I don’t believe is the most effective way to train and they are recommending it as the way for all of the clients to be trained. They use of course a Superslow repetition speed of 10-seconds up and 10-seconds down, and it simply isn’t necessary to move that slowly for a person to be safe. There have been force-gauge experiments conducted as well as mathematical models provided to me by various professional engineers in different fields which have all shown that once you start going slower than maybe four or five seconds lifting or lowering there’s no significant reduction in force. As long as you’re going about four or five seconds the difference in peak force that you’re exposed to is maybe going to be maybe about 1% or less than that and the 10/10. And even if you’re doing the old traditional Nautilus protocol of 2-seconds up, 4-seconds down, the actual difference in force is only along 3 or 4%. And how you reverse direction is far more important – in terms of safety - -than how long you take to get from the start to the finish; if you reverse direction smoothly that’s going to do far more to make the exercise safer than to go at a particular speed on the way in between.

JOHN: And what was the second point that underscored the reason for your departure?

DREW: The second point was that they were still recommending, despite tons of evidence to the contrary, that people do exercises with weights allowing sets going on from anywhere from a minimum of 100-seconds up to a maximum of 180-seconds. They’re talking a minute and 40-seconds up to 3-minutes. And I actually wrote a review of all the available research that had been done on Superslow™ that looked at its effect on strength and in the studies that used a similar Time Under Load – up around a minute and a half to 3-minutes – the strength increases were dismal compared to the studies where Superslow was performed using a more conventional duration of 40 to 70-seconds. And I presented this to them and they still wouldn’t change their position. So I figured, “If they’re still going to do what they’re doing in spite of evidence to the contrary it’s not something I can be involved with.” I still believe that it’s an appropriate way for some people to train under certain circumstances and certain times and it should be used when it’s appropriate – but it’s not the Be-all, End-all. And you can’t train everybody that comes into the facility like they are an 80-year-old woman with osteoporosis. What happened with me leaving them is, in a nutshell, they refused to modify or update the protocol to reflect new information and refused to even consider any information or evidence that contradicted their position on exercise and on the protocol. Most specifically, their refusal to acknowledge new information showing that it was not necessary or even beneficial to move any slower than about a four to five-second lifting and lowering cadence with regards to reducing or minimizing peak forces or that there were no significant improvements in muscular loading moving any more slowly than that, as well as the insistence on continuing to recommend a very, very high Time Under Load – over a minute and a half to three minutes – despite the fact that most of the research on hypertrophy shows a strong correlation between load and growth stimulation, which would indicate that you need heavier weights, which are incompatible with very long set durations. And then there were studies that directly compared Superslow™ when performed with both lower and higher Time Under Loads and the longer Time Under Loads produced abysmal strength improvement. I mean there was some strength improvement but you would expect that from any previously untrained subject on any protocol that was at least progressive in nature. But when Superslow™ using a minute and a half to three minute Time Under Load is compared with Superslow™ using about 50 to 70-seconds – which is what Wayne Wescott used in his studies, it’s obvious that the shorter Time Under Loads are far more effective for stimulating strength – and of course by extension size increases.

JOHN: It’s the old intensity/duration continuum.

DREW: I don’t understand why that’s so hard for them to accept but they just refused to change and I could not be involved with an organization that would just outright ignore evidence that contradicted their positions. At least they could have given consideration to it and at least they could have objectively looked at and considered that maybe they needed to make a change.

JOHN: It didn’t really have to be an “either-or” scenario; they could have said, “For those of you who are interested in size and strength, here’s your TUL – you can still move the weight up and down at 10/10 but it’s just going to be performed with a heavy enough load that your TUL will be in the neighborhood of 40 to 70-seconds. Those of you looking to rehabilitate or who are elderly or too frail to use the heavier load and shorter TULs, you can use the longer TULs with lighter weight and still make progress with it – albeit perhaps not as rapidly.”

DREW: Yeah. Well, actually even with the elderly it should be used as a “break in” – and nothing else. Research on osteoporosis shows that a heavy load is essential in increasing bone mineral content and bone density – and that’s the biggest benefit of strength training to most elderly people. True, they should start out with a lighter weight and a longer Time Under Load for the purpose of learning how to properly perform the exercises and rehearsing proper form so that they can gradually be eased up to a heavy level. But even with the elderly – even with the very frail people – it should just be used as a start so that they can be eased into it. Eventually though, if they want results, they have to use a meaningful level of resistance and if they’re using a meaningful level of resistance they simply can’t do it for a long period of time.

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