ENDURANCE by Earle E. Liederman - Author and Publisher, (1926), - Chapter 14

As several times previously I have stated, what are exercises of endurance for one may be muscle-building work for another. Hence, experimenting must or should be done by the individual himself, to determine in what class certain exercises belong, so far as he is concerned individually. As endurance work places a heavy demand upon the lungs, and also as most forms of leg work tire the respiratory organs quicker than any other type of movements, it is necessary that special attention should be applied to all leg exercises.

The common deep knee bending exercise consists of squatting down until practically sitting on the heels and then rising again until the legs are straight. This really is a movement of endurance, for, with a little practice, it can be done hundreds or times without stopping. In the beginning, however, to one who never before has fully bent his knees ten times, it quickly will cause fatigue; but rapid progress can be made in this exercise so that after a few months one, two or three hundred repetitions can be made before the student becomes winded or the muscles tired. This indicates the rapidity with which endurance will follow the determination and use of proper methods to acquire it.

After you can perform one hundred and fifty or two hundred deep knee bends without stopping or becoming winded, you must have resistance to work against, or a bar-bell or someone sitting on your shoulders, to make this movement a muscle-building one. As your legs become stronger and your wind improves, the continued practice of deep knee bending or squatting with the same weight on your shoulders day after day will make this an endurance movement, for the legs will have become so muscular and strong and the wind will have become in such excellent condition that one hundred or more repetitions readily can be performed—unless the weight is increased as the legs become accustomed to the work. By the continual increasing of the weight or resistance the work becomes progressive, and naturally comes under the classification of muscle-building exercise.

For the individual well along in years or the one with a weak heart, no progressive work should be indulged in, and the deep knee bending exercise, if done at all, should be performed very slowly, with a slight pause after each movement so as to give the heart, wind and thigh muscles a chance to recuperate. In this manner endurance movements can be performed, regardless of what the individual’s organic condition may be, except, of course, serious cases under medical care; and progress can be made in added repetitions rather than in progressive resistance.

For instance, let us say that ten counts will be sufficient for the beginner who never has bent his knees in exercise. After three months he easily can perform one hundred repetitions; after six months, two hundred; and so on. Of course, such exercise would become very monotonous if no objective were in view; for this reason a limit should be drawn as to the amount of endurance work desired. If you intended to use your thighs and wind in mountain climbing, naturally it would be advantageous to you to be able to perform five hundred deep knee bends without stopping, as this would help you greatly in your proposed climb; you would find that the endurance you had acquired from the deep knee bending exercise would help you greatly in walking up seep grades, step over step. If you did not indulge in such exercise before attempting a long and laborious mountain climb you would experience fatigue before making much headway up the mountain. But if you did not contemplate performing such a pastime or any other strenuous indulgence that would be a test of your endurance powers, it would be absurd to attempt to work up to five hundred deep knee bends, for what would be the object? Without a definite objective I am sure that between one hundred and two hundred deep knee bends would give you sufficient endurance in the muscles of your thighs for all ordinary demands of daily life or emergencies.

For the muscles of the knee, the ordinary rising on the toes is an exercise that can be continued for a great number of counts. If this work is to be made progressive, you must work against a strong resistance such as by elastic or spring exerciser, or hold a bar-bell, or a heavy weight at your side while performing this movement. But as the calves are used continually in every-day walking, they are naturally somewhat hardened against exercise so that they cannot be enlarged easily, and yet they are capable of great endurance. Even the average individual, unaccustomed to any form of physical activity, has muscles of the calves capable of propelling the body in walking for great distances. The size of the calves does not need to be given any consideration in respect to endurance. I have seen men with large muscular legs who tired very quickly in walking, and others whose legs had absolutely no muscular shape whatever who were capable of walking mile after mile without giving their legs a thought. As for preparing the muscles of the calves for endurance, I think that the best form of exercise would be heel-and-toe walking. In beginning this heel-and-toe walking you will find that the muscles of the shin play a more important part than do the muscles of the calves, as they will tire more quickly. Of course, the heel-and-toe walk is really muscle-building work for the beginner, but for the experienced walker it becomes an endurance exercise. It will be logical exercise, then, for strengthening the muscles of the shin in order to give the region below the knee greater endurance.

If you sit down in a chair and lift your feet off the floor, point your toes downward and then bring them upward toward the knee as far as they will go, you will find a strain placed upon the muscles on the outside of each shin. By bending your ankles upward and downward in this manner you exercise these muscles. Roller skating and ice skating tire these muscles of the shin very quickly, as you have found out for yourself if you do any skating.

If while sitting in a chair with your feet off the floor you are capable of raising and lowering your toes for a few hundred repetitions, you will give these muscles excellent work which will help you greatly in your endurance work performed with the legs. Deep knee bending, of course, brings into play these muscles to an appreciable extent. And while it is true that you are exercising chiefly the muscles of the thigh in performing the deep knee bend, nevertheless as the other muscles are brought into play the exercise is classified under group work; and muscles exercised in groups always have more power and coordination than muscles developed individually.

The hips also come into action in practically all forms of leg work, and strong hips are to be desired. The finest exercise for the hips that I know of is to walk rapidly through the water when it is about knee deep. By plunging forward, taking as long steps as possible, you will find that you quickly will become fatigued in the hip region. Also, walk backward in the water as rapidly as possible.

There are many who cannot do this exercise except when in bathing and many have no bathing facilities. These must indulge in other forms of hip movements. I suggest reclining work; that is, exercises performed while lying on the back, abdomen, and either side, and raising the legs upward from these positions. These exercises give direct exercise to the hip muscles.

Walking up a steep grade or up flights of stairs also is an excellent movement for the hips, but such work borders on muscle-building exercise unless, through practice, you are able to walk up twenty or thirty flights of stairs without experiencing fatigue, or if you are able to walk up a steep grade for a quarter of a mile or more without becoming breathless, you can secure excellent endurance work for the hips by such exercise.

The arms always have interested me. I have enjoyed beholding massive, knotty muscles, and it is my opinion and belief that the arm never can become too large in size. I have seen so many strong men with splendid necks, fine chest and backs, and well developed legs, whose arms spoiled the contour of their physiques owing to the fact that they lacked proportionate size. Every time you move your arms you use your chest, shoulder and back muscles, as well as, in certain movements, the muscles covering the abdomen. Because of this, it is my opinion that special attention should be given to the arms, so long as they move practically all other parts of the upper body.

Do not misunderstand me, and think that you should neglect the shoulders, back and chest because of this statement. You should exercise the other muscles just the same, but you should give a little more thought to and put a little more effort into your upper arms. Strong arms are in demand and need many times; and their coordination with the shoulders, back and chest will prove invaluable in performing endurance work.

One of the most valuable arm exercises of which I know and which will bring into play also the abdomen, chest, shoulders and back, is rope-climbing. To be able to climb hand over hand up a rope, time and time again, is really an endurance feat. That it requires great strength is true; but as the repetitions can be performed many counts it should be classed as endurance work, just as lifting a fifty-pound dumb-bell overhead three or four hundred times should be classified as an exercise of endurance. To lift a fifty-pound dumb-bell once is strength work for the beginner, and to endeavor to climb the rope seems quite a stunt to the average individual; but it is something that should be mastered, for the coordination and endurance that you will acquire from this exercise may prove invaluable in saving your own life or that of another.

The triceps muscle on the back of the arm can get sufficient work by the dipping exercise. This may be performed while lying flat on the floor and pushing up with the body rigid, or it can be performed between two chairs or parallel bars. In either case one can progress until able to perform the floor dip over one hundred counts and the dip between parallel bars over fifty counts without stopping because of fatigue.

To obtain coordination between the muscles used in rope-climbing and those used in dipping between parallel bars, I suggest and strongly urge you to include a little horizontal bar work into your program. If you have no horizontal bar convenient, the same work can be done on the side of a fence, on a partition wall, or on any other object that you can reach from the ground. First pull yourself up until your chin looks over the bar, fence, or other support, then pull upward a little higher until you are able to place one elbow over the bar or fence. Then quickly place the other elbow over, and finally pull up until both arms are straight and you are resting entirely on your hands with the bar or fence rail at your hips. In other words, you should be able to climb over a fence or any object that is in your way in one continuous motion. This movement will give you coordination between your biceps and triceps and would be of great value should the occasion ever arise for you to save yourself by climbing. Actual rowing is an excellent exercise, also, for developing the biceps and triceps and coordination between these muscles.

By the above it will be understood that I advocate outdoor exercises as well as indoor exercise for the obtaining of endurance. I know from my training experience that unless you actually perform open-air sports or pastimes calling for endurance you never will become proficient in them. You can exercise faithfully in your bedroom, perform the deep knee bending movement, many times daily, do calf and shin work and the hip work until the muscles ache, and yet if you were put to the test of running up-hill you would find your respiratory organs sadly lacking in endurance. For satisfactory results you should combine indoor exercises with actual endurance work out of doors.

The same principal can be illustrated by swimming movements. After learning the motions of the crawl stroke, while you are lying in your bed or on a cot you can go through every motion with your arms, shoulders and even to the fluttering of your feet. Yet if you had had no actual experience in swimming you would lose the coordination learned in land swimming as soon as you hit the water. Of course, the knowledge of the movement would go a long way towards helping you to master actual swimming in a shorter time than without this knowledge.

But even though you were able to swim and stayed out of the water for a year or more and simply performed the movements of swimming, you would not be able to swim such distances from such practice as you would if you did actual swimming daily. It is like learning boxing in the privacy of your own room. It reads good on paper, and as you shadow-box you knock out every imaginative opponent with whom you are boxing; but even with such knowledge, and experience, were you to put on the gloves with a fairly experienced boxer you would be found wanting.

The only thing that you actually can do in the privacy of your own bedroom is to build up your body. You cannot learn to excel in any sport and you cannot obtain endurance indoors. Such quality of movement must be done in actual practice.

Competition is the greatest means of obtaining this practice and you would do well to indulge in as many forms of competitive exercise as possible. Let us suppose that you are a fairly good swimmer and that you can swim a quarter of a mile before experiencing fatigue. If you had someone who could swim a little better than you to swim with you for the same distance it would force you to make better time in the water. Perhaps the first time you might experience great discomfort at the completion of the quarter-mile swim; but after a while it would become easy, and a half-mile swim would interest you more than ever before.

Rarely does anyone extend himself to his limit of speed or endurance without competition or self-preservation in view. If you should be in the habit of starting out alone to take cross-country runs, endeavoring to see how quickly you can make certain distances at a rather brisk trot, you would be surprised at the much better time in which you would make similar distances if someone were racing or even running with you. And you might smash all records if you were running for your life.

It can be appreciated, then, that incentive plays an important part when it comes to extending ourselves. Just as it is quite difficult for an individual living alone to exercise day after day to build up his body, so it is difficult for an individual to adhere steadily to efforts to obtain or increase his endurance powers all by himself. Where two or more people exercise together, each one taking turns at performing movements and each one trying to outdo the other, rapid progress can be made in body building, just as track records are broken in competition which never would be broken if the runner or hurdler, or whatever he may be, were performing the work alone.

It is not the purpose of this book to give you a great variety of exercises for body-building or movements that you should follow to obtain endurance. I have herein mentioned but a few of the best movement or exercises, merely as suggestions; but experience will teach you, through the practice you will undergo with your exercising, the best movement or series of movements for your case. In another book, Muscle Building, I have gone more fully into anatomical conditions and specific exercises.

I repeat that the main object of these pages on endurance is to awaken you fully to a realization of the value of the possession of coordination, strength and endurance sufficient to save your own life—or that of another, possibly someone more dear to you than your own life. However, I hope you will never be put to the test. Anyway, I hope the suggestions and advice contained in these pages will arouse enough enthusiasm within you to make your sports and pastimes more enjoyable.

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FORGET LABELS — JUST TRAIN HARD! - By Bob Whelan

Reprinted with permission of Hardgainer, Vol. 9, No. 1 (July-August 1997)

Many people make strength training a lot more complicated than it really is. I get phone calls all the time from people who say they want advice but just end up sucking the energy out of me because they can’t grasp the simplicity of training. They don’t realize that regardless of what mode or method you use, the foundation remains the same.

Many people are looking for a magic formula of success, not advice. They panic when they can’t get the exact number of reps in the bench press that the training cycle they are following says they should (cycles are a rough guide, but no guarantee of training success). They get hung up on minor details and want to “label” the type of training that I do, or think is “the best.” They don’t realize that there are many ways to train hard and productively. You don’t have to train using just one of them.

Strength training is at least as much art as it is science. Only you know what works best for you. Keep good training notes. Log every workout in detail. Learn from your training. Keep your training simple, because strength training is simple. Don’t let academic types confuse you (many of them enjoy doing this). Remember the foundation—train the whole body hard with an equal emphasis on pushing and pulling, with progression as the top priority. Many modes and methods can be used to do this. Focus on the basic multi-joint movements, eat right, and get plenty of rest. That’s it! Shake the dust off of your copy of Brawn, and reread the book. “Hard,” “safe” and “productive” are the only labels that are needed to describe your training.

Mix It Up

Even though you should train brutally hard, you should enjoy it! Stuart described this well in Brawn as “the joy of effort.” It’s all a matter of thinking. If you learn to enjoy training hard, you are more likely to be consistent. You will not stick with something that is viewed as drudgery. Enjoy training! One of the best ways to enjoy training is to “mix things up.” This will renew the enthusiasm of both your mind and body, as well as produce more balanced conditioning.

I have spent a good deal of my training time doing low reps and singles, but I also do 20-rep squats, 50s days, and high reps. I’ve used multiple sets for many years byt am currently getting good results using only one set to failure for each exercise. I’ve used both free weights and machines, and have even experimented with various speeds of motion. The point is that many modes and methods work, but it’s how you use them that counts. Don’t waste energy arguing about which one is “best” because there is no point. Try the different modes and methods yourself.

Every three or four months, change your routine. Make some big changes. Do 20-rep squats for four months, then do 10-rep squats for a while. Four months later, go down to 5 reps. I couldn’t imagine doing 20-rep squats all the time! And I couldn’t imagine doing low reps all the time either. After about every four months my joints want a change. Train with no rest between sets while doing a brief workout of no more than 30 minutes. Four months later, give yourself some rest between sets and see how heavy you can go! Use your imagination and go with your instincts. Listen to what your body is telling you—only you know how you feel. Make the changes needed to keep your enthusiasm high so you can really attack the equipment when you train. Don’t get hung up on labels as this only limits the tools you have available for building your body.

I don’t train my clients using one rigid training program. I usually start them out with higher reps, and then after several months, when they have a good foundation, we’ll try some new things. We do a 50s day once a month (usually the first workout each month), complete with Doo-Wop 1950s music blasting on the stereo. (Fifties day means 50 reps each on five different machines, for a one-hour workout.) As my clients come in the door and hear Buddy Holly or the Platters (not the marines) they scream, “Oh no! It’s 50s day!!” (This makes torture fun!)

Around the 15th of the month, for a change of pace, I’ll put my clients through one workout of extremely slow movements. I’m not an advocate of training this way all of the time, but have nothing against anyone who does, as it works for sure. Every two weeks my clients get hammered with something radically different. It keeps their body shocked and off guard, and morale and motivation high.

For the past two months I’ve been training Melvin Tuten. Melvin is a huge man, 6-7 and 335 lbs. He is an offensive tackle for the NFL Cincinnati Bengals. Because of the severe flooding in the Cincinnati area, he has stayed home (in Washington, D.C.) during the off-season and has been training with me.

On a recent 50s day Melvin got 540 lbs for 50 on the Hammer Iso-Lateral Leg Press, with a dead stop pause on each rep! He is now doing mainly a moderate to low-rep high-intensity program. But we mix it up and throw in 20 reps on the Tru-Squat sometimes, along with a 50s day, a slow day, sandbag, etc.

Mind Games

Manage your own progression system. I have always believed in progression by performance, not time. All my clients have to earn a poundage increase on the basis of the performance of their previous workouts. I have never believed that you can forecast increases according to a schedule. If you get stuck on a particular poundage, you must learn to be your own sports psychologist and play games with your head.

I frequently lie to my clients and don’t tell them the weight on the machine or bar, even if they ask. I sometimes tell them that I took off weight when I really added weight. They don’t know what to expect, so they can’t worry about not getting a certain poundage. As a result they just focus on pushing or pulling as hard as they can.

Anyone who has had success in strength training ahs had to master their mind. If you train alone, this is more difficult, but this is a challenge you should enjoy and must master if you are to maximize your potential. If, for example, you get stuck with 245 x 5, 5, 4 and can’t seem to get the 5, 5, 5 that you want, change the goal for a while. Try a week or two with sets of 4 at 255, try a triple with 265, or a double with 275. Go to failure with 215, or do just 2 sets of 5 and get rid of the third set!

If you keep good notes you can make the proper changes to avoid a mental rut, and have new goals on an almost daily basis. You are your own coach and must find ways to keep your mind positive and fresh. Then go back to 245 after a few weeks, but with a new outlook.

Effort Is The Key

A barbell, Hammer machine, Tru-Squat machine, or dumbbell will not produce good results unless the person using the tool is willing to put forth the consistent effort required. If anyone tries to tell you that they have the “only way to train,” or even “the best way to train,” don’t listen. If they say it is the best way for them to train, that’s different. But if they use a blanket statement and say they know the best way for everyone to train, they are ignorant. Many times they have something to sell you. They may want you to go along with their “program,” buy a book, or pay for a certification program, etc.

Mike Thompson and Drew Israel train very differently if you look at modes and methods. But so what? Both their approaches work. If, however, you look at the basic core foundation, they are similar and sound. Neither is better than the other. Through trial and error, and by listening to their own bodies, both men have found what they enjoy and what works for them. You should do the same.

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ENDURANCE by Earle E. Liederman - Author and Publisher, (1926), - Chapter 13

There is very little enjoyment in merely looking on at life; there is much more thrill and excitement in being one of the players. How many times have you watched the stout, lazy-appearing fellow, trying to interest himself in an athletic event or in some demonstration of athletics going on in front of him? And how often have you observed the weak, thin individual doing the same? The fat one has amusement in his eyes, for the antics and quick movements of the youths before him interest and cheer him. The thin one will have a different expression. His will be one of admiration and envy combined; his longing to duplicate the movements of the performers before him is much keener than that of his stout friend. But both of them would be much better off by participating in some form of activity than by idly sitting and watching, either eagerly or amusedly. The longer the fat man sits the lazier and stouter he becomes, and the longer the thin man waits the weaker he becomes.

Inactivity is a forerunner and a cause of decay. If you strapped your arm to your side for thirty days you would be astounded at the difference in size between the arm that was strapped and the free arm. I dare say the strapped arm would lose several inches in girth and any bit of muscle and strength that it had possessed would be practically gone at the expiration of that time. As long as physical activity is essential, I cannot understand how anyone would purposely neglect his body and allow it to accumulate fatty tissue or, should he not be inclined to take on weight, become thinner and weaker and more sickly. What enjoyment can such types of youths and men really get out of life?

There is more to life than working, eating and sleeping. Life should be considered a privilege, and not an obligation. To the one who is overburdened with weight and whose internal organs are sluggish, it is an effort to move about; consequently he rests considerably more than does the thin, fidgety, nervous individual. The stout man puffs from the least exertion, and were he to run the short distance of one hundred feet he might experience heart pains, not to mention breathlessness and fatigue. It is an effort for him to climb stairs. If he but realized, he would feel vastly different if he adopted physical culture, he would have much more vitality, and he would have much less desire to sit around and do little or nothing. He most certainly would take more pleasure in his experiences than from any artificial thrills that money can buy. Outside of being able to float on the water, the fat man is practically helpless when it comes to saving his own life. He cannot run, he cannot jump, he cannot climb; and in addition, when ordinary physical exertion is required he needs help.

The thin man possesses more irritability of muscle than the stout one and, naturally, is more inclined towards activity. Even though his body may be weak, his mind is willing. However, the thin man is more inclined to follow endurance work; and, therefore, as long as endurance movements are natural with him he should stick to that until he has obtained the vitality energy and health that will give him the ambition to adopt heavier training methods.

The stout man, of course, must first of all exercise to reduce the superfluous flesh covering his muscles, for with too much fatty tissue he cannot expect ever to have any amount of endurance. His ambitions may not be as high as those of the thin, sickly man who has awakened to the value of health and strength in all their phases; but every stout man surely longs to be rid of some of his fat with as much longing as his sluggish desires permit. If formerly he had possessed sufficient ambition and energy he never would have become fat; he never would have allowed the belt to become gradually tighter around his waist. But physical laziness creeps upon one very insidiously.

A few minutes of bending and twisting movements soon will reduce his waistline, much more rapidly than he may imagine; and as he goes further into physical culture methods, he will find himself gradually becoming more interested in strength work than in endurance work. This progression is natural, because the less flesh one has on one’s bones (within reason) the more rapid of movement one becomes, while fat people are slow-moving individuals and are apt to take to slow motion (strength) exercise. After reducing his waist the fat man should interest himself in strength-building exercise until he has enough strength and development to be able to handle his body with east. At that time it will be quite natural for him to interest himself in endurance movements. Although a stout man may be possessed of much patience, he would find himself becoming very impatient if he were compelled to undergo endurance work at first. Of course, there are exceptions to this general tendency. I am basing my statement upon personal observations and experience with thousands of individuals during my lifetime of teaching.

In these ways the thin man and the stout man can eventually obtain the muscular activity both in strength and endurance to be fully capable of protecting themselves in emergencies. If you are fairly well developed and athletically inclined, perhaps what I am writing may not especially interest you; but let it be a warning to you always to keep in condition. But if by chance you are a reader to whom these words “hit home,” why not now, before you lay this book aside, resolve to take up physical culture in all its branches?

The size and shape of the muscles often indicate their quality, though there are exceptions to this. I believe that muscles which are trained down to a fine point never will possess the endurance qualities of muscles that are covered by a slight fatty tissue. In the first place, a muscle that is used excessively is continually tearing down tissue; and if the muscle consists of nothing but muscle fibre continual movement will be forced action, drawing heavily upon the nervous energy. If there is a little fatty tissue covering the muscle, this tissue will be burned up first before the muscle is forced to act solely by nervous energy.
I do not mean that an arm, for example, necessarily must be fat in appearance in order to possess endurance qualities, for anyone who has seen photographs of George Hackenschmidt, the former world’s champion wrestler, knows what huge, knotty muscles this famous athlete possessed; and yet he had remarkable endurance powers. His muscles, however, were not cordy or trained down to the degree of those of Eugen Sandow. Sandow undoubtedly possessed the most symmetrically developed body and the finest muscle contour of any athlete, either in this or recent past generations. Yet it is not on record that Sandow accomplished anything in the way of endurance; his muscles were remarkable for immediate action and lifting of enormous weights. But I doubt very much if Sandow in his heyday possessed half the endurance of most of our present day boxers, runners, or swimmers.

Sandow must have performed an untold amount of work and exertedtremendous effort in order to attain the physical perfection he possessed; but he probably never did any endurance movements to any appreciable extent. Hackenschmidt, on the other hand, brought heavy dumb-bell exercise into his training program; but he also was a wrestler and often wrestled for hours at a time, and it was these long periods of wrestling that gave him the huge and powerful muscles, wind and endurance that he possessed.

I have been many marvelously developed athletes whose muscles stood out in huge knobs all over their bodies and who were very pleasing to look at, but I could tell at a glance that their muscles were incapable of performing endurance work.
It may be of interest to relate a personal experience, showing how the muscles undergo a change from time to time. About ten years ago my upper arm measured relaxed thirteen and a half inches, and when flexed sixteen and a half inches. This difference of three inches was brought on by the contractile power I had in my biceps and triceps. I had developed my arms by progressive exercising, such as I am teaching today to my students who are desirous of becoming strong and muscular. Upon becoming interested in endurance work I found, after adding endurance movements to my daily exercising period and combining them with my muscle- and strength-building exercise, that after a few years my upper arm still remained the same when flexed, sixteen and a half inches, but when relaxed it measured fourteen and a half inches, showing a gain of one inch in tissue and losing one inch in contractile expansion of flexion. The contour of the muscles remained practically the same when flexed, but when relaxed my arms now appeared considerably thicker than they did in the years before I became interested in endurance movements.

Perhaps you may become somewhat discouraged by my experience and the fact that, though I have continued to exercise for so many years, my arm has remained the same in size. So let me call your attention to the fact that I am no longer a “kid,” and my desires to become as large as possible are over. Now I am exercising daily merely to keep in condition and to retain the development that I built up through my previous progressive efforts. I no longer perform progressive work to any marked degree, so far as muscle-building and strength exercises are concerned; for I am firm in my belief that, as I have elsewhere related, to continue progressive work year after year as one nears middle life is unwise and may bring on disastrous results. When once you have developed your body, a little light activity will keep it in shape.

The only thing you can progress in, then, is endurance; and endurance movements, if not carried too far, will prove of great benefit not only to the muscular system but to your internal organs as well. When you are doing anything calling for endurance your heart and other organs will tell you when to stop, and the only time you should continue endurance movements beyond this point is when you are in competition and some destination or goal compels you to continue. But unless you are thoroughly prepared to withstand such attacks upon your body, you will find that disastrous results will follow.
For example, it would be foolhardy for you to enter a marathon race if you never have run more than a mile or two before. It would be equally foolhardy for you to attempt to swim for a mile if the farthest distance you have heretofore made was half a mile. A boxer never would attempt to fight twenty rounds if on numerous occasions during his preparatory training for the contest he had not been able to box much more than twenty rounds.

Only the other day I entered a pool for a swim. I decided that I would swim a mile. Now many times before I had made this distance, but on this particular day the air was chilly, my muscles were cold, and my stomach was empty, and the thought of the next meal was a pleasant one. However, I dived into the water with full intentions of making the distance, fifty-three laps to the mile. Lap after lap I crawled through the water, but at about the thirty-fifth lap I felt as though I had had enough. Some inward physical warning told me not to continue. I could feel the first dull pull at my heart--that feeling that is experienced by anyone performing endurance work. Immediately I came out of the water. I believe that had I gone the other eighteen laps and completed the mile swim, I might have overtaxed my heart, perhaps not dangerously but enough temporarily to interfere with its rhythmic beat and action; and every physician will tell you that continued forced muscular exertion, stimulating heart action and producing strain, eventually will cause dilatation and perhaps permanent enlargement or valvular leakage.

So, if ever you are performing exercises of endurance you should always be guided by the feeling of your organs, just as you are guided by the feeling in your stomach when it is calling for food, or the dryness of your mouth when you crave water. If you go against the laws of nature you will bring trouble upon yourself. Therefore, in all endurance exercises be sure to progress in moderation.

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BALANCED TRAINING ROUTINES - by Bob Whelan

Reprinted with permission of Hardgainer, Vol. 8, No. 5 (March-April 1997)

A few weeks ago, I had a trainee named Tom come by for a consultation and workout. Tom has been lifting for about seven years, is 25 years old 5-8 tall and about 180 lbs. Tom stated that his best bench press (with a regular-diameter bar) was about 305 lbs, but his squat was not much more than that.

We went through our first workout and Tom worked real hard, but I noticed that he had a severe strength imbalance bewteen his upper and lower body. His upper-body pushing and pulling strength was also “out of whack.” He could get 8 reps in the bench press with 215 lbs using a 3-inch diamter bar, but had a hard time handling 140 in the Hammer Iso-Lateral Row. He could get 150 for 8 reps in the military press but could not chin himself more than 3 times. To balance his strength and development, Tom needed to put more emphasis on his lower body, and on his upper-body pulling movements.

It was obvious that Tom had spent a great deal of his training time on his back doing bench presses. He had good development of his chest and front detls, but had far less development in his legs, hips, rear delts, and upper back. It was all a matter of thinking. Tom never put an emphasis on working his legs or upper-body pulling movements. As long as his bench press and military press were going up, Tom was happy. (He always did his curls, too.) Tom’s ego was not attached to working legs or upper-body pulling like it was to upper-body pushing exercises. Pulling exercises had second class status in Tom’s mind, and he would just go through the motions with them and get them in when he could. After our session Tom realized that for the last seven years he had been consistently training only about half of his muscles. He demonstrated that he could train hard when he put his mind to it, but he needed to change his thinking and apply himself to his entire body.

Program Design

When designing training programs, always start with the major lower-body work. This separates the men from the boys. Nothing puts the spotlight on a phony quicker (and makes me laugh harder) than someone with a big upper body and an undeveloped lower body. They are in every gym.

Whenever I meet someone who claims to train hard, I can usually tell by their lower-body development if they are telling the truth. Major lower-body exercises, i.e., the squat, deadlift and leg press, are the most demanding of all exercises. Anyone who does not put a primary importance on them gets no respect from me. Squats, leg presses and deadlifts are the top priority and should set the foundation for your balanced training program. Once this is done, then you can get the upper-body pushing and pulling in balance.

Some advocates of abbreviated training are designing training programs that are not balanced. Of course it is better to do “less” than “too much,” but it is even better to do the right amount of exercise using a balanced program. Most coaches, myself included, put a high value on the three big basic exercises—squat, deadlift and bench press. The proble, is that many people overlook several other equally important exercises. Their program design usually has a poor balance between pushing and pulling—usually not enough pulling. I have read many articles where the authors have gone to great lengths to describe in detail the upper-body pushing part of a program, and then they add something like, “Throw in a rowing motion to round out the program.” That, for many, takes care of the pulling part of a training program.

Some exercises, such as the bench press, are directly connected to the ego of many individuals. This is okay so long as you don’t get carried away. The bench press is an important exercise, but it is no more important than the Hammer Iso-Lateral Row (or your horizontal pulling movement of choice). Pulldowns or chins are no less important than overhead presses. Don’t get hung up on any one particular exercise. You should strive for balanced strength and muscular development. But I am not advocating the de-emphasis of the bench press or any other major movement—they are all equally important.

I recently had a phone conversation about this subject with my friend, Dan Riley, the Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Washington Redskins, and one of the most respected people in the field. Dan is a strong advocate of balanced pushing and pulling. My pushing and pulling philosophy is similar to Dan’s except that he has more planes of movement due to a much larger facility and access to many more machines. I use the following simple guideline for a balanced upper-body program: a horizontal push, a horizontal pull, a vertical push, and a vertical pull. For the lower body I recently began to rotate the squat, Trap Bar deadlift, and Hammer Leg Press so that each of them is trained once during a period of about ten days, i.e., one of the exercises is trained every three or four days. But some people should deadlift only twice per month because they need a long recovery period for the spinal erectors.

Keep in mind that this is only a helpful checklist that I use. There are some exercises that are not easily put into one of the categories I’ve just specified, e.g., the pullover and the parallel bar dip. For movements like these, use common sense and define them as either pushing or pulling movements. Then use them as substitutes for other comparable exercises, not as additions to your program.

For many hard gainers, especially those who use multiple work sets of each exercise, there is a serious risk of overtraining if there is too much training volume. You could alternate the vertical and horizontal push and pull and do them once per week each. For example, perform a horizontal push and pull on Monday, and a vertical push and pull on Thursday.

There ar emany exercises you can use to fill the bill, so you should not go stale. For the vertical push you could use the barbell overhead press, Hammer Behind-Neck Press (which is more like a dumbbell press than a barbell behind-neck press), dumbbell press, or manual resistance. For the vertical pull you could use the chin, pulldown, or Hammer Pulldown. For the horizontal push you could use the bench press, incline press, dumbbell bench press, or Hammer Chest Press. For the horizontal pull you could use the seated cable row, Hammer Iso-Lateral row, dumbbell row while braced against a bench, or virtually any type of machine row that is safe for your lower back.

A balance between pushing and pulling is also important for preventing injuries. Many injuries are caused by muscular imabalance. There is a strong relationship between a joint injury and the development of the musculature that surrounds that joint. Just like a car that pulls to one side when it is out of alignment, your muscles will pull a joint to one side if one side overpowers another. this is at the root of many shoulder, knee and other joint problems.

When designing your training program, always start with the core foundation of your lower body, then move on to balancing your upper-body pushing and pulling. Your body will thank you for it.

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Sets From Hell! - By Bob Whelan

Reprinted with permission of Hardgainer, Vol. 8, No. 6 (May-June 1997)

“The mind is its own place and in itself can make
a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.”
—Milton

Big Billy Banks arrived a few minutes early for his Saturday afternoon training session. Even before he got to the door he could hear weights banging, my shouting, and Victor Peck screaming bloody murder through the noisy Marine cadence tape that was blasting away. Billy knew that he, too, was in for one hell of a day!

I have been training Victor (on and off) for seven years. His mother hired me as a present to him for his 30th birthday. He was about 40 lbs overweight at the time, and smoked cigarettes. He had trained a decade earlier but was hobbled by a serious knee injury while playing football, and then he got off track.

Victor is one of the most gung-ho determined guys I know. All he needed was some direction and a little shove. He quit smoking and has taken to serious training like a fish to water. He is now a high-intensity training fanatic and has totally changed his life. He is 6-4 tall and 250 lbs, and in the best shape of his life, at age 37. He has a high level of conditioning and mental toughness, and was an ideal candidate for my new half-hour training program. A bonus is that the half-hour program is much cheaper than the hour-long program. But many people are unable to do the half-hour program because they do not have the high-level of mental toughness that is required. Even many who think that they are in good condition could not take the half-hour workout because every work set is to complete failure with very little rest between sets. Anyone’s mental (and physical) toughness would be put to the test by the half-hour workout.

I recently twisted Victor’s arm to try it. At first he had some doubts. He was used to the hour workout and thought that only half an hour of training wasn’t long enough. But now he has no doubts. He is a believer!

Billy joined in with me, screaming at Victor to finish strong. Victor was coming down the home stretch and needed to rally his remaining energy. Victor moved from the Hammer Iso-Lateral Behind Neck Press to the Hammer Iso-Lateral Pulldown—where he went to failure, and then continued to pull in a “static” contraction for an additional 10 seconds. Then it was over to the Hammer Iso-Lateral Leg Press with 350 lbs, and Victor pushed out 20 reps. He collapsed in the machine and was drenched in sweat. Prior to Victor’s workout the rubber floor was dry. Now there were many small puddles of sweat on the floor.
“Great workout, Bob!” Victor gasped.

“Twenty-seven minutes,” I responded, “you worked real hard, as usual.”

I asked Billy if he minded starting his workout about ten minutes late, so Victor could do the sandbag. A big grin came over Billy’s face. He did not mind at all. Victor wasn’t smiling, but he was willing. People love to watch others do the sandbag! Victor already has his name on the bag as he got 200 lbs around a few months ago, but had not done it since. He recently tried 225 lbs for the first time, but failed to get it more than 20 feet. Because he was pretty tired, today he was going to go for the 200 again.

For this high-rep 30-minute workout we only do warmup work for the first upper-body movement, and the first lower-body movement. The reps are high enough (usually over 10 for the first set of each exercise) for warmup work not to be needed for every exercise. But this system only works if the first set has high reps. If low reps, pyramids or singles were to be used, that would be different and we would do specific warmup sets for each exercise (and not be able to fit the workout into a 30-minute session). But Victor was using a very specific routine tailored to fit a 30-minute time limit.

Here is a typical workout that I’ll put Victor through in 30 minutes:

Five-minute cardiovascular warmup and series of 20-second static-hold stretches for the entire body.

1. Squat or deadlift (alternating, once per week for each): 1 warmup set and 1 set to failure, moving up in weight next time if 20 reps are reached in perfect form.

2. Hammer Iso-Lateral Chest Press: 1 warmup set, 2 sets to failure.

3. Hammer Iso-Lateral Row: 2 sets to failure.

4. Hammer Iso-Lateral Behind Neck Press: 2 sets to failure.

5. Hammer Iso-Lateral Pulldown: 2 sets to failure.

6. Hammer Iso-Lateral Leg Press: 1 set to failure, moving up in weight next time if 20 reps are reached in perfect form.

Exercises 2-5 are done one after the other, to failure, in two rotating series. The poundage is increased the following workout once 8 or ore reps is reached on the second set of a given exercise. Note that exercises 2-5 are alternating pushing and pulling movements. This entire program is done in under 30 minutes, with the hardest exercises done first and last. A sandbag carry and/or grip work is/are sometimes added after the regular 30-minute workout.

Like all of my clients, Victor does cardiovascular work, abdominal work, and extra stretching in his own time.


Sandbag Alley

I recently moved my gym (again) to a bigger and better facility, just a block away from the old place. We now do the sandbag carry outside in a fenced-off alleyway behind the gym. My landlord owns the alley and gave it to me as part of the lease. We call it “sandbag alley.” We start and finish at the same place. The actual carry for a single up-and-down trip is about 250 feet. Up and down sandbag alley twice is about the same distance as around the old third floor, so the same 10-minute time limit remains. Victor managed to get the 200-lb bag up and down the alley twice in under 10 minutes before collapsing in a heap. Billy and I were hoarse from screaming encouragement. Victor’s workout, including the sandbag carry, took only 35 minutes.

You Can’t Train Hard and Long

You can train hard, or you can train long. But you can’t do both. One hour is probably the limit for a high-intensity workout. The two- and three-hour marathon workouts in the mega-hype drug-infested bodybuilding mags are greatly exaggerated. Being in a gym for three hours is not the same thing as training for three hours. Those guys spend more time looking in the mirror, gossiping and talking than they do training. The drugs they use enable them to train at a low level of intensity and yet still get good results. But most of those types don’t have a clue of what a hard workout is.

With my one-hour program (seven exercises) only the third (final) set of each exercise is always done to complete muscular failure, and you get some rest between sets—usually no more than one minute and only after squats, deadlifts and leg presses. For the hour-long workout I use the “controlled failure” method for the first two work sets of each exercise. Using this method you stop at the rep goal for the set, if it’s reached. If the goal isn’t reached, and you went all out, then you reached muscular failure. The half-hour program (six exercises) has a maximum of only two work sets per exercise, but both are done to complete muscular failure with very little (or no) rest between sets.

Both workouts are brutal and take some getting used to, but I make all newcomers start with the one-hour program. If they adapt well to the program and show that they have the ability to train hard, and are mentally tough, they have the option of switching to the half-hour program.

Here’s how Drew Israel describes the difference between my half-hour and one-hour programs: “Bob’s hour program is like taking body blows and shots to the head. But the half-hour program is all shots to the head. With both programs you end up on the floor.”

My clients have to prove that they are really ready if they want to switch to the half-hour workout. It’s not the physical factor I’m looking at; it’s mainly the mental factor. To make the half-hour workout productive you must be willing to go all out and hold nothing back. You must be willing “to go down with the ship.” You have to have the right mental state to make it work. Many do not. But it’s a good system because you get rewarded with a cheaper rate for your mental and physical toughness.

The equipment you have available is a big factor in determining which program would work best for you. You need to have all equipment pre-loaded before starting the workout. If, for example, you only have a single barbell that you use for all exercises, the half-hour workout isn’t practical.

Mental Focus

The better your mental focus, the more you are able to get good results from one or two sets to failure per exercise. (To help you increase your mental focus, and effort level, apply what you learn from the excellent article titled “The White Moment,” by John Christy, in Hardgainer issue #40.) There are many trainees who will not get good results from one or two sets to failure. But it’s not because one or two sets to failure doesn’t work. It’s because the individual has failed to understand and apply what true muscular failure is.

I’ve been experimenting in my own training with just one set to failure. I’ve always known that it works, but have never used it. I’ve always felt better doing at least two sets to failure per exercise. My friendship with Drew Israel influenced me to give it a try. When you see how big and strong Drew is, you can’t help but be influenced. Since November 1996 I’ve only done one set to failure per exercise in my own training. I’m stronger than ever and training with weights for less than one hour per week—two training days per week, less than half an hour for each session. In a recent visit to Drew’s place I got 500 lbs for 10 reps in the Hammer Leg Press with a dead stop pause on each rep (This was the first time I had ever used the machine too so once I get used to it I could do a lot more!). It works for me, Drew, and others, because we understand what complete muscular failure is, and what type of mental focus is needed.

Of course, it’s important always to have good mental focus, but the fewer sets that you do (per exercise), the more important that mental focus is. If you do one set to failure, you can’t have a lapse in concentration because you can’t make it up in later sets. You must be “on” throughout each set. There is no room for mistakes. Every one must be a quality, all-out kick-ass, life-and-death set or else you will be wasting your time and doing nothing more than burning calories. It’s not merely thinking positively. You must combine anger and aggression with positive thinking. Get mad at the weights. Growl, scream, and let yourself go! It’s life and death. It’s combat. You must have the attitude that you are going to war. If you can’t (or won’t) do this, you are better off with multiple sets.

Total Muscular Failure

If you can finish the repetition, then you can’t be at positive muscular failure because the weight is still moving in a positive direction. You must try one more rep. Positive muscular failure is not when the weight feels heavy. It’s not when you are shaking and your muscles ache. Positive muscular failure is when the weight ceases to move in a positive direction even though you are pushing or pulling as hard as you can. But this is just the first part of a complete set to failure.

The second part of a quality set to true complete failure is continuing to push or pull in a static contraction for about ten seconds after you have reached positive failure. The third and final part of taking a set to complete failure is lowering the weight slowly.

Many exercise scientists and researchers believe that the static contraction (held after reaching positive failure) is the most beneficial part of the set. Whether or not you do it could make the difference between success and failure while using one set to failure. But most people are not willing to train to complete failure because it’s so brutal. So one set to failure won’t work for these types. These people are not willing to do what it takes to ake one set to failure work, but the rewards are great for those who will.

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Bodybuilding — Then and Now - By Bradley J. Steiner

For one thing, a conspicuous fact about bodybuilding “then” (ie roughly, prior to 1975) is that the word itself was not one that caused sane people to repeat their last meal. It did not conjure up images of grotesque, malformed freaks whose drug-induced bloated tissue caused revulsion. It did not trigger images of fanatical, neurotic crackpots who would rather die at age 25 with 20” arms than live until 90 with “mere” 18” arms; genuine, certifiable nutjobs whose only reason for getting out of bed in the morning was to achieve a better pump that day, at the gym. It did not cause the hearer to think of men whose counterparts in the 1920’s, 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s, were known as he-men, proudly(!) flaunting the fact that they were genuine SHE-men, and as proof could point to a same-sex live-in partner (who was also their training partner)!

Bodybuilding, as an activity, was advanced as a health-building, character-building, and strength-as-well-as-muscle-building pursuit. Real athletic/strength & muscle stars like Reg Park, Jim Park, John Grimek, Harry Paschall, Sig Klein, John Farbotnik, Steve Stanko, Louis Abele, Jules Bacon, Chuck Sipes, Jack LaLanne, and dozens of others, brought the gospel of sensible barbell and dumbell training to boys and men everywhere. These heroes pushed sound and sensible routines, diets, and lifestyles. There were no steroids. Size was not everything, and only the odd man out was a “mirror athlete”. Back “then”, bodybuilders were men who not only possessed real muscle and strength, they were men who could do things with their muscle and strength. Jack LaLanne performed feats of endurance “back then” that any Navy SEAL would be hard pressed to duplicate today! The first Mr. America was a tough NYPD Officer (not some preening, gender-challenged kook in a gay pride parade!).

The entrepreneurial greats — Bob Hoffman and Peary Rader — while not necessarily being perfect in all ways, nevertheless gave anyone who read their material truthful, honest, legitimate, and WORKABLE training advice and instruction . . . and they guided countless young people (our self, among them!) to healthful personal development.

We remember as though it was yesterday how we felt after the first couple of weeks of training on Bob Hoffman’s “York Barbell” Course. We knew that we had struck gold! And by the time we had trained for two months we had fallen in love — not merely with “weight training” — but with sensible weight training (with bodybuilding), and we knew that this activity, along with the combat arts, would occupy a central place in our life, forever.

Thanks to the way bodybuilding and weight training was “then” we benefitted enormously, and we continue to benefit from this marvelous activity, 46 years later. We began to write on the subject, and to teach others, personally — and we had the great satisfaction of sharing with those whom we trained the benefits of an activity that we still believe is borderline miraculous!

It saddens us when we look at the modern scene and observe what appears to us to be mentally disturbed narcissists occupying, for the modern generation, those places once occupied by giants such as the men to whom we referred earlier. Young people have almost no guiding lights in the bodybuidling field, any more. And who can blame a father, after looking through a mainstream “muscle magazine” for forbidding his son to become involved in “that insane activity” ?

If the only “negative” thing about modern bodybuilding was the use of steroids, that would be enough to keep sane people away! However, there is more. There is a complete lack of concern over building useful physical abilities, and of doing so solely for oneself. (One needn’t, after all, compete in or win any kind of contest or event in order to reap full benefit from weight training). There is the sexualization of the activity. It is nauseating to see illnesses that only half a century ago would have been correctly labelled as such, today being touted as “the way to go” — the way to be “cool”, and the way to “really enjoy” one’s physical appearance and prowess.

What repulsive, sickening garbage.

No, bodybuilfing is not completely lost. There are a few real gyms left, and with proper instruction, it certainly would benefit anyone to purchase a good set of weights, a squat rack and a bench, and start training regularly. But do not look to the modern “bodybuilding scene” which is sick and discouraging, and that has given the very word “bodybuilding” a distasteful emotive meaning. Look to the “way it was”. For the way it was is the way it ought to be. Bodybuilding “was” the greatest known means by which a person could build rock-solid internal health, an impressive and powerfully efficienct physique, self-confidence, and the physical ability to do anything else that he wished to do in life a lot better than he was able to do it, before he began using the “iron pills”.

Bodybuilding can be that way again. Make and keep it that way for YOURSELF, and for anyone with whom you can relate about this incredible and wonderful activity.


Bradley J. Steiner

Professor Steiner's American Combato Site

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ENDURANCE by Earle E. Liederman - Author and Publisher, (1926), - Chapter 12

It is interesting to note the general effects produced by similar exercises upon different individuals. When you enter the gymnasium for the first time you see the stout man going through the same movements as his thin neighbor. You may wonder if these movements that the stout individual is performing will be of any benefit to the thin fellow; yet, if you were to return to the gymnasium after an absence of a few months and if these same individuals had continued to work daily, you would find that the stout one had lost weight while the thin one had gained weight. This is because exercising produces two different effects. In the thin person it increases the bodily tissue while in the stout person it decreases the fatty tissue. These apparently different effects may be summed up in one chief effect, however, and that it is the development of more nearly normal metabolism or tissue processes.

There are a certain number of muscles in the human body, and a stout person has practically the same muscular tissue as a thin person of the same general type and original build. You cannot see them developed in the fat man owing to his covering of fat, but you can plainly discern them in the developed thin individual because they stand out owing to lack of fatty tissue on them. The fat man most likely will have somewhat larger (though perhaps softer) muscles hidden under his fat than has the thin man. This is because he weights more and naturally has to carry around a greater weight than the thin one, thus giving his muscles more exercise; his muscles should be larger in proportion to the amount of work they do. But when both the thin man and the fat man, after a sufficient period of training, reach more nearly the point of bodily perfection their muscles will be very little different in size, though they may be considerably different in contour.

From this we can see that the need for exercise is felt just as much by thin people who assimilate too little as by fat people who assimilate too much. The need for exercise, then, depends upon one of two physiological necessities, the intensity of which gives us warning. It comes from an overcharge with reserve materials, and the urgent necessity that these materials should be burned; or it may arise from a general sluggishness of the functions and the need of a stimulus capable of arousing them to a fresh activity.

By this time you will realize the value of being in condition and keeping the muscles fit, for one who has any weak part in his make-up cannot expect to qualify in any test of endurance.

I must admit that my greatest interest is in body building, and I sometimes find it difficult to refrain from branching off to that subject. But as I have covered this in another book I will only touch upon the high spots in your physical make-up.

Let us consider the neck. A strong neck will prove valuable in many instances, but would be of little use in any endurance work. Nevertheless, the trapezius muscles, which run well up into the rear of the neck, are used in most movements of the shoulders and arms, in addition to strictly neck movements. Therefore, the neck will receive considerable work in a great number of endurance exercises. Rowing and swimming, for instance, bring into play to a great extent the trapezius muscles.

The forearm and upper arm muscles must be fit, for they will be used in all climbing exertions.

The value of strong legs need hardly be emphasized. When the muscles of the thighs and calves coordinate properly they not only will pull you through many an emergency, but through the development of a good pair of legs you can be assured of good respiratory power. As I have mentioned, it is impossible to perform vigorous leg movements without calling heavily upon the lungs.

As important as the muscles are in performing endurance work, I consider the lungs of greater importance, for it is in the respiratory organs that the first sign of fatigue is felt. The amount of air entering the lungs is regulated by the capacity of the lungs, and, of course, by the demand for air, by exercises or work. Therefore, it is of great importance that the muscular work you do is such as to increase the size of the cavity in which the lungs are contained and the lungs themselves.

So many people, and I can truthfully say the majority of people, breathe with but a small part of their lungs. Singers and wind-instrument musicians are in a class by themselves when it comes to lung capacity. Their excellent chest cavities are developed unconsciously through their chest and lung exercises incident to their professions. However, the average individual can obtain just as remarkable a lung capacity as any singer or musician who plays the cornet, trombone or other wind instrument, by practicing forced breathing.

The amateur physical culturist lays too little stress upon the importance of deep breathing, and considers the simple arm movements which throw the shoulders back sufficient to increase his lung capacity and the size of his rib-box. But he is sadly in error. Accumulation of work is really the only way to obtain good lungs and staying power. By accumulation of work I mean the combined performance of exercises of strength, speed and endurance. Where the arms alone perform the work you will find very little breathlessness occurring; but where the arms unite with the legs in performing exercises you will find yourself quickly becoming winded.

Leg exercise requires much more work than that which is performed by the arms. The muscles of the upper limbs could not support without extreme fatigue an expenditure of force that could be borne by the lower limbs with small effort. It is an easy matter to walk a mile; but where is there a gymnast or a strong man who could walk a mile along a horizontal rod or ladder while hanging from his hands? The total mechanical work, however, would be the same, displacing the same weight through the same horizontal distance.

When fatigue overtakes you and you are breathless, the act of satisfying your thirst for air naturally will be of wonderful benefit to the lungs, yet it will not expand the chest nor increase its size as much as forced deep breathing under normal conditions. As the legs possess practically three times the strength of the arms they are capable of producing three times the amount of work. But if the lungs are not in perfect working order, that is if the rib-box is not flexible and the lung capacity not great enough, the same performance of leg work will exhaust you in a shorter time than would arm exercise, even though, as I said, the legs are much stronger than the arms. Consideration must be taken of the weight of the body which the legs must carry; and, naturally, greater effort constantly is brought upon them than upon the arms.

A great many teachers of exercise are in error regarding the development of lung power, as so many of them advocate the simple raising of the arms to raise the rib-box and thereby increase the depth of the chest and lung cavity. Such exercise may be good for loosening the rib-box, and perhaps when accompanied by deep inhalations will add an inch or two to the chest; but, as I stated before, real lung power can be developed only by actual endurance practice. Walking along the street and taking one hundred deep inhalations a day, for example, will not benefit you to any great extent in the development of endurance. The best exercise for increasing the size of the chest is that which compels the deepest inhalations—natural inhalations, and not those consciously and intentionally produced by the will.

You can experiment along these lines yourself. You may swing your arms, bend your body from side to side, or perform all manner of twists and calisthenic movements, and yet breathlessness will not come on as quickly as it will by a short vigorous sprint, whether it be in running, swimming, rowing or the like. After such a sprint the lungs are fairly crying for more air, with the consequence that you will be compelled to inhale as much oxygen as possible in order to satisfy the craving.

One cannot expect to excel in any feat of endurance unless first of all he gives attention to his lung capacity and rib-box. All endurance work requires staying power—good wind. It is true that good lung capacity and wind will be developed from the practice of endurance work; but endurance work will come much easier if lung development is gotten before the endurance work begins. The finest-built athlete, whose arms may have reached the strong man’s proportions and whose pectoral or breast muscles may stand out in pleasing contour, likely will possess a comparatively narrow chest in spite of his development if his lungs are weak.

I frequently attend a gymnasium and play handball with the instructor there. This man has practically no muscular development to speak of; but what an enormous chest he has! His rib-box is wide, and the deepest part of his chest seems to be below the breast bone, and when viewed from the side, when he stands erect and has his chest somewhat expanded, it takes on the appearance of a high, fleshy abdomen. This fellow finds no difficulty in playing twelve or fifteen games of handball without stopping. And though his muscles are of a different type entirely from those of the weight lifter or strong man, still they are more pliable and have considerably more endurance. His staying powers seem to be perfect, and all this I ascribe mainly to his wonderful lung capacity and the flexibility of his rib-box.

If you wish to develop the chest, do not try to do so by raising the ribs, but by trying to inflate all the air cells of the lungs. You cannot do this by any mechanical means; and the most voluntary muscular movements would not produce the results obtainable by forced aspirations.

The lungs are increased in size as a result of forced respirations which make them work better. Under the influence of unusual exercise the air cells increase in size and contain more air. Also, more blood is supplied to them. Their capillary network becomes more pronounced, and, in consequence, their nutrition is more active. Accordingly, they take up more room. It is in this manner that the regular working of the great number of air cells that ordinarily are inactive can rapidly increase the size of the lungs.

In order to increase the size of the chest and the lung capacity the work must begin from the inside, and not from the outside by the simple working of the muscles. Oxygen must be forced in, and as the lungs expand and become larger they press against the ribs, stretching the cartilages between the ribs and finally spreading the ribs father apart. Exercise, it is true, can be of great assistance in increasing the quality of the lung tissue. For instance, if the arms are held overhead when taking deep inhalations, naturally the ribs are elevated and more in a position to receive the pressure of the lungs from the inside. You would not expect to take very deep breaths while sitting in a crouched position. It is only natural that you throw your shoulders back and raise the rib-box as much as possible while performing deep inhalations. Increasing the size of the chest, then, is done chiefly by the work of the lungs.

It is not a fair measurement to consider the size of the strong man’s chest when passing the tape around the chest under the arm pits, because of his outstanding latissimus dorsi muscles, those beefy yet pleasingly proportioning hills of flesh that cause the slant from the arm pits to the waist line. The thickness of his pectoral, or breast muscles, also adds considerable to his chest measurement. Although many strong men show enormous chests, both in appearance and in measurement, many of them possess weak lungs. If I were to have my choice and could accept only one or the other, I most certainly would select the body which has a big lung capacity rather than the large and muscular body containing weak lungs. With a good chest and lung capacity it is an easy matter to add muscular tissue in proportion. I at least would be assured that the amount of oxygen entering my lungs at each inhalation would purify my blood and keep me immune to sickness and disease and fill me with robust health that everyone should experience.

If you have a good lung capacity to begin with, the practice of endurance movements will come much easier to you than if you endeavor to build up your lung capacity and rib-box by means of endurance exercises. Let us say that we have a thin man and a husky chap who start to exercise at the same time. Neither ever has worked physically before. After each has performed exactly the same exercises for a period of about six months, it will be found that the burly chap quite evidently has made better progress and will be much stronger than his thin competitor. This is because he had a good foundation to begin with. Hence, if you have a good flexible rib-box and a fine lung capacity you have every advantage in your favor when you begin training for endurance work.

Since the muscles play a most important part in endurance work it is essential that we look into the general effects of exercise upon them in order to learn more of their capabilities. Among the most striking effects of muscular exercise are the changes undergone by the muscles themselves under the influence of work. They lose much of the fat between their fibres, it being burned up by the activities; and by persistent daily efforts they gradually increase in size. But loss of fat and increase in size are not the only changes observed in the muscles as the result of work. You can notice also a change in shape, depending upon the movement the muscle performs. This is one of the most interesting of the local effects of work.

A muscle which is more constantly in action than other muscles, or in other words a muscle which contracts more often than its antagonist, undergoes in the end a certain degree of shortening. This is very noticeable in the arms of some indoor physical culture enthusiasts. I have observed young fellows who have exercised with five-pound dumb-bells whose bicep muscle was so shortened that the lower part did not break or slant into the proper place on the upper forearm but seemed to be attached to the humorus or bone of the upper arm. This, of course, was not the case, as all biceps are attached to the radius bone of the forearm. The movement this one man in particular had performed consisted of curling the five-pound dumb-bells from the arms hanging at his sides so that the bells touched his shoulders alternately during the curling movements. Evidently he had been lowering the bells but not fully straightening his arms. Hence, there was always a tension upon the belly of the biceps, which is turn became shortened and naturally lacked the power that it would have had if the break or downward slant of its lower extremity had gone into the proper place. Such a development might be called a deformity of the muscle.

This same thing can occur in any muscle or group of muscles in the body. That is, they can be worked or exercised improperly, with the result that they not only will lack the contour they could have if exercised properly but they will lack the strength, also.

You may wonder how the shape of the muscle could possibly affect endurance. But if the muscle is improperly developed and shortened this most assuredly will have some reducing effect upon the leverage and coordination essential in all endurance tests. Muscles for endurance must be long and pliable. Of course, they also can have bulk and size; but if the development through the exercise performed is merely bulk of muscle, it will require changing of routine and plans of training in order to qualify the muscles for endurance work. If, for example, you persist, in training with heavy dumb-bells you naturally will acquire huge muscles, and they will be strong, as well; but in all probability they will be useless in performing endurance tests.

If you divide your exercises and mix them, so to speak—performing some strength-and muscle-building work and some endurance work—the muscles, while probably not reaching the measurements, bulk and contour that they would have reached if you had trained exclusively for development, yet would be far more useful to you; and you would be able to accomplish a great deal more whenever you felt like it, even though you lacked the half-inch or so of girth that you could have gotten by eliminating all light movements.

The desire to continue exercising lessens as one becomes older. This is simply a law of human nature, or appears to be. Frequently the one ambition of a young man in his teens is to become as big and strong as possible. He thinks only about a chest or upper arm measuring so many inches. If he can but develop certain Herculean proportions he feels that he will be absolutely satisfied with life and that there would not be another thing that he would wish for. But as he becomes a little older and realizes that robust health, sound heart and lungs and more endurance are of more concern and benefit to him than the more showy muscles and entertaining strength, he is more apt to discontinue his heavy training and adopt methods more suitable for his years and his more mature aims.

As a rule, when a man reaches thirty he is through with exercising; and most men in the thirties are pitifully out of shape, muscularly, bodily and functionally. It would be folly for anyone to continue vigorous training with heavy dumb-bells when he reaches the late thirties, and yet there are a few who keep it up. That is why we often read that “another strong man dies young.” It is not only folly, but it is fatal to force oneself to continue year after year with the most strenuous exercise that one performed during his youth. If you are young and a weight-lifting enthusiast or an advocate of heavy exercise, bear in mind that much of the muscle tissue you have acquired from such work positively will be replaced by fat if, when you grow older, you discontinue your training.

The habit of exercise is an essential one to form for the development and preservation of best health; but no matter how well developed the habit my be, it will be against nature’s law to continue well into middle life if the work is of very strenuous variety. It would be far better to perform moderately vigorous movements and exercise that will keep the muscles supple and capable of prolonged movement. A habit of exercising in such a manner will remain much longer as you become older, for you will not have been putting such a drain upon your body as by endeavoring to force yourself to continue with the most violent work. The one who has no desire for muscle or strength but who performs light calisthenic movements in his youth, for the purpose of keeping in good health, will be very apt to continue these movements even after he is in the sixties or seventies.

Of course, light calisthenic work is of no particular value for anything except the maintenance of good circulation and general health. If you desire larger muscles and greater strength you must work much harder and longer and put forth greater effort than in the performance of calisthenic movements. I am an advocate of heavy work, but I do not believe in forcing the body. If you have the energy and foundation brought on by experience in training and have the desire to obtain greater strength and muscle bulk, then the lifting of heavy weights would be the thing for you.

But, I repeat, if you persist in lifting the weights and performing heavy dumb-bell exercise and do not do any light endurance movements in conjunction with such training, your muscles will prove worthless in any endurance test, and so also will every organ concerned with such tests. If, on the other hand, you are interested in all endurance work and do not have that youthful desire for bulk or great strength, you would profit mc more by adopting and continuing such methods of training as would develop endurance, for you would possess muscles and staying power that would last for many years longer, should you at any time become lax in your physical activities or entirely discontinue them.

To a swimmer who is capable of swimming a mile or more (and it is very easy to swim a mile after you have mastered the art of swimming) it would be a very easy matter to swim a quarter of a mile or more even though he had not entered the water for a period of many years. But a sprinter of short distance swimmer, who is sued to one hundred or two hundred and twenty-yard sprints, would find himself all out of condition were he to attempt to swim his accustomed distance or even less, after he had absented himself from the water for a few years.

Take the runner for example, also. Even if one who had had the ability to trot along for a mile or two sat at a desk for several years and did no running at al, he still would find himself capable of running a fair distance; whereas another individual who never had run more than one hundred yards in his life, would find himself greatly fatigued from his exertions were he to attempt to run his accustomed distance after a few years lay-off.

From this it can be seen that prolonged movement or endurance work is of more value in later years than the violent exertions which give the muscles bulk and strength. These statements may seem questionable, but I suggest that you experiment for yourself and find out. If you have specialized in any one form of athletics, even though you have not done any athletic work in that line for a long time, you will find yourself more capable of performing or accomplishing movements in the line you excelled in that you would in any other form of physical activity. But this is particularly true if you have done endurance work of some kind.

I have known a certain insurance man in Brooklyn for a number of years, and many times have seen medals and cups which he won in his youth for high jumping. I think he is now in his fifties; but he possesses the body of a man in the thirties, although he has done practically no physical training at all for several years. A year or so ago, when crossing the street, an automobile was almost upon him before he saw it. With quick presence of mind—more, in reality, an instinctive muscular response—he jumped—not forward but upward, so that his legs straddled the hood of the car. Outside of a few minor bruises he escaped uninjured. But the ability in high jumping that he still possessed undoubtedly saved his life. This also shows an interesting case of unconscious or instinctive muscular reaction or response. Had this man been a broad jumper he undoubtedly would have jumped forward; but because he had excelled in high jumping, the first thought flashed to the muscles of his legs propelled him upward.

The reader must not misunderstand me and think I am condemning strength and the means of its development. In one chapter I recommend strength work, and now it may seem that I am somewhat opposing it. But I am not. Muscles that are strong and capable of great exertions will prove just as useful in many cases of emergency as will muscles capable of endurance only; and I want to impress upon you the value of the power of physical self protection. What I am endeavoring to set forth is that muscles should possess endurance qualities just as much as or even more than bulk or strength. The two should be combined. If you combine endurance movements and strength movements you can obtain a harmonious and pleasing development even though you may not secure the maximum girth that you would if you remained exclusively with strength training. But it is not worth while to sacrifice half an inch, let us say, of girth to possess muscles that will prove capable, should the emergency arise, of saving your life or that of another?

If you exercise exclusively with heavy dumb-bells or barbells for purposes of developing strength and muscle bulk, you will obtain the maximum girth and the maximum strength that your frame work and capabilities permit and warrant. But in order to maintain the same bulk year after year you must continue such exertions and stick to progressive exercising. If you do not you will find your muscles decreasing in size half an inch or more. And yet, it will be impossible for you to continue the violent strength-building exercises in later years that you are capable of performing in your youth. Your energies would not permit the continuance, and, as I have said before, if it were possible to continue, it would prove disastrous.

Suppose you performed dumb-bell exercise for a year or two and you developed a sixteen-inch upper arm, a forty-five-inch normal chest, and other pars of your body in proportion. In order to maintain the sixteen-inch arm and forty-five-inch chest you must continue using the same amount of resistance or weight; or, if you want to maintain your maximum measurements or become a little larger if possible, you must increase the resistance or weight. This can go on year after year, but as you leave your twenties and climb up in the thirties your vitality would not be as great as it was in your youth. Your enthusiasm likely would lessen, also; and to continue such vigorous training you would be forced to call upon your reserve powers, nervous energy, and will power. Your body would not recuperate as quickly from the effects of the exertion as it used to. And should you continue such heavy training methods the time would come some day when the weakest link of the chain would snap, and there would be said of you, “another strong man dies young.”

Now let us suppose that you do not devote your entire time to dumb-bell exercise but divide your exercising period into about fifteen minutes of the heavy work and about fifteen or twenty minutes or more of light work. After a year or two, instead of having a sixteen-inch arm and a forty-five-inch chest, suppose you had a fifteen and a half-inch arm and a forty-four inch chest. The contour of your muscles would be just as pleasing even though they lacked this half inch in the arm and inch in the chest, and other parts accordingly. However, your muscles could outlast the muscles of the exclusive heavy weight lifter, and you would be able to accomplish things that would make the dumb-bell artist sit back with envy. As you grew older and entered your thirties you would still possess the fifteen and a half-inch arm and forty-four-inch chest, because these measurements were developed through more natural exertions and were not forced, as are the ones of the heavy weight enthusiast.

If at the older period of life, you were to discontinue endurance work and exercise exclusively with violent work for a shorter period of time than you would in your youth, you might easily increase the girth of your measurements for the time being. But here again, to continue such violent work would be unwise. Muscles developed by the use of heavy weights are never as pliable as those developed by endurance movements. You readily can see, then, that no matter how hard you may work physically in your youth and how much progress you may make with heavy weight exercises, you positively will lose some of the strength and some of the measurements and contour of your muscles and you become older. On the other hand, if you combine endurance movements with muscle- and strength-building movements, you will be more inclined to maintain for a much longer period the proportions that you have gotten from such methods of training, because the stain is not so great upon the organs, and the vitality would not be lessened quicker than it could be replenished, as is the case with exercise that is all muscle-building.

As muscles developed by heavy dumb-bell exercise would be valueless in endurance work, and as muscles developed by endurance movements would be valueless in performing heavy work, why not combine the two and have muscles that are strong as well as pliable and with endurance qualities and fit for all classes of work according to desire and possible need?

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High-tension multiple sets for the upper body - By Ken Mannie

Ken Mannie is the Head Strength/Conditioning Coach at Michigan State University. email: mannie@ath.msu.edu


One of the hotly debated topics in strength training concerns the number of recommended sets for each exercise. We continue to believe that one to three properly performed sets of any strength-training movement will provide the optimal stimulus for increased strength and muscular size.

Variety is a critical ingredient in every recipe and one way to incorporate a new twist is by manipulating the set paradigm. This approach will help keep the workouts fresh and challenging - paramount variables in the year-round activity.

We have been particularly successful with a plan called "descending pyramids." The pyramid involves three sets of an exercise for a particular body area, with each set being properly performed in an all-out manner (i.e., to momentary muscular fatigue).
The three sets descend in target reps (10-8-6) and usually in weight as well. At best, the weight remains the same for all three sets, due to the intensity of effort for each set along with the prescribed recovery between sets (1 1/2 to 2 minutes).

This training alteration allows us to control the volume of the workout and to emphasize designated areas of the body through the course of the training week. With that brief overview in mind, we can dwell on some of the finer coaching points and the implementation of the descending pyramids (DP).

UPPER BODY DP: PRESS OR PULL EMPHASIS

The first step in designing an upper body DP is to determine whether to target the primary pressing muscles (i.e., the anterior shoulder region, chest, and triceps) or the primary pulling muscles (i.e., the posterior shoulder region, upper back, and biceps) of the torso. From that point, it is merely a matter of placing the movements in an orderly sequence.

Normally, we choose three exercises for the DP program, determine the order of execution, and insert one set of an antagonist
movement after each to provide some work for the opposing muscle groups. For example, if we want to target the pressing muscles, the DP could be set up in the following manner: Bench Press (10-8-6), Lat Pulldown (8), Seated Military Press (10-8-6), Seated Row (8), Incline Press (10-8-6), and Dumbbell Row (8). On the next workout, we would probably choose to emphasize the pulling muscles in our DP. It would look like this: Lat Pulldown (10-8-6), Bench Press (8), Seated Row (10-8-6), Seated Military Press (8), Dumbbell Row (10-8-6), and Incline Press (8).

As you can see, if the DP workout has a "press" emphasis we would insert one set of a "pull" exercise between pressing pyramids. If the workout has a "pull" emphasis, we would insert one set of a "press" exercise between pulling pyramids.
This enables us to highlight certain areas and movements without completely abandoning a stimulus to the musculature
on the opposite side of the torso. The specific exercises used are a matter of personal choice - we recommend as much variety in movement selection as the equipment allows.

CONTROLLING TOTAL VOLUME AND MAINTAINING BALANCE

Anther advantage of this system is that it affords the opportunity to include multiple sets in the program without turning the training sessions into a marathon. Each of these routines involves 12 total upper body sets. Even when performed in conjunction with a lower body routine, the entire workout should take no more than an hour.

Other than the multiple set factor, the basic difference between this and our regular high intensity routines is that we perform fewer total exercises. In other words, we sacrifice a few exercises in order to perform more sets of selected ones.

By changing the press/pull emphasis on a workout to workout basis, we can still balance the work being performed for the anterior and posterior aspects of the torso by the end of the training week.

FINAL COACHING POINT

The frequency of inserting a DP workout is really up to the coach's discretion. For some, it may fit very well with their current system and they may want to use the concept regularly. We choose to use it on an occasional basis, as more of a change-up to our base routines.

One rule we always follow, however, is that if we perform a "press" DP somewhere during the training week, we make sure to perform a "pull" DP before the end of the week. This helps us stay true to the balance concept mentioned earlier.

Movement speed for all of the exercises should be smooth and controlled so that the involved musculature - not momentum - is forced to perform the work.

For the sake of accountability, all workouts should be recorded and a plan for progressive overload should be put in place. Whenever the target reps for these routines are achieved for two consecutive workouts, we add 2.5 to 5 pounds to a set.

As with all strength-training activities, proper spotting and supervision by qualified coaching personnel are mandatory.

We hope this variation of high-tension strength training helps keep your program enjoyable and challenging for your athletes. Let us know if you have any questions on this or any other aspect of our program.

Ken Mannie, Strength/Conditioning Coach, Michigan State University
, Duffy Daugherty
Football Building, East Lansing
, MI 48824 (517) 355-7514.

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Q & A - "...a totally different mindset..." - By Bradley J. Steiner

Dear Bob,

Could you ask Mr. Steiner for his input on this?

According to many of the articles and books I have read, the same hand-to-hand techniques taught to SOG members (SEALs, Special Forces, Force Recon, etc) are taught to the general population. What is it about the SOG soldiers that make them so much more dangerous than an ordinary soldier or even a civilian trained in the same manner? I have known a few people in military law enforcement and all have said the thing they dreaded most was having to apprehend one of the SOG members, due to the safety risk it put them in. My thinking is this group of people have been taught a totally different mindset to combat and self-defense. That being a mindset of balls-to-the-wall, survive at any cost way of thinking.

Keith.




REPLY FROM BRAD STEINER


Hi Bob,

I LOVE contributing to your Forum!!

My reply to Keith:-

My personal association with members of the "special warfare community" dates back to the Vietnam era, and to the immediate post-Vietnam era (ie the 1970's). While I have instructed some few members in recent years of the Army' Special Forces and the Navy's SEALs, I am not as intimately familiar with their training as I once was. The feedback that members of the armed services "elite units" have given me, however, suggests that - today - their unarmed and hand-to-hand training is not at all impressive. Unfortunately, a too-great influence from the "groundfighting is everything" crowd has diluted "official" military close combatives to a dangerously inept level. I know of not one single combat veteran who has even a modicum of respect for the "official training" now given in this particular field. I had the pleasure of training two active duty Army Special Forces soldiers (combat vets) a couple of years ago. They refused to participate in "the nonsense" (their words!) that was being "passed off as hand-to-hand combat at Fort Lewis, here in Washington. They are both now in Afghanistan.

Often, special warfare personnel either train (or have trained) extensively on their own and/or they rely upon unofficial training from amongst their fellows who have trained in combat systems in order to acquire viable skills.

The same may be said, incidentally, for members of our intelligence community's "clandestine services". The lay public has a most inaccurate idea of how "formidably trained" the government's action personnel really are in close-in and hand-to-hand battle skills. Those who are really good are those who pursue the subject on their own, and outside the parameters of the courses that are "officially" administered during their preparatory career training.

Now, the question of "What makes these people so formidable, tough, and intimidatingly effective?"

First of all, selection and assessment for elite and action units is (or certainly was, when I had anything to do with them!) stringent and severe in the extreme. "Bodybuilders" are accustomed to the use of the term "easy gainers" to refer to people who put on muscle almost by merely looking at a barbell! Well, the elite and action services focus on selecting only those who have the prerequisite mental and physical capacities to excell in the sometimes impossibly demanding missions that these men are tasked with, once they qualify for acceptance. Such men are chosen for a combination of attributes that are very difficult to find: 1. Independent, autonomous thinking, while at the same time being excellent team members, and able to work effectively in a professionally qualified group, 2. An inventive and resourceful mind, 3. The ability and willingness (let us not mince words here) to kill, when necessary, without a tremor of hesitation, 4. Physical strength, endurance, hardihood, and tenacity FAR in excess of what even many professional athletes possess, 5. Courage: Raw, uncompromising intestinal fortitude to such an extreme that most would regard it as "reckless" - yet while possessing this degree of courage, at the same time having a total LACK of any tendency to be "thrill-seeking", a "showoff", or to be reckless. 6. A high intellect capable of quickly grasping and applying technical skills of all sorts. 7. The ability to function well under great stress, to exercise restraint and self-control, and to keep secrets.

Men in these occupations (ie men who qualify for entry into these occupations) additionally combine youth with natural athleticism and way above-average strength and ruggedness, coupled with mental determination that few possess in any field of endeavor - before they even begin training!

The inculcation of MINDSET is attendant all special warfare training in all services. Mission accomplishment - by any means - under the godawful conditions of combat behind enemy lines and against enormous odds, has always been uppermost in the mind of trainers and trainees for these types of units, and there is not the slightest question that supreme physical fitness and development, coupled with youth and a burning, unrelenting drive to WIN and to ACCOMPLISH THE MISSION contributes to the impressive formidability of these highly self-confident and justifiably proud members of the armed forces.

Training for these units is, please remember, a FULLTIME, total-immersion thing. Their instruction in hand-to-hand may not be extensive, but it is INTENSIVE, and no one in these units fails to appreciate - and to FEEL - what is at stake should he ever confront a lethal enemy during the course of his work. He is hammered quite forthrightly with what he MUST do - and do at once - in any combat situation. These men do not spend all day in an office amd then attend a couple of dojo workouts two evenings a week! They become and remain COMBAT-ORIENTED 24/7.

Another thing: These men do not have a "multitude" of options in combat (as, say, police do). Theirs is not to apply restraint holds, to effect arrests, or to control unruly individuals. They have but a single mandate: KILL OR BE KILLED. That finalizes things rather neatly, and establishes a pretty clear path to take when the rubber meets the road.

I hope that I have shed some light on the subject at hand.

Best,
Brad

Professor Steiner's American Combato Site

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