Archive for September, 2009

Here are some con­tro­ver­sial ques­tions I want to dis­cuss con­cern­ing so called instinct train­ing.

Do pro­fes­sional ath­letes and teams prac­tice instinc­tively? Do com­pet­i­tive long-distance ath­letes train with­out their stop­watch? Of course not! So why would some­one try­ing to build mus­cle employ an inef­fec­tive and unproven tool that can lead you astray?

Build­ing mus­cle is based on improv­ing the inten­sity of the work­out pro­gres­sively each ses­sion. So why com­pli­cate things by fol­low­ing this ‘inner com­pass’ that has never been sci­en­tif­i­cally ver­i­fied to work?

Do you really think your body can deci­pher between the inten­sity of 9 reps with 225 lbs in 30 sec­onds and 13 reps with 185 lbs in 45 sec­onds? Of course not! Aside from hear­ing your mus­cles yelling at you to stop when the going gets tough, can you really inter­pret which was more intense? It is one thing to train instinc­tively dur­ing a set and squeeze out an extra few reps because you’re feel­ing really good today. But I do not advice “wing­ing” your entire work­out and throw­ing some ran­dom exer­cises together and train­ing until you “feel” like it’s enough.

How do you mon­i­tor your progress? How do you know if you’re gain­ing or los­ing over­all strength? How do you know what the pur­pose of the work­out is? Every work­out you per­form should be based on “out doing” your pre­vi­ous work­out and lead­ing to an end result. My work­out plans are based on ‘rea­son’ and sim­ple for­mu­las to mea­sure your inten­sity — not poorly defined instincts.