About whether the Keiser machines are hard on the joints or not. Let me diverge a bit and talk about an innovative leg press. Cybex made an horizontal leg press and it was popular with lots of people. One day I had a go on it and worked up to a reasonable resistance. The machine felt smooth and great during the warmup with low resistance. As the resistance increased the movement just didn't feel right. It might have been the position of the feet which was quite high relative to the back. Using a weight I could just manage 10 reps on I knew that this wasn't designed properly. That test became a bench mark for me and I always loaded the machines I was trying via a pyramid. Sure enough most machines failed the heavy resistance test. Another promising machine was the Cybex seated toe extension. It, too, failed feeling right when maximum resistance was used. When I looked at the mechanics of it I could see it needed an adjustment to the length from the pivot point to the balls of the feet. What was comfortable and just right would be possible for everyone then. I never did build one of those machines but the idea was solid.
So I loaded up the Keiser machines. At heavy resistance my joints were not happy. So I didn't use them again....except for the seated calf machine. That was a great machine even at heavy resistance and great because the eccentric part of the movement would be increased over the concentric part. One of the best calf machines I have used.
Getting back to Golds Gym at Venice...The Mecca! I was there in April 1991 for two weeks. I stayed with Ray Mentzer at his place. When he lived at my place in Sydney he was with his partner, Kathy and their daughter, Dagny. She was named after the heroine in "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. I read that book way back in 1961. That was heavy going but I guess I looked for a superwoman like that but never found any. I introduced Ray to Pam who he eventually married and they lived in Torrance but didn't have any children together.
I agree that Arthur Jones was the most intelligent person to ever get involved in the Iron Game. I spoke with him for an hour in 1995 after receiving a patent for my biceps-supinator machine. I sure enjoyed that conversation. We got along like a house on fire. What a pity we didn't record it.
Ray introduced me to Mike after I said I would like to meet him. I gave him an unpublished article I wrote on the judging at the 1980 Olympia contest in Sydney. I wonder if he destroyed that article? Anyway, we spoke for about an hour but neither learned anything from the other. I guess I expected more. I doubt he accepted me as an authority in anything, either!
Let us talk about intensity that Arthur referred to. What a shame he wasn't correct about hypertrophy. I think intensity training might be linked more to strength and that was an objective because he sold a lot of his machines to colleges and high schools. We all saw how huge Sergio Oliva got after Arthur trained him for a month or so back in 1991. That was the biggest that Sergio ever got. He discontinued using Nautilus machines and methods because the gym he used in Chicago didn't have a line of Nautilus machines which was a pity. Imagine how great Sergio might have become with two years training like that? Arthur trained Sergio and Casey slightly differently from what he advocated. For legs he would get them to do a quick warm up then do leg presses to failure with a heavy resistance for 25 to 30 reps. With no rest they would go to the leg extension machine and do 20 reps. Then without resting do some squats with a heavy resistance for 15 reps. The first time Sergio followed Casey in this routine he couldn't get up in the squat after descending with something over 400 pounds. Once your body got used to this super tri-set you rested then repeated the sequence.
From my analysis of Arthur's theory on hypertrophy I concluded he was mistaken about intensity. It was a factor but it was not sufficient to continuously trigger hypertrophy in advanced trainees. His methods might work for a while but stop within a month or two. That is a shame because we all liked the idea of briefer training and more effective routines. I blame Jones for my not reaching my maximum muscular size because I didn't do enough volume. I combined what Arthur recommended with what I distilled from Larry Scott. Larry advocated pumping the muscles with brutal quick sets. Up and down the rack for biceps and shoulders. Few of those who tried Larry's routines stayed with them. The main problem was not having access to a row of dumbbells in the gym. If the gym was busy you couldn't hog 10 pairs of dumbbells for yourself. Effective but basically impractical during the busy hours at any gym. My method in those days was to see how few sets I would have to do, including warm up sets, to obtain a maximum pump. We believed John Grimek when he said he didn't grown after doing 100 sets of standing presses. Thus, once you pumped your arms bigger than ever you stopped because it was felt further exercise was ineffective. For me that point was reached after 7 sets. I would stop. What a shame because I was almost there. Just another 5 sets or so would have done the job.
What was it besides intensity that made the muscles grow? I am talking about serious bodybuilders who have at least 16 inch arms. The answer is quite simple, really, but easy to overlook. You can reduce all training protocols to time under tension. The intensity part is involved with how much resistance you are using. I think scientists concluded that you needed to lift a resistance that was 75 to 80 percent of a one rep maximum. If you could do one rep with 200 pounds in the bench press that means you would have to do 150 to 160 pounds in your routine to grow. When it comes to measuring time under tension how do we do that? Well, anecdotal reports from countless people over decades all believed that the last rep or two were the ones that made you grow. Let us say that this is about 5 seconds. Jones would like us believe that one set should have been sufficient. Not even close, unfortunately. It takes much more accumulated time under intense mechanical tension to trigger hypertrophy. I estimated that this total must be from 1 to 2 minutes. Not very long for sure but we are talking about the last two reps in heavy sets. It probably can't be reduced to exact reps, but it is the accumulation of waste products caused by training to failure over and over with a heavy resistance. I would warm up doing a few sets in a pyramid fashion adding more weight for each set. When I couldn't complete my target reps I would use that number to repeat that set with the same weight over and over. Let us talk about bench press and the guy doing 200 pounds. It could be 400 pounds or any number. You keep adding weight until you fail at from 15 to 20 reps. Why such a high number? You will see in a moment. Suppose you ended up doing 15 reps with 140 pounds. You rest about 3 minutes and do another set of bench presses. You will find you might fail at 14 reps. On the 3rd set you fail at 14 reps. Then on the 4th set using the same 140 pounds you fail at 12 reps. Something happens in the muscles and you can't do as many reps. Since you are still doing over 10 reps your form remains good and you get a good pump. This helps avoid injuries as well. You continue until you have done 6 sets with the 140 pounds. You will be down to about 10 reps then. You should be pumped, exhausted and shaking. These are unavoidable symptoms of triggering hypertrophy in trained bodybuilders. There is no easy way to trigger hypertrophy. There are many protocols that you can choose but you have to go through the same physiological states.
If you think this is an easy program then try it on squats and see how you go.
