Awesome Old School Article on TRaining Within Your Means...

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This is a 2 part LONG-ASS article. It is very informative though and even though it is so old, what it says is still applies to training yourself today. A major part of my philosphy on working out is based on what he says in this article. It works for me, maybe it'll work for you. It's good read.





Secrets Of Strength - Chapter 11 (Part A) - Building Vital Force and Reserve Energy
By Earle E. Liederman

Posted on NaturalStrength.com on 07 October 2002

I have found that the cultivation of muscle is an easier matter than the
creation of strength. To increase the size of a muscle, or a small group of
muscles, requires only time and concentration; whereas the upbuilding of
strength requires those two things plus the judgment which comes from
experience. That explains why a man who puts himself under the guidance of a
capable instructor will increase in strength far more rapidly than will the
man who attempts to teach himself. In other books, I have described the
exercises which develop the different muscles, so in this chapter I will
write about the increase of bodily strength which comes from a properly
regulated training program.

As aspirant for physical strength and muscular development may train for
months before he finds out whether he is on the right track. Instead of
keeping in the main highroad and making steady progress towards his goal, he
may unwittingly run off on a switch -- get side-tracked-- and arrive nowhere.

A young fellow bursting with the ambition to be strong will undertake some
too strenuous program; plow right in and work hard from the very start. He
has been told that this program has enabled others to become enormously
strong, so he thinks it should do the same for him. In a few weeks
everything goes along swimmingly. His arms get bigger, his legs sounder, and
muscles seem to mysteriously spring out at unexpected places on his body. He
finds that every day he is getting stronger and stronger; and he goes around
telling everyone how fine he feels. He becomes an ardent advocate of
physical exercise, and urges his friends to follow his example. But after a
few weeks, say at the end of the third month, he commences to feel a little
less "peppy:" and if he continues his hard exercise, he is finally forced to
admit that he not only has stopped gaining but seems to be slipping. His
daily exercise which was his greatest pleasure, now becomes sheer drudgery
and he dreads the approach of the hour when he has to exert himself. If he
is wise, he will realize that he has been rushing things too much and is
overtrained; but that sort of wisdom comes only from experience, and this is
his first experience.

Notwithstanding the fact that he can feel his energy decreasing, he persists
at his program. "Why should I give it up," he asks himself. "Look what it
has done already"! Even if he has come to a halt, no one can deny that he
is bigger and stronger than he was three months ago. And to quit for a while
would interfere with his sacred program; for he has figured it out that if
he did so much in three months, at the end of six months he will be just so
much bigger and so much stronger. And, though he would not admit it for the
world, the has it all doped out that at the end of the year he will make
Sandow and Hackenschmidt and those other fellows take a back seat. So he
keeps on, and his muscles not only fail to grow bigger, but actually get a
little smaller. True, they are harder, but are not getting stronger as
rapidly as he had hoped. Worst of all he keeps getting more and more tired,
and his friends instead of complimenting him on his fine appearance, have
taken to inquiring whether he is sure he is well. If he persists (and lots
of these fellows do), then before long he reaches the point where he has to
stop whether he wants to or not. It becomes a case of either quitting his
job or quitting his exercise, for he has not the strength enough for both.
So with a long sigh he foregoes his ambition; puts away his exerciser, and
decides that this exercise business is all a snare and a delusion; and that
he was unwise to try and improve on nature. For a few days all he does is
tend to his job, but he soon finds he is sleeping with a complete and
gratifying soundness and wakes up feeling alert. His appetite comes back,
and his meals look so good to him that he does them full justice. He puts on
weight at the rate of a pound or so each day; his cheeks get some color in
them; his step becomes springy and the feeling of strength surges through
him. Thereupon his kind family proceed to say, "Just see how much better you
look and feel when you don't do those foolish exercises!" However, the young
man does not concur in this opinion, for with half an eye he can see that he
now a better man physically than ever before; ever so much stronger than
before he exercised. So impressive do his muscles look that he gets out the
old tape-measure and is gratified, but not surprised, to find that his arms
and legs are actually bigger than his previous best, and by golly! unless he
eats less and gets some kind of exercise he will get actually fat. The
temptation gets too strong for him and retires to his room, gets out his
exercising-machine and decides that just one stunt won't hurt him any. Now
he is amazed, for he finds that he can lift more pull harder, push more
forcibly than ever; and that stunts which used to be very difficult are now
as easy as pie for him. (Nine chances out of ten he will get back on his
program as quickly as possible; and unless he has learned his lesson, is
quite apt to repeat his unpleasant experience. In the tenth case, he will
not exercise any more, and as the days go by he loses the feeling of great
exhilaration and strength, and gradually drifts back to his old untrained
condition.)

The foregoing is not a story which I have made up out of my head, but is
something that I have known to happen, not only once, but in dozens of cases.
It even occur to a wise professional athlete under certain conditions.

A long-distance specialist will enter one of these six-day affairs. For six
weeks previous to the event, he will train carefully and scientifically,
doing track-work, to harden his muscles, and put his heart and lungs in
condition for the great test. But not once in that time will he over-do, for
he is training so as to go to the starting post with immense energy in
reserve. And he does! But as the contest proceeds you can see him literally
fade. His small store of fat will be burnt out of him; his face gets
haggard, his muscles stringy, and his bearing that of an old man. Toward the
end of the sixth day of the underfeeding, lack of sleep and over-exertion
have taken their toll, and he becomes a sample of utter physical exhaustion..
He forces himself to finish--win or lose ??rather that to forfeit his share
of the gate money.

When the race is over he is put to bed, and sleeps and sleeps. If he wakes
up, he is given nourishing food, and then he slumbers off again. When he
has gotten his fill of sleep, he devotes the next few days to heavy feeding.
His appetite is something to stagger you. If he weighed 160 pounds at the
start of training, 150 pounds at the starting post, and 125 at the finish, it
is likely that three weeks after the race he will weigh 175 or 180 pounds.

I offer that as a parallel case to that of many men who start to exercise.
If you ask me what "six-day racing" has to do with strength, I will admit
that it seems to be more like an endurance test; but endurance, as we have
already seen, is nothing but continued strength. If you further object that
a six-day racer is rarely a very strong or powerful man, I have to reply
that he at least has a tremendous stock of energy; and remind you that I am
now writing about the building up of reserve energy.

Let us switch to another viewpoint. It is possible for a man to make most
remarkable gains in size and strength of any one set of muscles and to keep
on gaining without a single setback. It is conceivable that one could
increase the girth of one's upper arm from eleven to sixteen inches, vastly
increase its strength, and do this without any loss of general energy, or any
ill effects whatever. For if you confine your work to one part of the body,
most of the beneficial effects are shown just in that part, and some of the
neighboring parts; and the bodily exertion is not great.

It has been proven that vigorous movements, repeated only a few times, tend
to increase both the size and strength of a muscle much more rapidly than
will a violent movement repeated once; or a mild movement repeated one
hundred times. Now, since there are comparatively few muscles in the upper
arm it takes only a few different exercises to bring those muscles into
action; and since each exercise has to be repeated a few times, it becomes
possible to develop the arms to their fullest extent by exercising them only
five or ten minutes every twenty-four hours. As the muscles grow bigger and
stronger, the exercises will naturally become easier of performance; and then
all you have to do is to increase the resistance against which the arm
muscles are working; without making it necessary to make more repetitions,
or to spend more time. Under such a plan, and if you do little other
exercise, you can build up your arms until they are so big that when you don
a bathing-suit your arms will simply dazzle the eyes of your friends. But
don't forget that all you will be is a man with strong arms, not a strong
man. Even the biggest arms will not enable you jump any higher, if your legs
are still small and weak. Nor will they enable you to lift, or carry a lot
of weight if your lower back is still weak.

I have seen some extraordinary cases of special development built up on this
one-at-a-time plan. It happens that the pectoral muscles on the front of my chest rather well developed; and apparently they attract attention, for others comment on their size and shape. They seemed to particularly impress a young pupil of mine.
He asked me, "Mr. Liederman, won't you tell me how to get of pair of
chest-muscles like yours?" I assured him that that was part of my job; and
instructed him how to do a couple of exercises using very stout rubber
cables, and along with these to practice "dipping" on the floor, and on the
parallel bars -- and to take but mild work for the rest of his body.

He worked with enthusiasm and determination, and although it is only a few
months since he started, he came in the other day and displayed to me the
most remarkable pair of breast muscles I have ever seen. Remember that when
he started his breast muscles were barely visible, whereas now when he flexes
them they mount up in two huge bosses of muscle and look almost as though you
had cut a football in tow lengthwise, and placed a half on his chest each
side of the breast-bone.

"Dipping" -- particularly the parallel-bar variety -- is strenuous work, and
employs the muscles of the upper back, the upper arms and the shoulders. But
it calls particularly on the breast muscles. So I was not surprised to see
that this lad's shoulders were broader than before and his arms much bigger.
So thick had his breast muscles become, that they added considerably to the
diameter of his chest. They made his chest very deep from front to back.
His chest girth is 42 inches normal, something wonderful for a young fellow
of his height.

The "dipping," being vigorous arm-work, had built up his upper arms so that
they measured a clean 15 inches. But it was apparent that the increase in
arm-girth was a sort of by-product. When I freely admitted to him that his
chest muscles were bigger than mine, he came back with, "How much does your
arm measure?" I told him, "Oh, about 16 1/2 inches; and then as I
anticipated, he said, "Now tell me some exercises to give me an arm like
yours."

I have accordingly given him some special arm-exercises, and I fully expect
that before long he will come back with a pair of 17-inch biceps --
especially if he follows my directions. I knew that it would be unwise to
add too much work to his daily program, and told him cut down on the
"dipping," and that he could do this without worrying about losing his
chest-development. For while it takes a lot of hard work to develop a muscle
to its limit, you can keep it at its limit by only a little work. Actually
this lad had been doing 150 "dips" per day --75 on the floor, and 75 on the
parallels. I told him to cut down to fifty, twenty-five each way. That
would give the breast muscles sufficient work and would leave him a lot of
energy for his special arm-exercises. To you or the man of ordinary
development, "dipping" twenty-five times seems like a day's work in itself,
but you must remember that this chap has muscles so big and strong that 25
"dips" is no more exertion to him than climbing three flights of stairs is to
you. This unusual young man has great ambition, and is gifted with a large
stock of patience. If he sticks to his present plans of developing one part
of his body at a time, it may take a couple of years before he has brought
all his muscles to the same standard of perfection that his pectoral muscles
now possess; but at the end of that time he will truly be a
"muscular-marvel," and should be terrifically strong.

However, here are but few who are willing to spend two years at becoming
thoroughly developed. A beginner does not want to postpone his entrance into
the "Strong Man" clan as long as would be necessary under the above plan.
The desire is to become a strong man, which entails all-round strength, and
not special or local strength.

Personally I believe the best plan for the beginner is to start with
exercises of a rather mild character, for then one can include movements
which develop every part of the body, and supplement hose with other general
exercises which use almost all the muscles simultaneously. This sort of work
yields but comparatively small results so far as muscular growth is
concerned; but its great advantage is that it limbers up the joints, gives
elasticity and some strength to the muscles; enlarges the lungs, strengthens
the heart; and best of all improves the condition of the whole body, and
inures it to fatigue. Because none of the exercises are severe, even a long
period of exercise will not cause the fatigue which comes from over-exertion.
This kind of exercise is just what is prescribed for a man who "just wants
to keep himself in condition." But at that it is the best start-off even for
the boy, or man, who intends to train for great strength.

After the body has been thus prepared, more vigorous exercises are in order.
So long as the progressive principle can be adhered to, the kind of
apparatus is not limited to one kind. Adjustable bar-bells and certainly
convenient. Heavy pulley-weights can be made to do. Gymnastic apparatus can
be used, and schedule of progressively difficult exercises be figured out to
suit. And when there is positively no apparatus of any kind to be had, it
is still possible to use the weight of one's own body to furnish the
necessary resistance.

But as soon as you undertake real "strength exercises" you must be on your
own guard. Not against over-strain so much as "over-work." No fixed
schedule will suit in any and all cases. There is always what they call a
"personal equation," which in this case is a complicated one. Even when the
aspirant for strength is organically sound, such factors as one's age, shape,
size of muscles, digestive power, resistance to fatigue, and power of
recuperation must be considered.

The internal factors are the most important. A man who has a perfect
digestion to start with, will put on muscle more rapidly than another man
whose digestion has to be improved as he goes along; and a man who starts
with a strong heart and big lung-capacity will stand a lot more work than the
man who has to develop heart-and-lung power.

And then there are men of a calm, unexcitable disposition; who seem to
quickly recover their strength and have a power to quickly rebuild muscular
tissue; and other nervous people who take longer to "come back," after the
fatigue of developing exercise.

Every man must watch himself carefully during his first few weeks of
muscle-building exercise. I do not mean the mild preparatory exercise, but
he vigorous work which follows it.

A prizefighter preparing for an important contest will spend six weeks in
training for the battle. Experience has shown that an athletic man can be
brought to the very top notch of condition in that length of time. And if
the training is too prolonged, the athlete will be over-trained or
"stale" and will lose energy.





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IRON GAME/PHYSICAL CULTURE HISTORY

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Secrets Of Strength - Chapter 11 (Part B) - Building Vital Force and Reserve Energy
By Earle E. Liederman

Posted on NaturalStrength.com on 10 October 2002

Although the fighter is being trained for a temporary condition, while the
strength-seeker is training for permanent growth, the training principle is
the same in both cases. Just as the fighter's trainer keeps a close watch on
his charge, so as to discover any signs of waning energy, so must you
carefully observe your own condition, and your reactions to exercise and
training. We have seen that in order to promote muscular growth it is
necessary to adopt a progressive schedule. Give a muscle progressively
harder tasks to accomplish, and, providing your condition is right, nature
will attend to making that muscle bigger and stronger. but if great and
rapid progress is to be made, there must be a certain balance between
exercise, rest, and nourishment taken; otherwise even the best system of
exercise ever devised will not yield results.

Most beginners become fascinated with the progressive schedule of exercise
and are apt to follow the schedule blindly, regardless of results.

When I first became interested in exercise a kindly old gentleman said to me,
"Young fellow, all you have to do is "chin the bar" once the first day,
twice the second day, three the third day, and so on; and before long you
will be able to chin 100 times in succession and you will get a great pair of
arms." Now the old man told me that in simple good faith, and I accepted it
as a great idea. I went right to it, and actually succeeded in following the
program until the fifteenth day: and after that every thing went wrong. Instead of giving my biceps muscles a rest I did the just the opposite. Convinced that the trouble was not with the schedule, but with me, I practiced "chinning" at intervals during the day, forcing myself to the limit at each session. As a result of this hard
work I succeeded in the next month in getting my record up to twenty "chins."
but I was so utterly disappointed by my failure to keep advancing at the rate
of one a day, that I lost faith both in myself and the progressive idea.

The whole trouble was that neither of us knew enough. If the old party had
told me to gradually increase the severity of the exercise, and to be content
to increase one repetition each week, then it is quite possible that I could
have made 52 successive "chins" at the end of the year; as nature would have
been given time to build up the necessary muscular tissue.

I regret to have to say that the average beginner, when embarking on a
progressive schedule, will show but little more judgment than I did. When he
starts out he is effectually sold on two ideas. He understands that in order
to get all the size and strength and development he craves, he must exercise
regularly, and must exercise progressively. So he makes a mighty vow, that
come what may, he never will skip an exercising period, and he will keep
always abreast of the advancing schedule. He may even go so far as to plot
out his schedule for weeks in advance, making a chart, which calls for so
many repetitions of an exercise on this day and so many more on the next. So
many strands to be stretched this week, and one or two more the week
following. Or so many pounds to be lifted as the days go by; or perhaps an
ever-increasing number of "dips" and "chins" and "squats." And each day he
will "check off" each exercise as he completes it and he has blind faith
that if he can only keep up with the schedule, nothing in the world can
prevent him from rivaling Hercules.

Now, it must be admitted that for a time, while the work is still easy,
everything will go along swimmingly, and the development and strength which
makes itself evident, seems to prove the value of progressive work, leads to
high hopes, and encourages one to continue. It is only when the daily
exercise becomes so severe that it tires you, that there is any danger of
over-work. And as soon as your body is over-worked, progress and growth will
cease for the time being. There is one infallible way of telling whether you
are on the safe side and that is your enjoyment of the work. I do not mean
the mental gratification that comes from keeping up with the sacred schedule,
but the actual feeling of physical satisfaction which comes from a good
muscular work-out.

If after your exercise, your bath and your rub-down, you feel fit to battle
for a kingdom, then your schedule is right. If, on the contrary, your
exercise so exhausts you that it is hours before you again feel brisk, then
the work is too heavy, and you must either take a rest, or else reduce
the severity and amount of the exercise. Progressive exercise is positively
the only road to great strength, but after all is said, the important thing
is not the way your schedule progresses but the way you progress. So you
must learn how to make the schedule fit you, rather than to sacrifice
yourself to the schedule.

On the other side of the question, it is plain that unless you do exercise
with a fair degree of regularity, progress will be nil. You won't get
anywhere if you exercise by fits and starts, for muscle and strength will not
put in an appearance until your body recognizes the demand for those
attributes. Go barefoot every day for a month, and before the month is
ended, the soles of your feet will have toughened. Shovel coal for an hour
every day and before long the palm of your hands will become horny and
calloused. But if you go barefoot, or shovel coal only occasionally you will
get nothing except cuts and blisters. So it is with exercise. Within
certain limits the supply will equal the demand; providing the demand is
constant.

However, when building up strength, while regularity of exercise is
important, strict regularity is a mistake. Suppose, for example, your
program requires you to exercise once in 48 hours, and for an hour at a time.
You can best spare that hour in the evening, probably just before you go to
bed. Say that this week the exercise periods fall on Monday, Wednesday, and
Friday evenings. On Monday and Wednesday everything is lovely, for you have
been sitting at your desk all day, and your body is crying out for exercise.
But on Friday you are sent around the city to interview a lot of clients, and
you have to walk miles and miles, and you have a date for dinner, followed up
by dancing until far after midnight. When you go home at 2 A. M. your body
is tired. You can get only a very few hours sleep at most, and the idea of
staying up for another hour and forcing your weary muscles to do a lot of
hard work is utterly foolish. But I give you my word that I have known it to
be done by some of these over-zealous enthusiasts. Why in a case like that
the proper thing is to say, "Oh, well, this is not Friday night but Saturday
morning, and I will take my workout on Saturday night this week."

The general rule is, that the more vigorous an exercise, the less often it
has to be done. That is the great beauty of progressive strength-exercises.
When you have made your arm so strong that you can reach up, grasp the limb
of a tree and "chin" yourself a couple of times with one hand, then all you
have to do is perform that stunt two or three times a week. You will keep
growing in strength and the exertion is of such short duration, that a
minute later your arm-muscle has gotten back its energy. And yet only a few
weeks previously while building-up that arm strength, you had to use both
hands to "chin" yourself, repeat a lot of times, and require a
correspondingly long time to get back your strength and your energy.

Therefore you have to guard against working to frequently; and you have to
also learn to regulate the amount and kind of exercise you take at any one
time. A great deal depends on how much time you are willing to spend at
practice. If you are a real dyed-in-the-wool enthusiast you can practice as
the professionals do; which is to distribute the work over a couple of hours,
of which only twenty or thirty minutes are spent at actual work, and the
rest of the time is taken up by the in-between rest-periods. If you prefer
to most of your free time at your other hobbies, and can spare only two or
three hours in the whole week, then you must be content with slower progress,
and had better adopt the special program which I will recommend later on in
this chapter.

The ideal way to exercise is to arrange things so that on the days you
exercise, you do a series of movements that provide work for every part of
the body, one part at a time. But in that case you must allow plenty of time
for rest. There are hundreds of young fellows who prefer to spend three
evenings a week at the gym, instead of going to the movies or dances. And if
they can do it, why not you? True, they go to the gym for the fun they get
out of it, whereas you would go for serious work. And since there is no room
to do serious work on a gym floor that is monopolized by the basketball
players and "class drills," you will do better to take your exercises at
home.

It occurs to me that I may have given the wrong impression when I laid so
much stress on the necessity of rest periods between exercises. It sounds as
though those exercises were so terribly severe that after each exercise or
"stunt" you would have to spend several minutes "coming to." as it were.

I harp on this subject, because it is vital that I make you understand the
difference between training "just for condition," and training for strength.

A man training for condition will go to his gym, his club, or his athletic
field, and for an hour or so he will move around so briskly that he will
sweat profusely. And the more he sweats, apparently the happier he is. If
he works so strenuously that finally he is standing in a pool of
perspiration, he will consider that he has done his duty by himself, have his
shower and rub-down; and then go around bragging about what a "grand
work-out' he had. He said it! Literally he has worked himself out, and that
is exactly the thing the strength-seeker cannot afford to do. If your idea
of training is that you must dash from one exercise to the next with the sole
purpose of "getting up a sweat," then I can tell you right here that you will
never get very strong, or well-developed until you give up that idea. I have
seen powerful young men preparing themselves for a "Strong Man's career,"
stay in their training quarters for an hour and in the course of that time do
only a dozen exercises, and although those exercises were of an extremely
strenuous character, these young men would never work themselves up to a
profuse perspiration. They had sense and experience enough to realize that
one cannot build up muscular tissue, if one sweats to a degree which makes
one lean; nor build up energy if one is continually spending all the energy
in stock. Of course, if the weather was extremely hot, they would perspire
just as any healthy person does, but as their muscles were in superb
condition they would perspire less than most do.

When training, a "Strong Man's" custom is to first "warm up" the muscles by a
little light work, because one can no more do feats of strength when the
muscles are cold, than will the engine of your automobile develop real power
if it is cold. After the light work the athlete will perform some vigorous
stunts. It may be lifting a heavy bar-bell from floor to chest, and then
pushing it aloft; and repeat. But the instant the work of lifting becomes
too difficult, he stops and walks around for a couple of minutes. He is not
particularly out of breath, because he selected a weight that was heavy
enough to make him really exert himself and therefore couldn't be lifted many
times in succession. And he is not particularly tired because he
deliberately stopped before he had to. He could have lifted more, but he is
saving his strength. After a couple of minutes' rest, he works another set
of muscles, this time preferably some of the smaller muscles, like those of
the forearms; since that requires considerable local exertion, but no great
output of bodily energy. And then another bit of hard work, such a
dead-weight-lift that requires great and powerful contractions of the thigh
and back muscles. Then more rest, and perhaps some little special work for
the calves of the legs; as that also can be done without a great output of energy.
And so on. And always he saves until the last his hardest stunts -- the ones
that require the use of almost all the muscles, and which therefore use up
energy in large amounts. Never does he make the mistake of doing the hardest
exercises, or stunts, in the first part of the training hour. If he did
that, he would be working under the disadvantage of having diminished his
strength and energy, and of working with tired muscles. If you happen to be
a track-athlete, you know that if you had entered your name for the high-jump
and the three-mile-run you would prefer to do the jumping first. You could
do the necessary dozen or so jumps, and if you had a few minutes' rest you
could still show your very best in the distance race. But if you first ran
at your best speed for three miles, and then after fifteen minutes' rest had
to compete in the high-jump, you would most likely make a miserable showing.
The long-continued exertion of the three miles would have sapped your energy
and taken all the spring out of your legs.

(I realize that is a rather poor comparison, as the same man is unlikely to
enter in two such different events as a high jump and a distance event. But
it will serve to make you understand why one training to develop strength and
reserve energy always saves his hardest work for the end of the training
hour.)

Now I have more than once watched several experienced young huskies training
in company, and vieing with each other in the performance of difficult
stunts and arduous lifts. Suddenly one of the strongest would walk toward
the showers, and if the rest said, "What is the matter, Gene?
Quitting so soon?" he would reply, "Yep, Had enough for today. Feel just
right. Gotta save myself you know." Or perhaps it will be, "Up late last
night, and got hardly any sleep. Haven't got the pep to keep up with you
fellows today."

None of the rest will coax him to return as any one of them is apt to do the
same thing any day. One and all of them have had enough experience to know
it is foolish to force oneself to do hard stunts when not feeling right;
especially if there is no real emergency or necessity.

A professional "Strong Man" carries the principle of his training right into
his "act." Most "strong acts" are gotten through with in ten or fifteen
minutes. If the performer is particularly famous, as much as twenty minutes
may be allotted to him; but rarely more than that.

If it is fifteen minutes, the athlete has to get through a number of
difficult and spectacular feats in that length of time. An ordinary
physical-culturist sitting in the audience and noting the power required to
do the different stunts, will wonder how in the world even the strongest man
can do such an act, not just once, but a dozen times every week.

The secret is, that the performer has carefully arranged his stunts in such
order that a hard feat will be sandwiched in between two comparatively easy
ones. And always the "big feature" -- the feat which requires a terrific
output of strength and energy comes right at the end of the act. That
happens to be the correct thing to do from the theatrical standpoint, since
an act should always be arranged as to "work the audience up" to a grand
finale. But the athlete -- the "Strong Man" --has to do it that way; for if
he did his hardest stuff at the opening of the act, he would be very apt to
do the following feats in a ragged , or sloppy manner. In order to "put
over" the impression of great strength the performer must do the hardest
feats as though they were child's play to him.

When I said that the performer alternated hard stunts with easy ones, I meant
easy for him; for it is but rarely that an ordinary man, even if he is a
"husky," can do even one of the easiest feats of a "Strong Man's" act.
Actually some of those men are so strong that they will rest up while doing
feats that are far and away beyond the power of the average man.

To illustrate: How many of you read these lines "muscle-out" a 50-pound
dumb-bell in each hand? Probably not more than one out of every hundred of
you. There is a "Strong Man" who does it in has act as a "stall." Near the
finish of his act he has a not very showy, but particularly difficult act,
which tires him for a moment. Everything is set for the big finish and he
accordingly walks over and makes a bluff; tries the big stunt and purposely
fails. Then he looks around in apparent embarrassment and happens to spy a
pair of fifty-pounders. He picks them up one in each hand, curls them, puts
them up a couple of times, and finally "muscles them out."

All the while he is actually smiling. And that smile brings down the house;
for every man in the audience knows how hard it is to "muscle-out" a pair of
fifties, and is vastly impressed at seeing he stunt done with such nonchalant
ease. And while bowing in acknowledgment of the applause, the performer
grabs off another thirty seconds to rest. Then feeling fresh again, he will
do the big final stunt successfully, and will walk off the stage only to
come back and take several curtain calls.

A "great showman!" you will say. I grant you all that. But can you imagine
a man so strong that a little drill with a pair of fifties affords him not
work but a rest!

Like most other professionals, that man, when on the road take no exercise
except what he gets in performing his act twice a day. Why should he?
Before he got on the stage he spent months, and maybe years, in building up
his muscles, and developing his strength; and once having gotten that
strength he has no trouble in keeping it. If he was so unwise as to do heavy
exercise "on the side," while filling an engagement, he would just be using up the
energy needed in his act; and I can assure you that thirty minutes a day of
"strength stuff" is no weakling's task; even if it is split up into an
afternoon and evening act of fifteen minutes each.

How does all that apply to you, who have not the least desire or intention to
go on the stage, or to earn your living by the strength of your muscles? The
connection is that unless you were interested in great strength you would not
be reading this book; and all I have been doing is to try and show you how
even the strongest men train so as to avoid the over-exercising that prevents
the building up of energy-reserve.

Let us assume that, although you are of average size and strength, you have
become seized with the ambition to become very strong. It may be that you
feel you need the strength so as to be able to excel in your favorite sport;
or it may be that you place a high value on strength for its own sake; and
think it would be a glorious thing to be two or three times as strong as any
of your friends.

Or perhaps you have been fascinated by the magnificent personal appearance of
some celebrated "Strong Man" and have figured out that if you can get strength like his you will get a shape and development like his.

Never make the mistake of thinking that you can get strong by learning to
repeat a heavy exercise, as often as you can do a light exercise of similar
character. Don't figure that since you can take a 10-pound dumb-bell in your
right hand and put it up 100 times, that you will be ten times as strong if
you can only learn to do the same thing with a 100-pound dumb-bell. If you
have already figured that way, don't try to actually do it.

To put up the light bell 100 times takes so little strength and energy that
almost anyone can do it without becoming noticeably tired. To put up a
100-pound bell takes a great deal of strength and energy, even if you make
but a few repetitions; and if you devoted all your time to making as many
repetitions as possible, your muscles would get bigger but your energy would
fade. Didn't you ever notice that a man after doing some particularly heavy
stunt will say, " I tell you, boys, take takes it out of you." By "it" he
means energy.

The cardinal rule is that the heavier the exercise, the fewer times it need
be repeated. This applies equally whether you are using iron weights, rubber
or steel springs, or the weight of your own body. As we have already seen,
to "squat" (or do the "deep knee-bend") is so easy that it soon becomes just
a matter of endurance. So don't assume that because it is so darn easy to
squat fifty times on both legs, it would be the proper caper to learn to make
fifty squats on one leg. The two stunts take an entirely different kind of
strength. Why, I know dozens of young fellows who can squat one hundred
times using both legs, who have not the strength to squat even once using the
strength of only one leg.

I could go on and give you similar examples of exercises for every part of
your body, but these two ought to be sufficient. Work this way: As soon as
an exercise becomes very easy for you make it harder; not by increasing the
number of repetitions, but by adding to the resistance the muscles have to
overcome. Don't force yourself to repeat the heavier exercises as often as
you did the lighter one, and when the heavier work becomes easy, why, make it
still heavier, and reduce the counts accordingly.

It is possible to work that scheme on every part of the body, and you can do
it either by sticking to the same set of exercises and adding progressively
to the resistance; or by substituting different, but more difficult
exercises for easy ones.

After you have so practiced for a few months, you will find that instead of
having to do, say, twelve exercises, each one hundred times, you do each
exercise but five times each. So as an expert you do only sixty repetitions
altogether; and while they make you use far more strength, they require the
expenditure of far less energy. Furthermore, the strength-exercises produce
and entirely different kind of muscle. Repeated strength-exercises create
the maximum of size, and bring out the full beauty of outline; while the
lighter exercises only produce muscles of moderate size, which have but
little strength and less shape.

Now to help you guard against the second common mistake. Don't rush through
your strength exercises. Don't jump right from one exercise to the next.
Give yourself plenty of chance to rest. You should allow almost as much time
to do a dozen strength-exercises, each a few times, as it took to perform the
lighter exercises ten times as often. Rush your heavy work and you will
finish up "all in." Take your time and you will "finish strong." with your
pulse and respiration only slightly above normal, without profuse
perspiration, and with a great feeling of strength and energy.

If possible, arrange the exercises on the professional's plan, spacing out
the harder ones with easier ones in between.

There is no magic in exercising a particular number of minutes. Even if you
have been assured that "thirty minutes a day" is the correct program, that
does not mean that you will kill yourself if you exercise thirty-one minutes,
or that you will fail to get results if you work for only twenty-nine.
Always gauge the amount of work by the way you feel. Your work-out may call
for fifteen exercises, but if you feel unusually tired by the time you have
finished the twelfth, quit at once and call it a day. It is better to let
one or two sets of muscles go without their regular work than to make an
overdraft on your energy bank.

On the other hand, on days when you feel particularly fit, there is no harm
in doing a little extra work; although instead of making the exercises a
little harder or longer, it is better to employ that extra energy in making
of couple of tests to see how strong you are getting to be.

Beware of rigid schedules. It would be exceedingly pleasant if you could go
on forever gaining at the same rate of speed, but nature simply won't work
that way. Don't insist that your muscles must be just so big on January
first and just so much bigger on February first. That also goes for
strength. Don't believe for one minute that you must be able to lift or pull
so many pounds one week and so many more the next. Do your exercises as
regularly as you can, and with the best of your ability; and strength and
development is bound to come.

Now if you are one of those fellows who can devote only a little time each
morning or evening to the pursuit of strength, while in the early stages -
while the exercises are still easy - you can go through the whole lot, even
if you have only thirty minutes to spare for practice. But when the
exercises get harder, you will have to reduce their number if you are going
to adhere to the progressive principle. This can be done in different ways -
by dividing he exercises into groups.You might do all your arm, shoulder, and upper-back exercises one day; all the leg and lower-back work the second day; and the chest, abdominal and side-exercises on the third day. It would seem better to mix up the exercises so that while you did only four or five exercises each day, one of them would be for your arms, another for your legs, and so on.

Under this plan you can make good progress, although you won't gain as
rapidly as does the other fellow who gives up tow hours to strength culture
on three or four evenings of the week, and who works all his muscles at each
exercise session.

Even if you are working this way, and but little actual work every day, you
be actually in action only eight minutes out of the thirty. You must never
force yourself to exercise every morning or night whether you feel like it or
not. And whichever plan you are working on, never hesitate to "lay off" for
a few days if for two or three days in succession the exercises have seemed
more like a laborious nuisance than an exhilarating pastime.







--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IRON GAME/PHYSICAL CULTURE HISTORY

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[Allon]

That was good, thanks for posting it. Point taken that working to exhaustion will if anything hinder progress... makes sense but it can be very hard to find that fine line between too much and too little, with all the variables up in the air, amount of weight, reps, rest between sets, days of rest, amount of sets, etc...

One thing he mentioned in the article that is the opposite of what everyone here seems to agree on is that you should leave the heaviest exersizes for the end of the routine.

 

[trez]

Interesting read!

 

[JohnRobHolmes]

yeah , i just caught this thread. good shit!

"Go barefoot every day for a month, and before the month is
ended, the soles of your feet will have toughened. Shovel coal for an hour
every day and before long the palm of your hands will become horny and
calloused. But if you go barefoot, or shovel coal only occasionally you will
get nothing except cuts and blisters."

this is now on my wall.