I'm really unimpressed with the level of knowledge I see in strength training. Perhaps steriods have gotten in the way.
Been reading Arthur Lydiard (running) lately who says that you plateau after a month or so of anerobic training and that's just basically it then. Beyond that you won't even maintain for very long. Lydiard says though that you can gradually improve for years from aerobic exericse while just adding anerobic stuff a month or two before competition to get some extra speed and peak for competition.
I suspect that this is actually true outside of running. My own experience is similar and it appears to be the same for everyone else. Beyond a couple months of lifting, (and without steriods, etc) people don't really change their strength to weight ratio. Thay may gain a bunch of weight while maintaining strength to weight ratio. Or for an exercise like bench presses, where gaining A LOT of weight decreases the range of motion, there may be the appearance of a resulting increase in strength to weight ratio. But otherwise, people don't really get much more at all over the long term with strength training. Again, just that first few months of improvement, and then maybe maintain.
Look for example at chinups. The average guy can manage 10 to 20 in a couple months. As there are surely tons of people who work out for many years, there should be tons of people who can do a set of many more than that. Yet how many times have you ever seen anyone manage more than that?
Reading a very long article I posted in my blog which looks at rowing that found eltie rowers did much better when they quit the anerobic much harder rowing workouts and switched to much longer slower aerobic workouts and then very shortly before competition time added faster rowing. (Same idea as with Lydiard). This was something that they found over the course of decades at the nationwide level. And indicates it's not just running.
So then for actual long term improvement in strength, I'm wondering if it would make more sense to stick mostly with very light weights and basically lift aerobically the majority of the time. This of course would be boring and instead of that quick two month improvement you'd get with anerobic exercise, you would instead make a very slow gradual improvement that would continue for years.
How come no training "guru" is saying this? Maybe because they know that lifting that way would be very boring and most people wouldn't have enough patience to wait for the results?
One thing I'm sure of, I know why training "guru's" never point out that virtually no one really improves beyond that first two month plataeu(sp), because if they did, people would just lose interest in strength training, where otherwise they might spin their wheels futilely for a few more years.
I'm curious how many chinups can elite swimmers do? I've heard of one strength training "guru" claim he saw a swimmer knock out a set of 60+. But then it was a strength training "guru" and I trust those guys about as far as I could throw them. Considering the reality of strength training (virtually no one improves beyond those first few months), which they never admit, I pretty much just dismiss them out of hand anymore.
Home