Heavy Weights Low Reps – 180 Degree Health
I don’t have much time to post today, but I received an email from a girl just the other day, and she mentioned jumping back into Crossfit after resting and refeeding for about a month. Not good. She experienced major insomnia as so often happens when doing really grueling exercise, which seemed to only worsen as she continued.
Research and ideas I came across touting the benefits of high intensity interval training managed to seduce me a couple of years ago. While it may be true that higher intensity exercise (like Crossfit or HIIT) yields certain benefits, the fact of the matter is that really hard, grueling exercise has some negatives too – and I just don’t find it very sustainable. There’s only so many times that you can realistically motivate yourself to face a bout of exercise at your absolute cardiopulmonary threshold. Even Dr. Mercola who had great results with it and began eagerly sharing information about it, eventually found that he couldn’t keep up with the routine.
Needless to say, in the new Diet Recovery that I’m currently finishing up, there is no talk of “MAXercise,” or pushing yourself to such an intense and uncomfortable place. Rather, there is a focus on sustainability with exercise, and finding the minimum effective dose of exercise to continually make progress. The combination of progress and sustainability is what actually takes someone to a really high level of strength and fitness and keeps them there - done with the minimum amount of wear, tear, struggle, and strain, which is even more important for someone with a history of a low metabolism and major dietary and weight cycling stresses than it is for an abnormal person.
If you are looking for a safe, but productive form of exercise to do while following the rest and refeeding strategies lined out in Diet Recovery, or when you feel like you are done with that phase, or even just in general if stumbling across this post through a Google search, try heavy weights with low reps. Do a basic few exercises with a weight that is really hard for you to move – just a few reps, or even just holding the heavy weight in place (static holds/contractions).
In a 30-minute workout or less, without even getting winded, and doing it as infrequently as once every week or two, you can gain tremendous strength over time. Interval training is time efficient as well, but it’s just too damn draining and grueling. Doing heavy weightlifting with low reps? Piece of cake, even more time efficient, and even more productive. You can literally increase you strength by 50% or more in a year without ever getting out of breath.
This isn’t the only physical activity people should do of course. We should all spend time on our feet, moving around, playing and enjoying life in physical ways. But for those wanting to do some real training, and like that kind of thing, a sustainable and effective strength training program is a great thing to prioritize.
202 Responses to “Heavy Weights Low Reps”
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Sangita
First!! And just what I wanted to hear! -
cyndi
Ohhhhhh great! I have been resting and trying to get my body temp up so I decded to try your “MAXercise”. Well, last night I had to urinate like a thousand times, worst sleep of my life, woke up in the middle of the night and literally could not sleep. This morning, i haven’t moved from my chair and am eating for heat and i’ve been able to pull up the temp just a tiny bit. I took two steps forward and two steps back i believe. Learned the hard way I guess…:( Can’t wait to read the second version as I have been playing around with it for about two weeks now and am just stunned. -
Matt Stone
That’s why I’m taking the time to rewrite this book. It has mistakes. Big ones. -
How many more BIG mistakes are we talkin….:) And when does the new edition come out? -
Reyaz
Matt, that’s why you need to give this update FREE to those who purchased the original version. I know 99 cents is almost nothing, but it is a matter of principle…. -
It’s not an update. It’s a completely different book rewritten from scratch. It just happens to have the same title. Originally I was going to title it something different. I still might, at least call it Diet Recovery 2.
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Tyler
Only hitting the gym once every week or two? Makes a gym membership sound less appealing to a poor college student. I think I’ll just find some heavy rocks and leave those in my backyard.
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