MAS o Menos

I try to avoid discussing news stories on this blog, but I can’t keep silent on this story. From Overweight people get less out of exercise, which states that obese develop less strength, muscle in workouts than lean people:

The volunteers did 12 weeks of 45- to 60-minute workouts of their upper arms, working the biceps and triceps.

One hour of arm training? Are they serious? Is the goal to develop strength or make your arms so sore that you can’t lift a pencil? This is called over-training and isolation work. Neither are optimal for strength gains. Strength gains come from low-reps, high weight and longer rests.

Now it could very well could be that lean people develop more strength from weight training than the obese. We don’t know, because they used a obsolete approach to developing strength.

Give me the same groups. I’ll have them doing nothing but compound movements on major muscle groups. Reps between 4-6. Workouts no longer than 20 minutes. No isolation work and they’ll destroy the strength gains of the subjects in this study.

Tags: weights