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Weightlifting (resistance training) - “Super Slow” and “Success is Failure”

“I want you to stop all of your aerobic exercise and do nothing except resistance training!!”

The Alex Kuczynski article in the Sunday Styles Section of 1/19/2003 of the New York Times says the same thing I say: Reduce your aerobic training and increase your resistance training. And the point was further made by Adam Zickerman in that article: You can actually reduce your total exercise time - not that I really want to you to reduce your exercise time, but that you could reduce exercise time by doing what my son, Mark, explained to me years ago as “Super Slow”. The way it is written in Zickerman’s book, The Power of 10: the Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution was do any weightlifting exercise to the slow count of 10 until you can no longer do that exercise because the muscles “fail.”

That is the concept of “Success is Failure”. That is, you are successful with your resistance training when you simply cannot do any more (your muscles “fail”) of a specific exercise. Jack LaLaine, at age 88 plus, says the same thing. I generally recommend resistance training two times a week for each body part. It is simplest to do “uppers” (above the waist) on Monday and Thursday, lowers (below the waist) on Tuesday and Friday. That gives you “Wednesday and the Weekend Off = WWO”. The reason to split it is you need several days for the muscles to recover and grow. Growing muscles reduce percent body fat, which is truly a major goal. Moreover, the resistance training is better for bone density than the aerobic exercise unless that aerobic exercise his high impact which high impact aerobic exercise can hurt joints/the back.

So then, the concept is to do your exercise slowly, to the slow count of 10, as in the Times article, or just visibly slow so that it does approach a count of 10 in both the flexion and extension directions. Do not, let me reemphasize, do not be too aggressive about doing this or starting with too high weights. The danger starting with high weights or progressing too fast with exercise like this is you will hurt the joints and tendons, which may keep you out of exercise for up to 6 months! Gradual and progressive, there is plenty of time, go for it, enjoy it, and like Nike, just do it.

I also recommend the book 8 Minutes in the Morning: A Simple Way to Start Your Day That Burns Fat and Sheds the Pounds by Jorge Cruise.

These published in 2007!
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