As the sun escapes over the horizon, taking with it the escaping day, the rain-soaked leaves rustle in the fresh winter wind and the moon rises to the east, beginning its evening waltz with the stars.
The forces of natural movement, from the earth’s subterranean crust through the swirling clouds and up into the ever-expanding universe above us, are enough to move mountains, swell vast oceans and alter the passage of time itself.
Some might say the natural ways are best, but how many of us see the natural ways as some sort of watered-down, sub-standard, inferior alternatives? We assume nutritional supplements have to be better and more powerful than plain old food, machines and gadgets more powerful than the mind, and fancy equipment an essential addition to basic, human movement.
I would go as far as to say, however, that the unnatural ways only ever win the day if the elementary natural forces have not been properly harnessed. In our own history, nothing man-made has so far come close to the grand designs of nature, from the complexity of the human brain to the power of the sun’s core. I believe it was Jesus himself who exclaimed: “Oh ye of little faith!”
In fitness and in life, I struggle to identify a single instant where simplicity proves less useful than complexity. When in a rut, complicating things further is rarely the answer, while we can rarely go wrong by striving to simplify things.
Keep it simple, get back to basics; one-size-fits-all solutions rarely fail. Basic, human movement is graceful, beautiful in its simplicity, and above all, a natural way we are not necessarily effectively harnessing.
I must admit I’m a bit of an equipment-phobe. Relying on equipment could mean becoming dependent on it and the only way forward then becomes seeking more advanced versions of that equipment.
When it comes to getting fit and healthy and shaping up the body into that sculpted, lean and athletic look, I’ve seen no better alternative over the years to training without equipment, employing basic movements, preferably performed in the great outdoors. Some of the best figures and physiques I’ve seen have belonged to clients indulging in such training. But what if lean and athletic is not the goal?
Another popular request we hear from young men is to bulk up, put on weight and get muscular beyond normal proportions.
A related question I found challenging and stimulating surfaced in my inbox last week: “Is it possible to bulk up without lifting weights? Can I gain muscle using no equipment whatsoever?”
This is the enigma of weight gain, a code many fitness professionals have tried to crack. The most obvious answer is no, of course you cannot. But what of the vast and high-potential reservoirs of natural, untapped energy we mentioned earlier?
Basic, human movement is graceful, beautiful in its simplicity and, above all, a natural way we are not necessarily effectively harnessing
While I can normally back up my answers with examples of actual clients who represent living and breathing proof of the effectiveness of a given training method or other, here I have no such proof. I can only make an educated guess, a hypothesis if you will. In this, the first of a two-part instalment, I will have a go at cracking this fascinating code.
Training is merely a stimulus. Muscles grow when adequate, freely available protein from the diet can be used to construct new muscle tissue and only in a physiological environment enriched by heightened growth hormone levels. The most effective bulking programme I’ve never seen fail is known as the 20-repetition squat.
This involves warming up and performing one working set of 20 squats, increasing the weight lifted per week and combining it with a high-calorie eating plan. Squats performed in this way are so productive because they target so many muscles simultaneously and challenge the general system sufficiently to elicit a hormonal response. Along with the squats, some upper body pushes and pulls are performed, as well as some core training.
The core work and upper body pushes and pulls are easy to tackle with bodyweight and outdoor training. Dips or press-ups combined with chin-ups are excellent choices. As clients typically gain body weight predominantly via the squats and eating, additional bodyweight moves performed each week actually get harder due to the increases in body weight being lifted, a simple self-regulated autonomous form of progressive resistance training.
But what about the all-important 20-repetition squats? How can we possible simulate this tried and testing formula without using weights? If we really examine and delve into the underlying principles closely enough, the possibility no longer seems quite so strange.
Muscles grow in two major ways; myofibrillar hypertrophy and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. Myofibrils are the functional contractile elements of the muscle cell that increase in number as it increases its ability to generate force.
Sarcoplasm is the energy-processing component of the muscle cell that increases its ability to store and process energy anaerobically or without oxygen. The anaerobic energy system supports bouts of all-out effort up to between 40 seconds and a minute.
If we can find an alternative to the 20-repetition squat that is challenging enough to elicit a hormonal response, forces the muscles to generate enough force to trigger myofibrillar hypertrophy and challenges them with as high an intensity as possible, drawn out over a duration of between 40 to 60 seconds, then we’ve cracked it.
matthew.muscat.inglott@mcast.edu.mt