I’m wondering if it’s just a period where people are not that interested in building big muscles as they used to be? I know tons of people who are into fitness and cardio type stuff but In my circle of friends and acquaintances , people at work and those in my neighborhood and that’s many, I only know one person who shows interest in building muscles.
Scott
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I am sure that traditional book publishers have a pretty good idea of how many copies they would have to be able to push through traditional retail outlets in order to justify the set-up costs for a production run. I have no idea what that number might be, but I’d guess it is far in excess of the number of people who follow Dr. Darden on T-nation. Those publishers are also tracking current sales numbers on similar titles in the same category. So if their sales numbers show declining sales of books in the bodybuilding category, I could see why a large publisher would not bite on anything that looked too niche.
I have observed that Dr. Darden’s last two print books were diet and fat loss oriented, rather than bodybuilding focused. I’d guess that category has broader appeal. It probably has similarities to say… cookbooks, which still seem to come out in large numbers. Just speculating off the top of my head, of course…
For what it is worth, one of the most successful strength training books seems to be Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength book, for which he claims over 500,000 copies sold (across all editions). I wonder if any HIT book by any author has ever come close to that? I wonder how Arnold’s various books did, back in the day?
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Sorry about the rambling on book publishing; after the fact I realized it detracts from the main topic, which is the new book. I did buy the book, and gave it a quick once through tonight.
I had a couple of immediate reactions:
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Like a lot of people, I find it odd to see Dr. Darden advising so forcefully to avoid failure. The idea itself doesn’t bother me, because I’ve tried other training systems that minimize to failure training, and had come to understand that to-failure training has it’s downsides. It’s just that I never expected to hear that from this author. Clearly, his thinking on 30-10-30 has evolved pretty quickly, because the T-Nation article from two years ago still had you going to failure at the end of both the second and third segment.
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I really appreciated the advice about adjusting the slow negatives to spend more time in the harder part of the movement. Part of the reason that slow negatives (or concentrics) always felt unproductive to me was the amount of time one could spend lingering in the easy part of the movement near lockout. That is certainly less of an issue on machines with good resistance curves, but it immediately becomes more noticeable with free weights.
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I do appreciate that the program utilizes a lot of free weights, since most people training at home will not have access to a garage or basement full of nautilus machines.
That said, I do see a couple of challenges for people training at home:
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Coming up with good substitutes if you don’t have a leg extension or curl machine is a little tough. I know there are alternatives available, I just don’t think they will be quite as good as having the real thing.
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With limited equipment, keeping rest times to 20 seconds will be tough for a lot of folks. With one set set of adjustable dumbbells, no way to avoid changing plates between exercises, which will take 60 to 90 seconds with my iron masters.
My other issue is that I have a long standing dislike of doing extremely slow movements with free weights. That bias developed years ago, when I was trying do Super Slow style training with free weights. It just never felt like a good fit, because of the attention that had to be paid to maintaining a consistent bar path, while moving slowly. I found it very distracting. With 30-10-30, I like that the slow movement is only used on the negative. That feels easier, most likely because relative strength is higher on the negative. However, that advantage is somewhat offset by the longer time required (30 vs 10).
My issue about control of bar path is made worst by the fact that I am currently using dumbbells as my primary tool, which allows about as much freedom of movement as you can have in an exercise. I notice it particularly doing bench presses: I have to independently control 2 hunks of iron that can move in 3 different directions, plus twist around the center of mass, or twist around the axis of the handles, while controlling motion via a hypermobile joint (the shoulder). That is a lot to manage while trying to be deliberately slow.
On balance, I have been of the opinion that the 30-10-30 style of training is best done in a suitably equipped commercial gym that wasn’t too busy (so that you could quickly move between machines). But maybe, without having to go as close to failure, and being less concerned about uniformity of movement speed, it might be more doable in my situation. I’l have to give it a try with a few movements and see how it goes…
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You are pretty much on-target with your book thinking. Arnold’s Encyclopedia has sold 800,000 copies and it is still selling. My The Nautilus Book sold 735,000 copies and The Nautilus Bodybuilding Book sold 535,000. None of my other books are close to those.
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I have Ironmaster dumbells which are great heavy duty tools , but impossible to change within 30 seconds or less.
I have more equipment, but it would still be a big challenge to create routines where I can use both safe productive movements and be able to move from exercise to exercise within 30 seconds.
I think that many home trainers are going to have to be “creative” with their exercise selections.
An example might be using exercise twice within a routine like chins and dips and firstly perform them in a 30-10-30 way , albeit in many cases with the TUL lowered to account for ones strength (eg: 20-8-20 or even 15-6-15) , followed later in the workout with a slow one rep negative only set (45 -60 seconds) on the same exercise.
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Mark
You are right. A lot of home trainees are going to be creative.
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== Scott ==
The good thing about this is it shows he’s not afraid to change his mind instead of sticking to something that may not work to well for many as so many trainers do. I haven’t paid much attention to TUT and I could be wrong but it also seems these days it’s become more of a major issue and is much shorter than in the past?
Dr D: What had been your son’s training regimen in the fall semester prior to this course of 30-10-30?
Regular? Haphazard? No Training?
I think it was more haphazard than regular.
Dr D: I know you said to keep the same weights throughout, but what about Workouts 13 and 14? Since they are of reduced duration/intensity, should we take that opportunity to increase the poundages? Or are these intended as a ‘Wind-Down Phase’?
Best Regards,
Dcott
I used the same weights for Workouts 13 and 14 as previously applied. And yes, they were intended as a Wind-Down Phase.
Doc,
After the 5 week 30-10-30 program, should we start the program over using heavier weights for each movement? Or should we resume a standard HIT program & resume this five week 30-10-30 program just several times per year? If you recommend a standard HIT protocol, what would be the best way to achieve the appropriate level of inroad without training to failure?
As for Plazma, how’s it taste? They all claim to be delicious, but some of the swill out there in the market I wouldn’t make my enemies drink. Just wondering if your son liked it or just tolerated it because of the benefits.
Thanks.
I’m working on a follow-up program right now.
Plazma tastes a lot like Gatorade. Tyler had a medium reaction during the first week, but then he actually started liking it. There are four or five flavors to add to the solution and they are all great tasting.
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@Ellington_Darden, lime is the best! Hulk juice.
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Hey Dr. E…any idea when you will have the follow up program ready to roll?
Thanks, Dan