Wrong forum if you’re gonna quote Muscle & Fitness articles!
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No, I’m pretty sure I’m in the right place to discuss the training methodology of Kevin Levrone, especially given that I explicitly stated I wasn’t going to post a link here, as it’s against the rules.
Besides, I didn’t quote anything that promoted their website - it’s two quotes from Levrone himself, with a couple easily-verifiable facts as context.
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Yeah, that’s one of the thing I never liked about a lot of the HIT crowd ; they’d pick and choose which bodybuilders to pick on, LOL. Arnold and Franco were at the top of the list I think because Jones couldn’t get them to recruit to the HIT camp, although from what I read , Franco ate up the HIT workouts and did well with them.
The Mentzer’s and Casey were fine with the HIT guys since they had a connection with Jones as examples of HIT workouts . No doubt that reduced volume / higher intensity training works , but it’s never brought up that these guys … and Sergio … built world class physiques using typical methods way before they ever heard of Arthur Jones - and so did Darden.
What it comes down to is genetics ; all of the top guys were/are superior in responding to exercise, strength, assimilating most their food / nutrition, having even fat distribution and … OH NO … responded well to DRUGS !!! And you thought they got that way eating tuna and water
( and maybe some oatmeal ) ??
Leverone talked many times about how geneticllly gifted he was even with how well he responded to anabolics , yet so many guys still believe - or want to - that all that went into Casey came from a local, greasy spoon diner.
I liked all these guys , no matter how they trained or what drugs they used. Their looks inspired my workouts for the last 35 years. How come you guys don’t jump all over Darden for using drug induced physiques to illustrate his many awesome books ?
I’ll say this ; IF in Dartden’s ‘High Intensity Bodybuilding’ which was the first book of his I ever saw, he used some natural looking guy struggling with a 100 barbell instead of enhanced Tom Platz doing negative only presses with 315 … I’d have put the book down right then and there and looked no farther.
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I think this is kinda the point isn’t it? We all know these practises exist. Using Supersquats as an example: we all know that people don’t add 30lbs of muscle in 6 weeks with just a barbell, steak and eggs. We expect exaggerated claims of efficacy, we expect pictures of enhanced, genetically gifted, photoshopped dudes with favourable lighting who used a whole host of different training philosophies to build the physique you see. And then we put our rose tinted glasses on and pretend that these criticisms only happen with the other guys, because we’re human and that’s what humans do.
== Scott==
I think it’s like being into fancy expensive cars. Most of us know we are not going to ever own or even be able to even sit in a Studds Bearcat or a Ferrari but we go to cars shows, buy calendars and magazines and drool over the pictures in them. We all know that we’d have never bought a muscle mag if it only had pictures of goofs like me in it. The muscle mags are like going to a freak show, you just can’t turn away. What gets me isn’t the pictures so much as the suggestion that you to can do this too if you follow the suggested routine. For 99% of us that ain’t going to happen. Right now I’m looking at an article that says put on 18 pounds of muscle in 10 weeks and 2 inches on your arms! That would take my arms up to 171/2 inches ! That’s not even close to these big guys but that isn’t going to happen no matter what I do naturally. They use people like Viator, Mentzer, Yates. Arnold etc etc to insinuate that we can do that to and that’s where the problem lies. We aren’t a one in a million freak like they are but then it gets back to that thing of who’s going to pay attention to a Barney Fife workout?
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Marketing aside, I think there would be a huge following of guys who would settle for something like 10lbs of LBM coupled with -10lbs of fat. That’s a net weight gain of zero - but you would look radically different! 
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Sure - this is one way to do it. There are plenty of different macro splits and rep/set extenders that can get you there too.
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Exactly!
Personal preferences make your exercise choices interesting. Also, the will to be consistent with a routine is enhanced by personal preferences.
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“Training to failure was a practice I wish I could’ve stopped in the '80s and replaced with this much more productive exercise prescription. Training to failure actually limits the number of muscle fibers stimulated”
I mean…what? Training to failure is wrong?
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==Scott==
This is a hard one to grasp being that we’ve been told a million times that the most important reps were those last few at failure. I guess there’s a difference between going to failure on a regular set of 10 reps vrs the form of failure achieved with 30 10 30? After a set of 30 10 30 it seems I’ve exhausted that muscle equal to if not more than when I reach failure on a regular set of 10. The big difference that I’ve found is my system is not nearly as drained on the 30 10 30 as it would be on the regular 10 reps to failure. I recover much faster!
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Yeah I heard that you recover faster and its less draining, honestly i expected to be the contrary with the 30 seconds negatives. I never tried it and now in my country gyms are still closed, i didn’t touch a weight in 5 months.
Well yeah: you forgot the gallon of milk a day.
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I was listening to one of Mike M’s old recordings yesterday and it seemed the only one truth regarding training for strength and size was intensity. He then argues, mainly from analogy, that one all out set to failure is sufficient for growth. Everything else the had to be built around that, i.e. lengthy recovery between sessions.
It is interesting he never explored NTF training (as far as I am aware, that is). After all, one NTF session sandwiched 72 hours between of all out HIT may have been optimal?
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== Scott ==
Well Mentzer pretty much parroted Jones. Hey I love Mike but being that Mentzer was a one in a million genetic freak on god knows how many drugs isn’t asking him how to build muscle like asking Kareem Abdul Jabbar how to stuff basketballs, ha ha!
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Actually current research says not!
As long as fatigue/failure is attained, even light weights can get similar results as heavier weights. Just takes more reps/time.
Where is the genesis of his statement?
I believe it’s in the hidden principles of muscle growth article. Before that I don’t know?
Scott
Thanks, however I am wondering from where Dr. Darden ascertains this statement? Is he conducting research on muscle fiber recruitment?
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I don’t know about fiber recruitment but I just realized earlier I was comparing a regular set of 10 to 30 10 30 saying they were both equally close to failure results. I’m just now thinking isn’t 30 10 30 really the equivalent of 3 sets , one set or a 30 second negative , one set of 10reps and another set 30 seconds.?I guess since the 3010 30 is done in around 90 seconds and is continuous it qualifies as only one set ? Something to think about?
Scott
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Think inroad, inroad, inroad. With 30-10-30, the resulting inroad is deeper than training to failure.
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I’ve never come across the term “inroad” before the merging of the two forums. What do you mean by inroad? If possible without too much technical terms, for those of us who are hard of thinking.
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