Now I am confused
I don’t know what else to say? I pushed each set to failure, and I am doing this 5 days a week and so far I’m feeling fine and each time I’m getting a little stronger. I know it’s against the usual 2 days a week routine but for the heck of it I thought I’d give it a try and so far I seems to be working for 3 weeks so far?
Scott
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Yup, I can’t explain it but so far it seems to be working?
Are you doing full body? can you provide the routine?
Are you doing negatives?
This sounds interesting
Dumbbell presses, curls, tricep ext, rows, push-ups , body weight squats at regular rep speed, no negatives. Usually about 2 sets , first set about 10 reps, second set about 6 reps. Little rest between exercises.
Scott
With all your nautilus equipment and that’s what you are using…Scott, you are hilarious, 
I thought I explained I was back at work after the pandemic and time at home was short these days so I’m trying working out at work for a while.
Scott
Just messing with ya
I have recently switched to the cycle of 3 days on / 1 day off, doing Shoulders/Chest/Back on Day 1, Bi/Tri/Forearms on Day 2, Legs on Day 3. My current training scheme is doing 2 different exercises for a body part during a session, each one done in 2 sets of Brian Johnston’s variations from JReps 3 book. Last couple of weeks I used (a) “fractals + full” variation (break the ROM into 6 segments/zones from hard to easy, do 4-5 fractals in zone + 1 full rep, moving into the next zone etc. until you cover the whole ROM), almost no rest between zones, and (b) Gironda zones (three zones in ROM, doing 4 mini-sets of 5 reps in each zone with short rests before moving to another zone). This one requires some rest between the zones. The combination is awesome.
By the way, I trained my calves on my new leg press machine 6 days in a row with 3 sets done each day close to failure each set with 1.5-2 min rest. Result: no DOMS, good local fatigue and feeling of muscles being adequately and sufficiently worked out, but not a systematic fatigue (which I commonly had doing standard HIT and which precluded me from training more frequently), I look more solid and defined now, 2 lbs of muscle mass added and 1/2 inch on calves in just one week. Paradox? Maybe, but for me more frequent split training with sufficient (higher) volume of hard effective reps is much better than standard HIT approach (either to failure of effort or failure of form).
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Its actually quite normal to make initial gains when you switch to high volume from a heavy duty/nautilus type routine. Initial, not long term based on my experience.
Sounds more high frequency than high volume. His volume is still low enough it doesn’t inhibit his recovery for the next session it seems like, and he’s not doing overly demanding movements. It seems the change of pace is being welcomed by his body here. I agree he may have to mix it up again eventually to keep the gains coming!
I’m not to worried about long term gains, I rarely make long term gains on a single program after I’m on it a while anyway, I just wondered how my body would react to doing a too failure workout 5 days a week. I thought I’d have burned out long ago but I’m still enjoying it. I think if I had tried this with my Nautilus machines I’d have burned out by now but even though the dumbbell workouts are hard it’s not comparable to my Nautilus workout. The good thing is I like working out more often than twice a week so it’s a good alternative workout when I want to try something different for a short time.
Scott
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I think you’re right!
Scott
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I’m usually always 3x a week. Try for every other day, but have no problem throwing in an extra rest day
I weight training three days a week (usually). Cardio on ‘off’ days.
Dr Darden,
Happy New Year! Did Arthur Jones ever mention any new year resolutions? Any memorable moments during christmas or new years eve with Nautilus or Arthur Jones?
Yes, there’s an incidence that stands out in my mind that involved Arthur Jones and the New Year. In fact, I have it among the articles in the Ellington Darden Archives, under the title “Wanted: Dead or Alive!”
The date was December 31, 1995, and I phoned Arthur in the later afternoon.
“YEAH,” he answered in his usual blunt way, which was an indication that his mind was elsewhere.
“Arthur, it’s Ell Darden,” I said, remembering that he detests small talk,
such as . . . How are you? Still, I couldn’t resist saying, “Are you doing anything special for New Year’s Eve?”
“Matter of fact, I am,” he said in a more affable tone. “I’m making a list.”
“What kind of list?” I asked.
“A list of the people I’d like to see dead in 1996,” Jones replied. “I already have one-hundred and eighty-nine names on it. I’ll be finished at two hundred, which is a nice round number.”
Oh my, I sighed to myself, I wonder if I’m on that list?
“No,” said Jones, reading my mind, “Ell Darden, you are NOT on my list. At least, not yet.”
How Arthur generates such shrewd responses, I’ll never know. But they certainly were creative and thought provoking. He was a master of quick talk.
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spontaneous laughter
Thanks for this, Dr Darden! A jewel of a story in the new year.
Edit: Re how our brain works, there is an ocean in between thoughts and taking action. A process called mentalization. Reassuring to know.
I got Edgar Jones book the Lost Empire of Arthur Jones for Christmas so it’s easy to understand why Jones felt that way.
Scott
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Entertaining book