SSP 46. Dangerous Workouts - a podcast by Scott Abel, Mike Forest

On the heels of several university athletes being hospitalized because of the intensity of their workouts, Scott and Kevin ranted a wee bit about some of the most dangerous strategies that are currently popular in the fitness industry.



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? DANGEROUS WORKOUTS ?

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One of the most dangerous things to do is heavy kinetic chain work to failure, without a lot of rest.



Although a lot of crossfit programs are much better, a lot of crossfit training programs still do this.



The university students had indicators of rhabdomyolysis, or “rhabdo,” which has also come up in some crossfit programs, and “uncle rhabdo” has become almost a joke.



It’s worth noting, though, that the university players in the article were doing bodyweight workouts, which in this case meant stuff like hundreds of burpees and things like that.



Scott and Kevin emphasized that there is a difference between optimum work capacity and maximum work capacity.



Going into a gym or a workout just to see how badly you can punish yourself isn’t a sound strategy that has anything to do with the principles of exercise physiology and eliciting a specific adaptive response.





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Where do you draw the line?

How do you “push it” in the gym?

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Two key points came up here:



One, it can heavily be about mindset. There is a difference between having a bit of delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) because one workout was especially intense, or you are pushing yourself according to a set workout program.



Secondly, this goes into program design. Yes, you push it, but you don’t assign a new trainee a 6-day program they can’t handle. Someone doing rehab after chemo treatments shouldn’t jump into a high-level program like Whole Body Hypertrophy.



Leaving the totally insane workouts aside, you need build up a person’s (or a client’s) workload capacity and recovery capacity over time, and assign workouts that will challenge that and build it up.



Both Scott and Kevin are basically against group training. To make a long story short. It’s a one-size-fits-all approach to something where that doesn’t work.



Scott emphasized what he calls the “law of least eligibility.” The least fit person in the room receives the most stress or overload.



In terms of your own progression, you should also learn to differentiate different forms of biofeedback. DOMS is not the same as ongoing muscle cramping, discoloured urine, and sense of fatigue and low motivation, a loss of libido, and things like that. Invigorated, not exhausted!



Even DOMS should be something you adapt to over time.



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? LINKS & RESOURCES ?

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The Article on ESPN



Susan Powter’s Wikipedia page

Further episodes of The Smarter Sculpted Physique: Training | Nutrition | Muscle Gain | Fat Loss

Further podcasts by Scott Abel, Mike Forest

Website of Scott Abel, Mike Forest