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Evolutionary Fitness, Super Mike's Way: Part 2

December 23, 2007 10:44 AM

This is the exercise part of Super Mike's interpretation of Evolutionary Fitness and other theories of fitness. The guy is an animal; climbing a two story high flag pole hand over hand is just amazing (I assume he used the rope). Scary as well as amazing. And, like most of us ought to be, he is smart to protect his rotator cuff by avoiding bench presses. It is a symmetry destroying exercise as well, producing a lot of upper back rounding and forward shoulders from the tension in the chest and anterior deltoid. You can reliably spot a serious bench presser from this posture.

On push/pulls, I prefer to do them right after one another in the same work out to use reciprocal inhibition to counteract stiffness and maintain muscle balance. I also do no more than two hard days a week and then do one or two easy days to work on symmetry, balance, posture and grace (see the Essay). With all the chining and pulling, he probably does more bicep work than he needs to. A concentration curl would peak the bicep while the chins and pulling add mass and thickness. That is enough for me. I don't like big arms and my shirts become too tight (see my Essay again on polar moment). But, what the heck if he likes it.

Art,

Here are the details of my workouts and EF lifestyle that some of your readers requested. I apologize for the length.

I’m not an EF saint. I probably work out too much. I’ve been known to have a bowl of ice cream or a bag of popcorn on occasion. And I enjoy wine and beer. (One of the reasons I latched on to your site was when I saw a dinner you had prepared, and next to it was a Bud.)

But thanks to you, I have found out what works for me. And I’ve gotten results that I didn’t think were possible, at any age.

I try to apply Evolutionary Fitness principles of randomness, play, work and rest, to traditional body building routines.

I love to lift weights. Some people dread workouts. I can’t wait until the next one. I have to force myself to take days off. Lifting is my play. It’s not really bodybuilding, but more body re-design, build here, delete there. It’s fun.

I keep coming back to push/pull splits. Pull one day. Push a day or two later. I do legs and abs a day later or maybe in between the other days.

One reason I split is that I found out that when I work out heavy, and then wait a week or longer and work out heavy again, that that was when I injured myself. I found that to keep injury free and to help my joints stay flexible, strong and pain free, I need to have days with lighter weight and higher reps in between the heavy low rep days.

After 3-4 weeks of splits I may change to one muscle group a day or all groups in one day for a couple weeks.

I don’t go by workout days per week, so I can’t say back and bicep on Monday and then shoulders, chest and triceps on Wednesday. I might throw a leg day in between, or even take an extra rest day. Or do a day of just arms. I try to keep it random, but like I said earlier, I love to lift weights and probably do too much.

I do try to change up exercises each time. If I do chins and rows on one pull day, the next one I will do v-grip chins, t-bar rows, dumbbell rows or partial dead lifts. On the first pull day I will do 12-15 reps. The next pull day, I will do 3-6 reps. But I always warm up with plenty of light sets first. And slowly progress to the heavier weights, which I will do for two to three sets. Some days to failure, but less and less to failure, I’ve found that a constant tension and good contraction is more important.

When I do three sets of the 10 to 12 rep range, I usually have a 1minute rest, 1.5 minute rest and then a 2 minute rest. It varies though.

When I do 3-4 reps I rest less than a minute.

My workouts are usually 40 to 50 minutes long. They include plenty of warm ups.

How much do I lift? I am much stronger in my pull movements than my push. (I wonder if there is an evolutionary reason for this? I could easily climb a tree with a child holding on to me. I once climbed a fire pole two stories high using only my hands and arms, on a bet.)

I do v-grip chins with 75 lbs around my waist but only use a pair of 60-70 pound dumbbells when I do seated presses. My rotator cuff has never been able to handle heavy bench presses and that’s actually been a blessing, symmetry wise.

I do some aerobics. Once or twice a week I use the elliptical machine.
Basically, I use it for a brisk 30 minute walk. After about 20 minutes I do a series of 30 second sprints that make the machine shake, followed by a 30 second walk. I will do 4 of these. If I do too much, it just makes me too hungry later.

The elliptical machine is at a gym I belong to, but I lift free weights in my garage where I have Olympic bars and dumbbells up to 100 pounds. I use a rack for safety because I lift alone. I’m out there when it’s 36 degrees or 106 degrees. (Texas weather.) My wife thinks I’m crazy.

I prefer to workout at noon and usually fast the morning before a workout.

Arnold used to say, “stay hungry” and I live by that. I like to leave when I know I could do a little more. The same philosophy works for eating.

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Comments

Posted by: Tuesday at December 23, 2007 8:48 PM

Posted by: TonyFacade at December 23, 2007 7:01 PM

Posted by: Varangy at December 23, 2007 3:03 PM

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