Two Scoops. Get Huge.

Resistance training to momentary muscular failure improves cardiovascular fitness in humans.

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Abstract:

Steele J, Fisher J, McGuff D, Bruce-Low S, Smith D. Resistance Training to Momentary Muscular Failure Improves Cardiovascular Fitness in Humans: A Review of Acute Physiological Responses and Chronic Physiological Adaptations. JEPonline 2012;15(3):53-80.

Research demonstrates resistance training produces significant improvement in cardiovascular fitness (VO2 max, economy of movement). To date no review article has considered the underlying physiological mechanisms that might support such improvements. This article is a comprehensive, systematic narrative review of the literature surrounding the area of resistance training, cardiovascular fitness and the acute responses and chronic adaptations it produces. The primary concern with existing research is the lack of clarity and inappropriate quantification of resistance training intensity. Thus, an important consideration of this review is the effect of intensity. The acute metabolic and molecular responses to resistance training to momentary muscular failure do not differ from that of traditional endurance training. Myocardial function appears to be maintained, perhaps enhanced, in acute response to high intensity resistance training, and contraction intensity appears to mediate the acute vascular response to resistance training. The results of chronic physiological adaptations demonstrate that resistance training to momentary muscular failure produces a number of physiological adaptations, which may facilitate the observed improvements in cardiovascular fitness. The adaptations may include an increase in mitochondrial enzymes, mitochondrial proliferation, phenotypic conversion from type IIx towards type IIa muscle fibers, and vascular remodeling (including capillarization). Resistance training to momentary muscular failure causes sufficient acute stimuli to produce chronic physiological adaptations that enhance cardiovascular fitness. This review appears to be the first to present this conclusion and, therefore, it may help stimulate a changing paradigm addressing the misnomer of ‘cardiovascular’ exercise as being determined by modality.

Link to Author’s blog: James Steele

I knew it! I fucking knew it! I’ve been saying it for YEARS and finally I have found scientific proof that you NEVER HAVE TO DO CARDIO AGAIN. And this is science bitches. Not fake science. Not shit I make up. Not hyperbolic assertions. Real fuckin’ science.

This article was published in the Official Research Journal of the American Society of Exercise Physiologists. Everybody who works there has a PhD. I counted 19 members on the review board for this publication, plus an Editor-in-Chief. If you count the five authors of the scientific paper, you are brought to a grand total of 25 PhDs that approved of this research that says, and I paraphrase: “weightlifting alone will improve your cardiovascular fitness."

Therefore, one can conclude that traditional “Cardio" exercises are for the uneducated - science says so.

-Tony “I Told You So" Muscoli

This man can only be thinking one thing: “sit on my face."

- Tony

Pain & Gain was, how do I put this, unexpectedly entertaining. Not that I didn’t expect a movie with Mark Wahlberg and The Rock to be entertaining, because I did, but it wasn’t entertaining in the way I had expected, hence “unexpectedly entertaining."

It was trailers like this that made me think this movie was going to be all tits, ass, ass-kicking, and meathead jokes.

…It was Pain & Gain commercials like that that made me think this movie was going to be all titties, ass, ass-kicking, and meathead jokes.

Pain & Gain was NOT all tits, ass, ass-kicking, and meathead jokes. That being said..

There were tits.

Bar Paly is smokin’ hot.

There was ass…

There was ass-kicking…

And there were meathead jokes…

Because a black guy and a Somoan go tanning.

But Pain & Gain wasn’t intended to be a comedy. It was an artist’s depiction of true life events, and the true story of Daniel Lugo and Adrian Doorbal is fuuuuuuuccckked up.

Pain & Gain is a true story about a gang of bodybuilding kidnappers with a penchant for cash, cocaine, strippers, and steroids. It is a surreal tale of some seriously stupid people, and quite honestly it was a bit off-putting knowing that this movie would only perpetuate the meathead stereotype.

I mean, these guys were supremely idiotic, but they get away with it for the better part of a year. There is one scene where The Rock’s character is grilling human hands to “burn off the fingerprints."

It was at this point that text flashed across the screen reminding the audience that yes, “THIS IS STILL A TRUE STORY."

And almost as unbelievable was the actual story itself, was the size of Dwayne Johnson.

The Rock got so big for this movie that I was kind of scared…

Also maybe a little bit turned on…

As entertaining as The Rock’s size was, so was his character. Dwayne was playing Carl Weekes, a very interesting person whose stupidity is accentuated in two very different forms.

There is the born-again Christian Carl Weekes: fresh out of prison, sporting “I Am On Team Jesus" T-shirts, and preaching a new, sober, I-have-been-saved outlook on life. A character as ridiculous as only monstrous The Rock could portray:

And there was the cocaine fueled megatard Carl Weekes, as only The Rock could portray:

TL;DR Review of Pain & Gain

Mark Wahlberg got pretty beefy for this flick. Bar Paly is smokin’ hot. All-in-all, the outlandishly surreal (and gruesome) actual events that fueled the plot and storyline overpowered the gratuitous T&A and meathead comedy that my Two Scooping brain so desperately craved. And everything was overpowered by the shear magnitude of Dwayne “The Rock" Johnson.

- Tony “Two Scoops" Muscoli

The Local - A well-built man was forced to take a drugs test in Stockholm recently after a police officer assumed that muscles like his could only have been developed with the help of illegal substances.

Here is the story:

Arrested for Development

27 year old Tomislav Boduljak got into a conversation with a female police officer late one night in central Stockholm. It started out pleasant, but she became suspicious when Boduljak said that he worked out, saying that his muscles were “abnormal."

"I asked if she didn’t think it possible that I work out a lot and eat well. She said that if someone looks like me, she assumes they have taken drugs," he told Metro.

Despite repeated assurances that he did not take steroids, Boduljak was brought into the police station for a urine test, citing “unusually large muscles, particularly large arm muscles, which are a sign of steroid use."

The test was negative. Tomislav filed a complaint.

End of story.

How fucking awesome was that story?

This guy made that lady cop so wet with his “particularly large arm muscles" that she forced him back to the police station to make him pull out his dick and pee in a cup for her. That is one kinky bitch.

If I were Tomislav, I wouldn’t just tell this story at parties, I would have an entire party dedicated to this story - a “Tomislav Got Huge and Got Away With It!" Party.

It would be the greatest party ever. Meatheads and hotties would dine on an enormous all-animal-meats buffet. The bar would be serving vodka protein shake smoothies and Beck’s 50. And when everybody is all sauced up on protein beer and steak, Tomislav gets on the mic and tells this inspiring story of persecution and perseverance to an awestruck crowd of friends, family, swole supporters, and fitness models with big, fake titties.

And when Tomislav finishes his story, everybody would cheer, and high-five, and then start doing push-ups.

Best. Party. Ever.

- Tony “Two Scoops" Muscoli

I feel like this is the first video I’ve posted in a while that doesn’t include half naked dudes in it. Enjoy:

I would not train for an entire week just to ride shotgun with The King. Although, I know he would never ask me to do that.

-Tony “Two Scoops" Muscoli

Perhaps not-so-ironically, I procrastinated over a week past Tax Day to post this.

-Tony

Reader Email:

Tony, I am training for a triathlon to get shredded for this summer. My question is, are triathlons badass? I know your opinions on cardio, but an Ironman Triathlon doesn’t have the word “Ironman" in it for nothing.

- Stew Swole

I will admit that alone, the word "Ironman" makes one envision an unbreakable Roman statue of a proud and hardened warrior. Ironman conjures up visions of a man in peak athletic form, avatars of heroism, of muscle and might, of endurance, and of Robert Downey Jr.

But alas, when the once proud word Ironman is nary but a prefix for the inevitable "Triathlon," the adjuction of such diminishes all the heroism of the famed word "Ironman" to nothing more than delusions of grandeur.

Professional Triathlete Jordan Rapp here has the arms of a Goddess.

For you see, an iron man is by definition, “a strong man of exceptional physical endurance." However, a triathlon is, by its most popular definition, an endurance competition of swimming, running, and cycling. Triathlons utilize not one, not two, but THREE separate forms of cardio, and therefore are three times as bad for you as regular cardio.

Anybody who reads this website knows, that cardio is the Devil. Increasing the distance of these cardiovascular exercises to Ironman proportions will garner you no further accolades from this establishment.

I could end my argument there: Triathlons are cardio. Don’t do them. End of story. But I want to dig a little deeper with my closing statement:

The Dangers of Triath-elitism

When you are at the beach, or the club, or a cocktail hour, or an office holiday party, or really any venue where it is appropriate for you to take your shirt off, and you are standing next to a triathlete, he/she will look lean and fit, but they are nothing special until they opens their mouth to brag about their triathleteness. The triathlete’s necessity for braggadocio puts themselves at risk of looking like a giant D-bag because they are at the office holiday party shirtless, bragging about how they ran a marathon in soggy spandex.

Meanwhile, Two Scoopers don’t have to brag about their latest race for validation. A Two Scooper just looks like the calm collected stud by the bar, letting his delts do the talking.

Triathletes are either scrawny, or not good triathletes, or both. Case closed.

-Tony “Two Scoops" Muscoli

Pain & Gain Interview - Mark Wahlberg:

Pain & Gain Interview - The Rock (a.k.a. Dwayne Johnson):

Is it April 26th yet?! I am going to take a half day on Friday to catch the matinée showing. In the meantime, I’ll just watch the Pain & Gain trailer on repeat to appease my ‘roid rage..

- Tony “Two Scoops" Muscoli

joeplo asked: Tony, I go to work everyday and stare at a screen waiting to go to gym so I can get shredded. By the time I finally free I am so drained that I have a tough time getting the pump and psyching myself up for the sets. How do I solve this terrible problem tony??? What is a man to do?

Pre-workouts bro. Two scoops of them. I’m kind of upset you had to ask.

The Rock hath cometh. Can’t say we didn’t see this coming.

- Tony “Two Scoops" Muscoli

Thanks to @johnareed12 for the tip.