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

Gather round everybody. Please, Scoopers, scooch closer. Put on your XL Snuggie, curl up with your laptop and a mug of hot chocolate whey, and let me tell you the tale of Kimbo and Minion.

Call me Muscoli. I am a frequenter of the gym, a meaty man if I you will. And as such, I have grown accustomed to the company of other such gym goers. I see them frequently, their faces become familiar, and their character begins to emerge. This is a story about two such characters.

In a magical region known as “New England," which is like the original England, except it is paradoxically more diverse while at the same time more racist (lookin’ at you, South). And in this magical land of New England, in one particular gym, at one particular time of the day, there are two guys who can always be seen training together at the gym.

The first man is LARGE, to say the least. Big, black, 6’4" Kimbo Slice looking motherfucker with a mean looking beard. And every where Kimbo goes, his sidekick follows. Kimbo’s sidekick is a scrawny, 5’6" Persian looking fellow with long, frizzy black hair tied back in an off-putting ponytail. Kimbo and his Minion only spoke to each other in French.

Now on this day, Kimbo is setting himself up for a set of Barbell Bench Press. He has loaded a 45lb plate onto either end of the bar, followed by nine 10 lb plates. The 10lb plates were stacked all the way out to the end of the Olympic bar.

Kimbo and Minion had spent so much time gathering the 10 lb plates from all over the gym, that gym staff had taken notice and come over to have words with the two. A gym employee, dressed in black athletic shorts and a black polo shirt with the words “Master Trainer" emblazoned upon the back, strides over to speak to Kimbo.

This “Master Trainer" is no small man. His sleeves are strained by the girth of his biceps, and his chest was filled with the confidence of a man who has put in his due time with the iron. Yet at a measly 6’1" he looked small next to Kimbo.

Master Trainer: "Excuse me sir, but could you please keep in mind that other patrons would like to use the 10 lb plates as well?"
Kimbo: "Of course."
Then, while maintaining eye contact with the trainer, Kimbo turns his head over his shoulder and calls back to Minion in his thick French accent, "Amar, help me take some of these plates off.”

Kimbo then goes, lies down on the bench, and with a loud grunt, lifts the 315 lb bar off the rack, and starts pressing the bar, each rep accompanied by a loud grunt. 1…GAH! 2… AH! 3… AH!

When he finally reaches failure, he racks the weight with the help of Minion. Minion then runs from end to end and sheds a 10 lb plate, splashing it on the floor. Kimbo starts pressing again. With each rep his grunts and shouts of exertion grow louder! Nearly everybody in the weight room has stopped what they were doing and are peering over at the Bench Press Rack to catch a glimpse of this most glorious spectacle.

Minion sheds another 10 lb plate, Kimbo presses the bar. This repeats until all eighteen 10lb plates are littered across the floor. Completing about 4-5 reps at each weight, this whole process took almost 2 minutes. The sound of the weights dropping on the floor seemed to harmonize with Kimbo’s shouts, culminating in a cacophony of testosterone that had gawking gym goers rolling their eyes with admiration.

Then it was over, and there was silence…

Kimbo stands up, a towering behemoth of a man, and gazes around at the destruction he has caused. Then he looks at the Master Trainer (who hasn’t moved yet), and calmly says, "You can use the weights now."

He then strides off, leaving everyone in aw, and his minion scampering around picking up 10 lb plates off the floor.

I think my dick actually got smaller watching this all happen. Kimbo had out alpha-ed the most alpha male. I beta go home and rethink my life goals.

-Tony “Too Small" Muscoli

If you want girls at the gym to look at you like this:

Then do this:

And that is how you pick up girls at the gym.

-Tony “Two Scoops" Muscoli

Jerome Mayberry - Listen up, son!

The gym ain’t no place for lily flowers and fools, fool. I’m Jerome Mayberry, ultimate bad@ss. Teacher extraordinaire. Supreme trainer of persons!

You think you know Jerome Mayberry? Son, Terry Crews don’t even know Jerome Mayberry! This ain’t no Old Spice commercial. These are my commandments, kid.

Throw yo’ ears at me, son. Throw them eyes! Hold onto your gym socks or they’ll get knocked straight off. Get ready for school. Class is in session! Jerome’s about to lay down the law in a brand new testament to gym etiquette.

Jerome Mayberry’s 10 Commandments of the Weight Room - Part 1

"Rule #5: NEVER STRETCH. To LOOK tight, you have to BE tight!"

Jerome Mayberry’s 10 Commandments of the Weight Room - Part 2

Terry Crews never fails to take his Two Scoops. He makes me feel inadequate when it comes to making meathead jokes… I’ll shut up now.

-Tony “Two Scoops" Muscoli

I assume this is Crossfit. Only Crossfitters have the gall to leave their fucking baby strapped to their chest whilst doing a clean and jerk.

Who is impressed by this? Certainly not the baby. I assume only his bat-shit crazy CrossFriends told him this would be cool, because any real friend would tell him: LEAVE YOUR BABY AT HOME. If you can’t afford day care, and you are afraid of your baby running around the weight room, put a stake in the ground and tie your baby up to it. It may sound inhumane, but it is still a better idea then having to wear a “Baby-on-Board" t-shirt while performing Olympic lifts.

Make Your Boy a Man:

If you want to instill the values of fitness upon your child, then you do it right. You put your baby in a bouncy chair, give him a shaker cup full of NitroTech and breast milk, and you make him watch you do Bicep Curls until he suckles down all 24oz of Grade A Whey. You combine this with positive reinforcement, and before you know it, your kid will bust out a few reps every time he picks a toy up off the ground.

Where most children see pumpkins, this mini-meathead sees Bent-Over Rows.

And if you are any good at parenting at all, your child’s toys will be barbells:

And that is how you make a boy into a man: Breast Milk and Bicep Curls.

-Tony “Two Scoops" Muscoli

The Force is strong in this one.

This is why the Weekend is my day off.

-Tony “Too Hungover" Muscoli

3News - This is a story about everything that’s good in sport.

It’s the story of the New Zealand weightlifting team, and of two men: Richie Patterson and Tevita Ngalu.

It’s the story of how one of those men, overcame incredible pain, to lift a weight no-one thought he could possibly lift, so the other man could go to the Olympics.

When people celebrate the Olympic spirit, it is stories like this one, that they have in mind.

Did you want to feel really good about life today? Because Tevita Ngalu just did one of the most noble things I have ever seen in sport.

I have cried once before in my life, when I watched Rudy drunk, but the gamesmanship, the comradeship, the courage, the Olympic effort, the nobility, the fortitude, the honor, the selflessness, and the sheer grit it took for Tevita to lift 157kg over his head without the use of his left leg is so fucking inspiring I started to tear up watching the video.

Believe it or not, Tony has feeling too, and this story was really tugging at my heartstrings. I am going to hug a random meathead when I get to the gym today.

-Tony “Two Scoops" Muscoli

-Tony “Two Scoops" Muscoli