Intention
by Al Coleman

When we speak of the Real vs The Assumed Objective in exercise, we speak of both its theoretical and practical implications. The theoretical side is necessary in order to develop and refine all of the components of the protocol. The practical side speaks mainly to the subject’s mental intention.

A subject’s intention when commencing an exercise is the single most important consideration in exercise. The subject’s expression of the protocol is born from his/hers intention. A subject who has comprehended the Real Objective intellectually and is still reservedly carrying it out has an exercise expression that stands out in stark contrast to the subject who intellectually and viscerally comprehends it. In my 13 years of practicing this protocol, the former out weigh the latter in droves. In fact, it is quite rare to come across the latter.

To those who think you might fit into the first category, don’t worry because the fix is easy as I shall explain to you in the following experiment in intention.

Pick an exercise and choose a load that would be considered too light for you. Pretend that you are an instructor who must enter the exercise as a last resort and demonstrate its performance for a subject who just doesn’t seem to be catching on. You are extremely attentive to ensure that force is built so gradually that weight stack barely cracks. From there you are careful not to speed up and to continue to perform what feels like a 10 second positive. You hide the upper turnaround and are careful to perform the negative in a uniform fashion. You start and finish another cycle so that you can show a proper lower turnaround. Surmising that this is sufficient for the subject to witness, you stop. Take note of how that demonstration felt. Did it feel easy? It theoretically should have, correct? After all the load was extremely light relative to what typically challenges you.

I’m going to now tell you what you more than likely experienced with that sub maximal demonstration. You probably were shocked by how hard those two repetitions felt. While they weren’t incredibly taxing, they made your musculature uncomfortable to a surprising degree. Your limbs probably quivered an embarrassing amount during the performance and they continued to do so after you finished. What’s this all about?

Before I answer that question, allow me to quickly reveal the unfortunate fact that this is most likely the manner in which all of the practitioners who in the past have professed lackluster results with this protocol have performed it. Again, there was no intellectual/visceral comprehension of the intention.

The things that occur as you perform the above demonstration occur because you enter into it with no real intention to fatigue yourself rapidly. You haven’t primed the nervous system to carry out what you know is the intellectual objective. You were performing a demonstration and as such were carrying it out in a restrained fashion. As previously mentioned, it is revealing that this demonstration is the manner in which most people actually carry out their training!

Although it is difficult to wrap one’s head around, it must be remembered that the comes first with the protocol being built around that. You look to the protocol as a system of standardization and to make sure that inroad isn’t escaping, but you must first intend to inroad to drive the system. To check this, carry out the described demonstration but instead intend right from the first second you engage the movement arm that you will make sure that you are trying to dump all of your reserves without delay. Don’t concern yourself with the fact the resistance is too light. Concern yourself with the things that could be constraining. Be on the lookout for any minor lateral shifts of any body part. Consciously try to produce force in a pure linear fashion (compound movements) or a pure arc like fashion (rotary movements). If you produce force correctly, the excessive vibration you encounter will be minimized (exceptions withstanding). Your movement will smooth out, you’ll feel a simultaneous relaxation of the extraneous structures, and your breathing will free up.

You obviously won’t be going to failure with this experiment, but it will teach you a great deal about the subtle nature of what the success of this protocol hinges on. If you are an instructor, you may have a subject that is numerically doing the protocol correctly, but something just seems “off”. This subtle distinction in intention is the hair breadths deviation between “off” and “on”.

Please test this out.

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“Core”
—A Deceptively Bad Exercise Term—

by Ken Hutchins

Herein, I point out a glaring oversight on my part. It seems to have escaped the notice of others, but it annoys me greatly. Therefore, I must expose it.

In The Renaissance of Exercise—Volume I (ROE-I), I include a chapter entitled Linguistic Distinctions. Therein, I discuss—among other questionable terms—the usage of “core” as in “core exercises” or as in “the core muscles” or as in “working the core.”

(Note that “core exercises” is appropriate if one means “the most basic exercises for the body,” but it is inappropriate if one means, “exercises for the core muscles.”)

In ROE-I, I criticize that we do not need another term for the fuselage of the body as we already have “trunk” and “torso.” I also note the blind disregard for the often-required appendicular links to the torso that is seemingly promoted by the usage of “core.”

In a later edition of that chapter that I have only privately disseminated, I additionally snapped that the human body is not an apple. This is a weak slam on my part, and I remain—until recently—somewhat dissatisfied with the earlier criticisms, although they do suffice on their own merit.

So here comes the big showdown!

The body, indeed, has a core. And we appropriately apply “core” as in “the body’s core temperature.” And we appropriately refer to the earth’s core in a similar manner.

But what about the core musculature? There is no such thing unless you are referring to those few visceral structures that possess smooth (involuntary) muscle. One cannot volitionally contract (or relax) the muscle of the gut, the bladder, or the uterus (joked about in medical school as “the king of the muscles”).

And I doubt that one is able to contract the liver or the spleen or the pancreas or the lungs or the kidneys or the adrenals with the MedX Core Machines. Obviously, this stupidity was not considered by MedX^® when they chose their marketing verbiage, although it slipped my notice as well. Of course, to me, the term stank, but until November 2013, I had not truly tracked its scent to its foul source.

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Josh recently did some consulting with a 43 year old female.  Check out her awesome progress below!  We are considering offering phone consult services for orthodox strength exercise.

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Hi Josh,

I’ve competed in Bodybuilding and Figure and at 43 years old I have been training on and off for over 15 years and I am still learning. I’m fully aware your expertise is around RenEx and although I have been exposed to RenEx methods and techniques, I train at a conventional gym with a traditional bodybuilding program.

That being said, I wanted to thank you for the invaluable training advice that you gave me. You asked me specifically what I was doing for my training and I gave you my program. Your initial response was that I was most likely concentrating way too much on the reps and not nearly enough on executing perfect form.

You also said that I’m probably taking longer than usual rest periods to recover and that performing that one exercise was most likely taking me approximately 15 minutes. You adjusted my program.

The result: I performed 72 reps in those same 15 minutes that I once needed to perform 42 reps thereby producing way more mechanical work.

Progress: After 5 weeks, Before– 145# squats for 6 reps After– 160# squats for 51 reps.

I’m no longer intimidated by the amount of weight; my last rep is executed just as good if not better than my first rep. I would have never thought that shifting my focus away from reps and solely concentrating on form would produce more reps.

I’ve made a huge jump in my deadlifts and I know that is because of the changes you have made to my leg training.

On a totally unrelated note I injured my shoulder about 10 years ago and have not been able to perform certain shoulder exercises and 90% of chest exercises. It was painful just to reach the top shelf in my pantry or curl my hair. After about 6 -8 weeks of performing the shoulder exercises you recommended, I’m performing 100% of all chest exercises with little to no pain in my shoulder.

I’ve had many trainers throughout over the years and I can say without any amount of uncertainty that you have amassed more knowledge than all of them combined! In short, your knowledge in bodybuilding is limitless; thank you so much for all that you do.

J. Gonzales.

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I wanted to share yet another SuperSlow success story, they are out there.

That being said, I still believe the best results from training in such a manner will be had when using equipment built for such a purpose. Although I do find it interesting that such results were had without.

One of the reasons I’m building up these cases is that I do want to show people that results have been had this way. We have seen it many times at our studios and helped bodybuilders get on stage with great success. We have had the success with a generic program right out of the technical manuals. We have seen very good results from this.

Today taking some from the past and bringing forward with what I’ve learned with RenEx technology I now believe muscle growth can happen much faster than I had previously thought.

We will continue to share more history with the different variations of this training and then what we’ve seen as of late.

Another successful muscle gain story from Ellington Darden’s, “Bigger Muscles in 42 Days!”

David began the course weighting 186 and finished at 221.4 pounds.  He gained 25.4 pounds in 42 days for an average increase of 4.2 pounds per week.

David’s was also impressive since he was a teenager who had been training only a little over a year.

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