|
WOOF Your Cookies:
Intensity Defined “You can’t escape the puking sphinx.”
There continues to be a great deal of discussion about high intensity workouts. There’s Mike Mentzer sounding off everywhere, repetitious, ubiquitous and pedantic. There’s Dorian, a laconic statement implicit in his massive bulk. And behind it all, there’s the garrulous legend, Arthur Jones floating on motionless wing. Oddly, the real standard of intensity — the defining factor of high intensity workouts, the true measure of force, concentration, power, fervor, vigor and vehemence — is seldom spelled out. Body builders and writers alike tippy-toe around the topic, talking glibly about high intensity, heavy weights, ferocious concentration, low reps, repping to failure, once-a-week workouts and so on. Here’s the way John Little recently defined Intensity: The percentage of momentary ability that an individual is capable of exerting. (M & F Nov. ‘94) Is that a masterful statement, or what? Here’s 1978 Mr. Universe Mike Mentzer, philosopher and inimitable prose stylist, summing up heavy duty high intensity hypertraining: “It is not inconceivable that an entire set consisting of maximal efforts might be highly stimulating.” (Tonstant Weader fwows up.) Bodybuilders talk glibly about hard effort and pain as defining the most effective workouts. Sonny Schmidt for example, recently disclosed the secret of his chest training routine: “It’s not for the squeamish; it requires intensity you’ve never before mustered. For my peak contracts I use the utmost strength I can possibly generate. I want my pecs to actually hurt the next day, as though I’ve torn a muscle. Just being sore isn’t enough; I want to feel as though I’ve injured myself.” (Flex, August 1994) Sounds like it hurts a bit too good, Sonny — better check out the collected works of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. What no one will disclose is this: The real indicators of high intensity workouts are pain and regurgitation. But of these two, the upchuck factor is the most significant. Just as systematic barfing is the key to weight control in the bulemic/anorexic super-model syndrome, throwing up is the true yardstick of the high-intensity workout. Bodybuilding legend Arthur Jones utters a rare paean to purging with his sage observation: “If you’ve never vomited from a set of barbell curls, then you don’t know the meaning of intensity.” (quoted with approval by Ellington Darden in Bigger Muscles in 42 Days) And Porter Cottrell confesses: “Once I got into leg training, I never did a workout where I didn’t throw up afterward — and that’s no exaggeration.” (Flex, November 1994) In his book, Muscle: Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder, Sam Fussell recalls the moment when he got the ultimate compliment from Vinnie, his workout partner. Vinnie told his roommates, “Hey, Big Man’s all right, you should have seen him throw up this morning after squats.” Dennis Newman views his own no pain no gain experience as the “insanity years.” Recalled Newman, “I got caught up in the `You’re-not-having-fun- unless-you’re-miserable’ training philosophy of the day. I trained twice a day. I did marathon workouts. I even determined I couldn’t be training hard enough because I wasn’t puking like everybody else. So I pushed myself even harder. Never taking a day off. Never resting. It got so grueling, the only thing that made it exciting was to see which one of us could make the other guy hurl first.” (M & F Nov 94 69) Even amateurs have touched upon the barf factor: “I reasoned,” writes Willem S. van der Merwe, “that more and heavier training would produce better results, so I started training harder and harder and more and more. I am a guy who knows what it feels like to train till he pukes.” (MuscleMag #153) Heavy weights. Low reps. Light weights. High reps. Supersets. Yo! It’s all smoke and mirrors. Attack the weights, assail the abs, trounce the thighs, blast the biceps, punish the pecs, scourge the serratus, trash the triceps — but above all: Ya gotta barf. Eat healthy, train hard, and puke hearty. Don’t be a wuss. None of that ipacec-mousse variety of regurgitation — that’s for wimps and pencil-necks — the fern bar, latte crowd. None of that binge and purge finger-down-the-throat retching little Miss-Bulemia crapola. None of that bovine rumination (sometimes called “merycism”) here, with polite little belches and farts and an aftertaste of the mid-afternoon chocolate powerbar. None of that dyspeptic gastroesophageal reflux. Real bodybuilders fwow up. We’re talking about balls to the wall hurling here. The audacious and undaunted upchuck that reaches way down past lunch and brings up all those finely spaced, meticulously measured meals and those expensive, finely calibrated supplements. Yes! Lunch comes up! And breakfast! MET- Rx! Egg whites! Hot Stuff! Designer Whey! Yohimbe! Coenzyme Q! L-Carnatine. MTCs. OKG. All immersed in a mixture of stomach acids that peels the ivory off your teeth. And on the undigested maggoty granules of rice, traces of vanadyl sulfate pulsate and glow with effervescent potency. And if you’re into kamikaze intensity, you run on wobbly legs from your hack squat machine, break out in a cold sweat, fall to your knees before the porcelain deity and heave up some of this morning’s protein snack — acrid, bile-soaked particles of sauteed chicken breast. Heave until nothing comes up except a greenish mucous. Dry heaves — the apex of intensity. Master Blaster take a hike. Spewmeister at work in this gym! In the decadent era of the Roman Empire, mansions had large unisex heated baths and a vomitorium, for it was a custom at feasts and orgies to party hearty and throw up with vigor. We can foresee a time when high intensity workouts become popular and gyms will come equipped with a unisex vomitorium — strategically placed near the squat rack — a omnipresent, sanitary and socially acceptable fixture. Fitness babes and physique geeks, go bite an aardvark. The hard core pain ‘n gainer goes for the gusto and throws and grows! Launch yer lunch! Blow yer grits! Gag a maggot, baby. Woof yer cookies. Mark Worden is a writer based in Oregon. (This piece was originally published in Flex, 1995) |