Firstly, Scott Abel needs to change his name to Scott BABEL.
Anyhoo, lets have some fun taking some of this apart:
Comparing this literary puke by Scott Babel (sic) with all the hubbub about the “perfect rep”: he (advanced trainee) trains till his rep performance begins to degrade and calls it a set (say he gets 10 reps).
A beginner/intermediate trains to a pre-set number of reps with rep performance/acceleration falling off as he gets closer to the end of his rep range.
if he measures intensity by his ability to “accelerate” the bar (rather than grind out the last rep), what he’s saying seems to be familiar. As you get better with the movement, you avoid grinding out the last rep while beginners tend to do the opposite.
However, Abel does acknowledge that the act of grinding out the last few reps is what causes adaptation in beginners and — if we try to fill it up, the process works as long as you have plenty of room to grow (beginners/intermediates) i.e. they still get a 40% training benefit (since we all live on Planet Mathematica where everything is easily quantifiable)
The question is, per Abel, would beginners benefit from focusing on accelerating (or trying to accelerate) the bar and ending the set well before they need to “grind out” (which seems to be the status quo on the “sciency” forums on this site)
[quote]Bricknyce wrote:
calling myself an advanced athlete, if I do a set of 10, and we broke it down and attached electrodes to my muscles, my first rep and my 10th rep would be of almost equal intensity, other than fatigue. All the large fibers had been recruited and will no longer function.
Whereas, you take a beginner or intermediate, you know someone that you know, and you can tell just by the way their training that the first five of six reps are relatively easy. Rep number 6 maybe gets difficult, rep number 7 gets a lot slower, rep number 8 is even slower.
While an advanced athlete from rep 1-10 is functioning at a high level of intensity and getting the optimum training efficiency percentage, a beginner or intermediate, getting four out of those 10 reps are all out adaptation reps that are forcing the body to respond so he’s getting like a 40% training efficiency percentage because he’s still in the quantitative learning.[/quote]
The issue is not so much Scott Abel’s intelligence or insight and whether knows what he’s talking about, but rather his ability to effectively communicate something of interest and thats directly implementable to his readers, and perhaps far more telling, Mr Abel’s INTENT on disseminating useful and implementable information to those who give him the time of day.
[quote]Josh Rider wrote:
You do realize that half the things you are writing about Abel is support of a lot of things Thibaudeau is saying these days.[/quote]
[quote]Bricknyce wrote:
Those things weren’t written by me. They are direct quotes of what HE said.
Yeah, so he says that the nervous system should be taken into account when designing a program. But he sure says it a far more drawn-out manner than simply saying: “The nervous system should be taken into account when designing a program.”
I really don’t bother with ridiculous amounts of thinking when designing a program, and neither has any other successful lifter.
I said it before, and I’ll say it again! Nearly all successful bodybuilders follow the same formula:
4 to 6 days per week of training.
2 to 4 exercises per muscle group.
2 to 3 muscle groups trained at a session.
3 to 4 sets of 6 to 15 reps.
THAT’S IT! Show me one Olympia competitor that doesn’t abide by these guidelines. Show me one that is up to his neck in the minutia of exercise science–visiting medical libraries of Ivy League schools–to learn the ins and outs of training and nutrition. [/quote]
I really hope that you didn’t yank all those Scott Able quotes from memory.
Abel probably thinks giving out any information would take away from his DVD sales and coaching services. He’s mastered the art of talking for hours without saying shit. Genius!
[quote]tribunaldude wrote:
The issue is not so much Scott Abel’s intelligence or insight and whether knows what he’s talking about, but rather his ability to effectively communicate something of interest and thats directly implementable to his readers, and perhaps far more telling, Mr Abel’s INTENT on disseminating useful and implementable information to those who give him the time of day.
[/quote]
I agree that Scott often sounds dogmatic and likes to use complex explanations to demonstrate simple concepts in order to have some sort of aura of mystique. All I’m saying is that most of the “experts” out there like doing exactly the same thing. The problem with Scott’s approach is that it is often very difficult to actually get a grasp of what he is preaching (AKA he can be inconsistent and almost not understandable). Every concept intentionally becomes a secret held by him that the reader has to decode.
Still, like when reading any expert, the reader has to develop a bullshit radar (or more formally, use reasoning) to determine which ideas to reject and which to accept from said expert. The people who usually get the most information are those who actively try and take the best knowledge from as many people as possible while trying to filter out concepts that are either irrelevant or plain wrong. It’s easy to find disagreements with people’s work, but a lot of times either their general message has some merit or at least, some knowledge can be gained (even if the author’s overall approach is wrong).
EDIT: All I know is that I wouldn’t want the guys from the video above to be designing my workouts.
[quote]tribunaldude wrote:
The issue is not so much Scott Abel’s intelligence or insight and whether knows what he’s talking about, but rather his ability to effectively communicate something of interest and thats directly implementable to his readers, and perhaps far more telling, Mr Abel’s INTENT on disseminating useful and implementable information to those who give him the time of day.
[/quote]
I agree that Scott often sounds dogmatic and likes to use complex explanations to demonstrate simple concepts in order to have some sort of aura of mystique. All I’m saying is that most of the “experts” out there like doing exactly the same thing. The problem with Scott’s approach is that it is often very difficult to actually get a grasp of what he is preaching (AKA he can be inconsistent and almost not understandable). Every concept intentionally becomes a secret held by him that the reader has to decode.
Still, like when reading any expert, the reader has to develop a bullshit radar (or more formally, use reasoning) to determine which ideas to reject and which to accept from said expert. The people who usually get the most information are those who actively try and take the best knowledge from as many people as possible while trying to filter out concepts that are either irrelevant or plain wrong. It’s easy to find disagreements with people’s work, but a lot of times either their general message has some merit or at least, some knowledge can be gained (even if the author’s overall approach is wrong).
EDIT: All I know is that I wouldn’t want the guys from the video above to be designing my workouts.[/quote]
I disagree. Not every expert bores us with intellectual drivel, useless information, and unreadable articles.
I’m unsure if he’s dogmatic; he just implies that the rest of the training world is a bunch of jerk-offs that aren’t up to speed with him and his clients.
I’d rather not have to use a bullshit radar to get USABLE information! I’d much rather read understandable people that talk to readers with respect. I’ve never had a problem with the writings of:
John Berardi
Lonnie Lowery
Dave Tate
Jim Wendler
Dorian Yates
Christian Thibaudeau
Tom Venuto
Dan Duchaine
Jerry Brainum
Chris Aceto
Justin Harris
Eric Cressey
NONE of these guys talk of all things related to nutrition and training as if they rival the difficulty of a Mars mission or human cloning. And these are pretty bright, brainy men I speak of - especially Lonnie Lowery and Eric Cressey.
I’d rather not have to use a bullshit radar to get USABLE information! I’d much rather read understandable people that talk to readers with respect. I’ve never had a problem with the writings of:
John Berardi
Lonnie Lowery
Dave Tate
Jim Wendler
Dorian Yates
Christian Thibaudeau
Tom Venuto
Dan Duchaine
Jerry Brainum
Chris Aceto
Justin Harris
Eric Cressey
[/quote]
Still, even though I’m a fan of most these guys (Jerry Brainum is the only one I don’t know of), you still should not listen to them blindly. A lot of times their methods contradict each other even though most of them produce results. The key is to find out the underlying truth of what is producing the results and not follow most of these guys blindly.
Also, some of them are more knowledgeable in certain domains and when they try to delve into others, they do not know what they are talking about.
He hasn’t always made things complicated. His article series, “How to Write a Damn Good Program”, was made up of some of the best articles I’ve ever read.
[quote]drewh wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau- How is he on your list? He makes shit super complicated.[/quote]
I definitely agree that his latest stuff has been very complicated.[/quote]
The concepts are simple, hes just nice enough to go into great detail. Every time i read an article by him i understand what hes talking about no problem.
[quote]drewh wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau- How is he on your list? He makes shit super complicated.[/quote]
I definitely agree that his latest stuff has been very complicated.[/quote]
The concepts are simple, hes just nice enough to go into great detail. Every time i read an article by him i understand what hes talking about no problem.[/quote]
I understand what he’s talking about but I wouldn’t call his writing simple. Lot’s of acronyms and unnecessarily fancy words. Some might call it detail, some might call it minutia. I like alot of his writings and concepts, just not all of it.
Here’s an example of one that I think is just as ridiculous as any of Abel’s videos and I bet if someone else did something like this it wouldn’t be as well received.
[quote]drewh wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau- How is he on your list? He makes shit super complicated.[/quote]
I definitely agree that his latest stuff has been very complicated.[/quote]
The concepts are simple, hes just nice enough to go into great detail. Every time i read an article by him i understand what hes talking about no problem.[/quote]
x2
I’ve been following CT for a while and have found his recommendations fairly simple.
They are however somewhat different than many traditional methods which many people seem to confuse with complex.
Just because something is different doesn’t make it complex.
“How do we know that Dorian couldn’t look better and progress better using other training ‘styles’.”
Here we have a fucking personal trainer questioning the training method of one of the biggest, most successful bodybuilders that has ever lived! Could he have looked better? Are you fucking kidding me? Oh, maybe Dorian would have been even bigger and more shredded if he had become an Abel Body jock-grabbing, pseudo-scientist!
I apologize for my melodramatics, but this just goes over the limit of decency and RESPECT - and it’s respect that should be paid to one of the greatest bodybuilding champions of all time!