In exercise, the length of time between 30
seconds and one minute seems to be of some
physiological relevance. That length of time seems
to come up over and over in my observations over the
last ten years.
The first time I was exposed to this timeframe, I
was reading a study from a prominent strength coach
who did research for the NFL combine. He explained
that no matter what repetition range an athlete
achieved on the 225-lb bench press to failure test,
he achieved his reps in approximately 45 seconds. I
found this an interesting concept and changed the
perspective I had as far as setting repetition
records. Instead of trying to flat out achieve more
reps, I would try to do as many reps as possible in
less than a minute. The outcome, of course, was more
repetitions.
As I was reading some material by conditioning
specialists, I noticed several of them agreed that
running 400-meter dashes was among the best forms of
conditioning for reducing body fat and preserving
muscle mass. This isn’t quite as obvious, but if you
look at the length of time a well-conditioned
athlete runs 400 meters, it’s somewhere around 50
seconds, with Michael Johnson’s world record
clocking in at 43.18 seconds. Mr. Johnson has failed
to return any of my letters requesting his help
knocking over 7-11s with me, but I remain hopeful.
This amount of time surfaced again, albeit it more
subtly in my own training. As a powerlifter in my
early twenties, I rarely ventured over six reps on
anything (or out of the “big and fat…err…I mean
tall” section of the clothing department). I maybe
did the occasional set of 12–15, but for the most
part, the reps were singles up to sets of 6–8. And
this did produce quite a bit of strength.
However, after venturing to a well-recognized
powerlifting gym in Ohio, I observed a famous
powerlifter and several of his athletes performing
sets of 20, 30, or more, specifically on back
exercises. I immediately implemented this in my own
training, and within a few months, had developed a
substantial amount of new muscle mass and had
dropped some body fat. Along with this, I learned
that women would talk to me without charging me
$2.99 for the first minute and 99 cents for each
additional one. I also learned that I could build up
any muscle group with the combination of frequent
volume and high rep sets. I was under the impression
that the number of reps was the factor, but looking
back, I now realize that a typical set of 12–15
lasted maybe 20 seconds. However, these high rep
sets fell, low and behold, between 30 seconds and
one minute the majority of the time.
And finally an article just surfaced by strength and
conditioning specialist, Dave Tate, where after a
conversation with Dr. Eric Serrano, Tate did an
exercise venture of performing everything for 45
seconds. In his forties, he generated more muscle
mass than he ever had after a lifetime of competing
in bodybuilding and powerlifting. Check out the
article.
If I had to guess, this has something to do with our
ancestry. Whether we were fighting something off,
hunting something down, or escaping something’s
fangs, the outcome was probably determined in less
than a minute in most cases. This was prior to the
invention of hunting implements, mace, and of
course, Chuck Norris.
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