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Muscle Madness
Muscle madness is an idea, a concept. It is the idea that if you take a whole bunch of input on muscles and training and exercises and collect the data and try to apply it across a population and see what works the best.
Sound simple?
No. Recent years have seen a real expansion of knowledge about exercise and training. Blame it on the computer and specialization, but more and more people, both athletes and non-competitors, are interested in what works. However, what works is somewhat different from what is popular.
How about putting it together as a competition? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what is most popular as wells as what various people are doing for training that are not quite as popular? How about if it were put together, first as a survey and then as an actual event? It can be done. It was done, as a matter of fact.
Now it is sounding way complicated, but it isn’t really.
It can be, but in one competition put it all together, Muscle Madness.
So what does Muscle Madness consist of?
These are the different groups: core, throwback, strength, power and the final four.
Core consists of deadlight, up-downs, and planks, back extension, hanging leg raises, side bridges, cable wood chop and glue bridges. Some choices proved more popular than others, with the hanging leg raise and deadlift eventually coming out as the most popular choices. Eventually it was the deadlift that made it to the final four.
Throwback exercises consisted of pushups, jumping jacks, pull-ups and chin-ups, dips, setups, lunges, medicine ball throw and farmer’s walk. The more popular choices were the pushups, pull-ups and chin-ups and lunges. In the end, it was the pull-ups and chin-ups that made it to the final four.
Next category was in the strength section. Those exercises consisted of bench presses, kettlebell snatch, and biceps curl, and Bulgarian split squat, lat pull down, triceps extension, dumbbell clean & press and the power clean. It was a slam down between the bench press and the power clean, but ultimately it was the familiar old standby, the bench press that took the category and made it to the final four.
Then comes the power exercises. These consisted of squats, seated calf raise, leg press (machine), goblet squat, single-leg squats, leg extension (machine), single-leg Romanian deadlifts and the legcurl machine. It was an interesting competition, with squats, leg press (machine), single leg squats and single-leg Romanian deadlifts all making the first cut. Then it came down to squats and single-leg Romanian deadlifts, but in the end it was another familiar exercise that made the grade for the final four, the squats.
After ten days or so of working the exercises and eliminating them, it came down to just the deadlift and pull-ups and chin-ups.
This was an interesting elimination and it may speak to the psychology of the different approaches to exercise and sport. Some of the more exotic exercises didn’t make the cut, but the old and the tried and the true survived and were most popular with the competitors.
Muscle madness is an idea, a concept. It is the idea that if you take a whole bunch of input on muscles and training and exercises and collect the data and try to apply it across a population and see what works the best.
Sound simple?
No. Recent years have seen a real expansion of knowledge about exercise and training. Blame it on the computer and specialization, but more and more people, both athletes and non-competitors, are interested in what works. However, what works is somewhat different from what is popular.
How about putting it together as a competition? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what is most popular as wells as what various people are doing for training that are not quite as popular? How about if it were put together, first as a survey and then as an actual event? It can be done. It was done, as a matter of fact.
Now it is sounding way complicated, but it isn’t really.
It can be, but in one competition put it all together, Muscle Madness.
So what does Muscle Madness consist of?
These are the different groups: core, throwback, strength, power and the final four.
Core consists of deadlight, up-downs, and planks, back extension, hanging leg raises, side bridges, cable wood chop and glue bridges. Some choices proved more popular than others, with the hanging leg raise and deadlift eventually coming out as the most popular choices. Eventually it was the deadlift that made it to the final four.
Throwback exercises consisted of pushups, jumping jacks, pull-ups and chin-ups, dips, setups, lunges, medicine ball throw and farmer’s walk. The more popular choices were the pushups, pull-ups and chin-ups and lunges. In the end, it was the pull-ups and chin-ups that made it to the final four.
Next category was in the strength section. Those exercises consisted of bench presses, kettlebell snatch, and biceps curl, and Bulgarian split squat, lat pull down, triceps extension, dumbbell clean & press and the power clean. It was a slam down between the bench press and the power clean, but ultimately it was the familiar old standby, the bench press that took the category and made it to the final four.
Then comes the power exercises. These consisted of squats, seated calf raise, leg press (machine), goblet squat, single-leg squats, leg extension (machine), single-leg Romanian deadlifts and the legcurl machine. It was an interesting competition, with squats, leg press (machine), single leg squats and single-leg Romanian deadlifts all making the first cut. Then it came down to squats and single-leg Romanian deadlifts, but in the end it was another familiar exercise that made the grade for the final four, the squats.
After ten days or so of working the exercises and eliminating them, it came down to just the deadlift and pull-ups and chin-ups.
This was an interesting elimination and it may speak to the psychology of the different approaches to exercise and sport. Some of the more exotic exercises didn’t make the cut, but the old and the tried and the true survived and were most popular with the competitors.
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