Hi all--

Has any one tried Adam Zickerman's plan the "The Power of 10?" The book/dvd details a weight routine designed to do every 5 or seven days, and it takes 30 minutes. Unlike other weight routines, you lift very heavy weights very slowly to maximize your resistance, which builds muscles more quickly WITHOUT BULKING. It is also cardiovascular because you breathe attentively and push oxygen through your muscles, including your HEART, which is a muscle, of course!! Then you rest for several days to allow the muscles to rest (the first few times you feel really wiped out). The results are INCREDIBLE. You slim down more quickly because you are building lean muscle mass; muscle mass of course means you burn more calories even when you are sitting in front of the tv or computer; and it only takes ONE or TWO gym visits a week. After a few weeks, you feel more energetic, flexible, and that makes it easier to become more active. Your body looks TONED and FIRMED, not BUILT and BULKY.As a former athlete, I know already that I tend to bulk, but not with this!!

I tried it for 10 weeks a couple of years ago with a moderate L/C, as she recommends, and although I lost about "only" 18 pounds because of muscle weight, people thought I had lost 30 pounds because my size had dropped from 16 to 12 and I looked quite lean. At the time, I did no additional cardio other than the normal walking I do as someone who lives in a city. Unfortunately, I went through some stuff that derailed me. So I'm starting again!! I HIGHLY recommend this and I'm wondering if anyone else has tried it (or others like SlowBurn, SuperSlow, etc) with similar results.

If it works for you, great. But there have been quite a few studies done on different tempos for exercise and they found that none of them make much difference. In fact, super slow is often difficult, because the slow speed reduces the amount of weight you can lift, and unless you are incredibly sloppy and swing your weights around like an ejeet, there is no particular risk of injury with "normal" lifting.

Yeah, bulking up? I've been trying to do that for years, and somehow, being a woman I just don't have the testosterone to build big muscles, no matter how heavy I lift.

Citywoman...

I have been using super slow type exercise protocols for nearly 2 and 1/2 years and am quite satisified with the results. Like any beginner I initally experienced improvement in body tone and an increase in muscle mass. After I reached my initial weight/bodyfat goal I wanted to bulk up a little more. After researching and realizing what that involved I decided my current physique was going to be just fine!

IMHO super slow protocols work well for maintaining or building muscle mass. What I like most about this exercise method is that it takes less time than traditional volume training. I have a split routine each week, mid&lower body exercises one day and upper body another day, and take 6 to 7 days between like sessions. Each session runs between 20 and 25 minutes. I exercise at home using dumbells and a 'Total Gym' (Christie and Chuck suckered me in about a year before I 'found' super slow protocols ). When I first started I was doing all exercises in one session about every five days, but soon realized this didn't provide enough recovery time for 60 year old muscles, plus I wanted to get more cardio into my overall routine and the split sessions provide another cardio session per week! To counter adaptation I modify my exercises every month.

This method of exercise has worked really well for me. Current opinions from some fitness gurus and some research seem to indicate that super slow protocols work as well as volume protocols for strength training, but do so much more efficiently. Obviously, many of those that are into bodybuilding will not agree, but this is not an issue for me since body building is not one of my goals! I have read all that I can find regarding super slow exercise and found some very useful information at the following sites:
http://www.ultimate-exercise.com/
http://www.seriousstrength.com/fred.html
http://www.informfitness.com/power-of-10.htm
http://www.ageless-athletes.com/index.shtml
http://www.superslowzone.com/Page.asp?PageID=294

"Yeah, bulking up? I've been trying to do that for years, and somehow, being a woman I just don't have the testosterone to build big muscles, no matter how heavy I lift."

I agree. I get smaller when I lift, no matter how often and no matter how much weight. It is very difficult for women to "bulk up" because we don't have the requisite level of testosterone. It always puzzles me that trainers perpetrate this myth. They are always saying crap like "well, you're a woman, so I don't want to have you lift too much and bulk up."

Do they not teach about female physiology in trainer school?