Super Slow, Power of 10, fads and silver bullets in general

David sent me this article about a GE exec who does one "super slow" weight training session a week and 2-3 cardio sessions on an elliptical. He has been reading the book The Power of 10: The Once-a-Week, Slow Motion Fitness Revolution, which promises a once-a-week, 20-minute super-slow-motion weight training session is enough for good fitness. My reply:

Interesting synchronicity; I was just doing some research on the topic when I got your email. The GE guy is happy to keep in “reasonable” shape and I don’t doubt that 3 half-hour-plus cardio sessions plus one super-slow workout per week are enough for that; note he attributes his overuse syndrome in the shoulders to excessive golfing. No one who has built up a lot of muscle over their natural genetic complement could keep it using such an easy program.

What I doubt about the “Power of 10” book is the claim that you can get anywhere close to the muscle and fitness level we have by doing one half-hour workout a week. Vague comments about doing active exercise the rest of the time to reach that goal make that a meaningless claim. Most likely someone doing nothing currently could see some good results using their program, but at some level spending that little time and claiming it does as much as working out for several hours several times a week cannot be true, or everyone would do it. My experiments with Super Slow showed it took just as much time, with perhaps less joint strain than normal training. The Power of 10 program is like what the Curves ladies do — fitness light, not too time-consuming but only half the results. If you want to be in the top 10%, you have to do more. I can find no evidence that this program is any more efficient than normal HIT weight training to failure. One article notes most trainers have abandoned Super Slow because people will not stick with it, and only use it in special injury situations or with newbies.

The diet and other advice in the “Power of 10” book is really very good and concise, one of the best short presentations I’ve seen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_slow
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459467
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=55931
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0675/is_3_21/ai_112982397

Better to do at least 2 high-intensity lifting sessions a week (and at our age, not being able to do such high-intensity work because of joint and endurance issues, more like 5 less intense sessions), and 3+ high-intensity (but short – 30 minutes) cardio sessions. Some time can be saved by increasing intensity, and overtraining avoided by providing enough rest time (> 3 days at our age) for each muscle group, but there is no magic formula for getting top-10% fitness at half or less of the time commitment. If I were setting out to write a bestseller, I’d offer something-for-almost-nothing, too.