By Frank Sherrill,
Did you know that you could build muscle and become stronger without
weight training?
It's true.
It's called isometric training and it increases muscle mass, giving
you that great-looking body you always wanted. And best of all, you can
get fit without going to the gym or buying all that expensive home
exercise equipment.
Isometric exercises involve muscular contractions performed against
fixed resistance. The
system gained scientific acceptance in 1953 when a couple of German
researchers named Dr. Theodore Hettinger and Dr. Eric A. Muller
published a study showing people who did isometric exercises obtained
dramatic results by causing their muscles to tense for no more than 10
seconds at a time.
This muscle tension became popular in Americawhen a young man from
southern Italy, Angelo
Sicilano, teamed up with marketing genius Harold Roman to produce an
advertisement in comic books.
It showed how a 97-pound weakling became a "real he-man" and
punched out the bully who had kicked sand in his face. This ad launched
the mail order body-building program called "Dynamic Tension."
Young Angelo went on to win the title The World's Most Perfectly
Developed Man.
He changed his name to Charles Atlas, put on a pair of leopard skin
shorts, and the rest is history.
Probably the only man Atlas could not help was Mahatma Gandhi. When the
great spiritual leader of
India wrote a letter to Atlas asking for help, Atlas devised a diet and
recommended a series of exercises to help restore Gandhi's weakened
condition. "I felt mighty sorry for him," Atlas said. "He was
nothing but a bag of bones."
A few years before Atlas started flexing his muscles, another strongman
used isometrics to build and maintain his strength. Like Atlas,
Alexander Zass-better known as The Amazing Samson-offered his
training through a mail order course. Zass was born in Vilna, Poland in
1888, but lived most of his early years in Russia and after 1924 in
Britain.
He developed a great belief in the application of isometrics and
"maximum tension" for the development of strength. He believed such
an approach was superior to the normal use of weights in developing
strength.
"I aimed, first, to develop the underlying connective tissues rather
than the superficial
muscles," he wrote in his instruction manual, Samson's System and
Methods. "I developed tendon
strength...." Without tendons, one would possess no control over the
body, he continued. "They and their development are the secret to my
strength. Muscles alone won't hold wild horses back. Tendons will,
and do."
Sampson, so-called The World's Strongest Living Man, said muscles
were an illusion when it came to strength, but he did encourage his
students to develop them because well-defined muscles "furnish
quite a respectable physical appearance." Sampson said beginners
should practice tensing
their muscles one at a time then grouping the muscles together, tensing
as many as possible at one
time.
He outlined three methods of isometric tension: freestyle, using no
appliances; wall
exercises for resistance training; and weight exercises in which the
student held the weight in a
rigid position instead of using curls or presses, the typical
"pumping iron" method of weight training.
Most isometrics instructors agree not to exceed 10 seconds on each
muscle contraction. That is
perhaps the greatest appeal to isometrics-a person can enhance muscle
mass and strength with only a few simple repetitions in a limited time
without heavy exertion.
In the 1960s, gym rats-not wanting to publicly admit their use of
steroids-attributed their sudden
remarkable gains in strength and muscle mass to the use of isometrics.
This association, however
false, between the system and the abuse of steroids created a panic
among the health conscious,
resulting in the American public shunning the use of isometrics.
But the system flourished in Europe, especially in physical
rehabilitation programs
among the aged. Seeing such positive results in Europe's medical use
of isometrics, patients in the
United States also turned to the healing aspects of the system.
Scoliosis is just one of the afflictions being tackled by the medical
use of isometrics. The Anti-
Scoliosis Treatment Method is a Russian approach that consists of
isometric and stretching exercises, vibration, spinal manipulation and
electrical muscle stimulation.
Traveler's thrombosis is another ailment that isometric exercises can
help prevent. Brought on by
pressure on the upper thighs caused by prolonged sitting and low
mobility in narrow seats on long
airplane rides, this ailment is a greater problem than jet lag or
airline cuisine.
The low air humidity onboard passenger aircraft can favor the formation
of blood clots in cases where passengers may be lacking fluids. Studies
by Medsafe, a business unit of New Zealand's Ministry of Health,
indicate the use of isometric exercises helps relieve this condition.
Not only can isometrics help the weary worldwide wanderer, the National
Aeronautics and
Space Administration is out of this world when it comes to recognizing
the benefits isometrics offer in
the close confinements of a space capsule.
On long space journeys in prolonged weightlessness, astronauts suffer
crippling muscle and bone loss. Future space trips will be longer, say
three years for example, when astronauts eventually explore Mars.
Longer durations in space mean increased muscle and bone losses.
Researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center recommend a variety of
preflight fitness plans,
training space travelers for in-flight use of the exercise equipment
onboard the International
Space Station, and monitoring their health after their return to Earth.
"Muscle and bone loss in space create an entire realm of biological
concerns for astronauts," said
William J. Kraemer, director of the Human Performance Laboratory at
Ball State in Muncie,
Indiana. "Our challenge is to find countermeasure programs which ...
allow the body to maintain
proper structure and function."
Strength training for astronauts involves two types of resistance
exercises: high-intensity
isotonics, which shorten and lengthen muscles (for example, lifting and
lowering a dumbbell), and
isometrics, which fully contract muscles without movement (such as
pushing against a doorway).
While both types of exercises could potentially reduce muscle atrophy
in microgravity, research
suggests isometrics may be more successful than isotonics in protecting
slow-twitch fibers, according mto a February 2004 report in NASA's
Biological andPhysical Research Enterprise newsletter.
For the homebody, massive muscle and bone loss may not be as much a
problem as those extra
calories packed on while watching football or soccer on the television.
It might be good advice to roll
yourself out of that easy chair and spend 10 secondsat a time doing
isometric exercises-at least during the commercial breaks.
The only drawback to "free hand" Isometrics (without the use of any
equipment) is that there is no way to measure your strength gains and
you are limited in the number of exercises.
But, there is now a way to increase there effectiveness by up to
1000%.
With the advent of new "hybrid" exercise equipment such as the Bully
Xtreme home gym you can now maximize your muscle building results while
being able to do more exercises up to 82 different movements. While
utilizing the powerful technique of isometrics.
For more information and a free report check out...
http://www.BullyXtreme.net/
************************************************** ************************************************** *************
Frank Sherrill, is a former U.S. Army Ranger and Martial Arts expert.
After surviving a horrific weight training accident, he spent years
researching and finally discovering an exercise program and home gym
that was as effective as free weights but, without all the RISK
To learn more about the Bullworker and the Bully Xtreme go to
http://www.BullyXtreme.net
Isometrics, Steriods, Alexander Zass And Charles Atlas's Dynamic Tension- Effective or Just a Hoax?? 
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