Brooks Kubik is “a middle-aged lawyer,” he says about himself. Hr has not any special achievements. Hr was a champion of the United States in the bench press for “straights”, at a weight of 100 kg, with a result of 185 kg.
Kubik`s book “ Dinosaur Training ” became a bestseller among bodybuilders and lifters. However, not only among them, its popularity is much wider.
Why?
Interesting news, here is what Kubik has writen in the preface:
“Most books are written about training for bodybuilding or pseudo-bodybuilders, not for the men who are interested in the absolute brute strength and in the great functional strength. This book is an attempt to align the account in this regard. Furthermore, this book is an attempt to do from the strength training an interesting occupation. ”
Once again – Brooks Kubik is “straight”, he has never taken any “anabolics.”
I must say that his approach to the workouts, his system is very similar to the system of Arthur Jones and Mike Mentzer with his “failures.” Judge for yourself:
“Implementation of singles, that is, single repetitions with maximum and submaximal weights, one of the most effective ways to achieve outstanding results in the development of strength and muscles. But how many people are regularly training in this way? And how many of them are using a program, consisting only of single reps – including warm-up sets?
Stop kidding yourself: real results are not possible without a real work. The real work is when you lose consciousness at the end of a heavy set. When repeatedly bring yourself almost to the full “cut-off” after the set. When you train so hard that even a single set makes your body languish in pain for several days. When you yell and scream in the workouts, sweat is hailing from you, and your muscles are aching. But how many people are training in this way? How many of those whom you know, are lifting a bar on the biceps until they drop the bar out of the hands? And how many do you know who is doing squats or deadlifts until they fall down on the ground, and so they are laying ten minutes, or twenty? ”
Brooks Kubik and his associates call themselves the “dinosaurs” because they do not recognize the training methods of modern bodybuilding and powerlifting.
“When all the ‘modern’ lifters will be able to lie down on a bench for a bench press and squeeze the 180-kilogram barbell, with the stamp of 7-8 cm in diameter, from the chest to the fully extended arms and do it without a shirt for benching, bandages and anabolics, then I should take care of my old-fashioned manners. When each of the chrome-focused party can raise without cheating on the biceps 75 kg with the neck of the same diameter – then I`ll think, if I should go to the country of chromium and figs. When those who “swap”, “pump up”, “lead in tone ” and “pull” their muscles, will be able to squeeze 115 kg sitting with the same three-inch neck, when they will overcome deadlift with two fingers with 135 kg with the neck of 6.4 cm in diameter and will squat to the parallel with 225 kg (from the bottom point, without overalls and bandages) – then I’ll start listening to the “modern” training ideas.
When this team of the armchair theorists can lift, finally, their asses from the soft chairs and walk 60 meters, holding up two “iron suitcase” (one in each hand), weighing 80 kg, can take on the chest and squeeze a 100-pound bag with sand or raise on a shoulder a barrel weighing 125 kg then I`ll stop reading articles, books and magazines from the 20-s, 30-s, 40-s and 50-s years, and subscribe to any modern magazine. Until then, I’d rather stay an alive relic. ”
The basic idea of the”dinosaurs” is expressed by a slogan: “Power is everything.” Moreover, a rough, brutal strength.
The first principle of the dinosaur training is a hard work in the workouts. They are trained in the so-called power rack. Here it is:
Brooks Kuoik believes that the most important training tool of the “dinosaur” after the bar is a power rack. It:
(1) allows the “dinosaur” to have a training alone, it will be safe;
(2) allows him to do “overloads”, loads on the muscles are much heavier than in the regular exercises (overloads are partial repetitions of the upper-third of the training amplitude for bench press and squat);
(3) allows the “dinosaur” to add a diversify in the program without giving up the basic movements such as squats, bench press and deadlift;
(4) allows the “dinosaur” to do bench presses and squats from the “lower point”, the two most productive exercises are available to a man.
Very easy to do in a power rack not only overloads but lockouts.
Lockout, for example, ia an extension of the arms with the weights on the racks. Racks is set so that only to perform the last 10 inches of a bench, to the fully extended arms. The idea of this movement is to lift the bar from the racks as quickly as possible without losing control over a weight, and with the completely straighten arms. Then a bar slowly/ remember it! -Auth. / fall back on the a racks to a complete stop. Then follows a repetition. This will help to feel this phase of the movement and learn to deal with a weight.
In general, a reader, as you have already understood, workouts of the “dinosaurs” are rather a training for lifters and not for bodybuilders. But lockouts and overloads with their limited amplitudes are generally close to the isometric exercises.
What are isometric exercises? An aim of the training is that the muscles are tensed, but they are fixed, they do not stretche (Isometric from the Greek isos – the same thing as metron – measure). Instead of lifting the weights, you have to overcome a resistance, which in principle can not be overcome.
Positive changes – especially the growth of power achieved by the isometric exercises, remains longer than during the long dynamic workouts.
But besides the undoubted increase in strength and a substantial strengthening of ligaments, isometric exercises can also stimulate a muscle hypertrophy.
The fact is that in this case, are observed the effects which are similar to those that provide trainings with a blocking blood flow when using weights in excess of 40% of the maximal isometric efforts. They inhibit blood circulation in the muscles, allowing the accumulation of metabolic by-products, increasing a secretion of growth hormone and activation of local growth factors.
On the other hand, isometric exercises may be less effective in production and accumulation of the metabolic by-products than exercises, where the movement is actually made. Which method is better to increase the size of the muscles ? This is a difficult question.
Basic principles of performance of the isometric exercises:
– To do each exercise with a maximum strain;
– To do an effort after an inhalation, during an exhalation, and not holding your breath during an exercise, breathe rhythmically, 6 seconds, inhale, exhale 6 seconds, without pauses and delaying of the breath;
– Every effort should last no longer than 6 seconds;
– Between efforts to make a pause for about 10 – 30 seconds;
– Try to strain muscles and increase power smoothly, to dump loads alco smoothly.
Famous Samson (Alexander Zass), who liked to stroll along the beach with a horse on his shoulders, practiced as in the isometric exercises (which he called “tendon”), and in lifting the bulky heavy things. Last unites his system with a system of “dinosaurs”.
When a shell is uncomfortable for treatment, it is better to the”dinosaurs”.
A set of shells for training is not large: the bars with the thickened neck, dumbbells – also with a thick neck, bags with sand, barrels with water, anvils and other objects, it is extremely uncomfortable to training with them.
Power rack, though it is “foolproof”, presents to an athlete a very violent, even violent demands. Here’s how emotionally Brooks Kubik describes work in it:
“In the frame you can do squats and bench presses from the lowest point. This means that your squat begins with the fact that you dive under the bar, which lies on the limiters. At the beginning of the movement your thighs will be parallel to the floor or slightly above a parallel by 3-5 cm. In order to start moving in a heavy squat from such a position, it requires a superhuman effort. Squat from the lowest point will reopen the meaning of concepts such as hard work, concentration, intensity, will, determination and efforts to you. These squats will make your back, buttocks and thighs very strong and big. ”
Yeah, the reader is wondering, you can hurt for long. True, Brooks Kubik warns, saying that training in a power rack so brutalen and cruel that even an advanced athlete with extensive experience in the lifting of iron, should be incorporated into it slowly and carefully. You should not run immediately to the basement, load the bar to 180-220 kg and try a squat from the bottom point with this weight. You should approach the exercises with this weight gradually.
Naturally, that in the power rack is better to do sets, consisting of a small number of repetitions, or even singles (one rep per set). The exercises performed in a power rack, Kubik does not recommend doing more than five reps per set. This means that you have to get used to the small number of repetitions before you begin training in the frame. In other words, even before the first train in the frame, you need some time for the regular exercises with a small number of repetitions, of course, with the maximal weights. Thus, you will prepare your body to superheavy loads in a power rack.
Do not overdo it, warns Kubik. Overestimated amount of work at an early stage will lead to disaster.
That’s a training program which he offers to the beginners.
Monday
Squat to parallel (normal) – 5×5 (four warm-up s, one working set).
Squat from the lowest point in a frame – five singles with a gradual increase of load to heavy, but not to the maximal weight.
Bending of the arms with a barbell with a 5-cm neck, the same scheme “sets / reps”, as in the squat.
Grip – two exercises of 2-3 sets each.
Climbs the trunks with bent legs at the knees with a dumbbell on the chest – one set, 15-25 reps.
Thursday
Deadlift, trap-thrust (thrust performed by trapezius muscles, lifting of the shoulders in a standing position, thrust in lowered down arms), deadlifts with dumbbells, power taking on the chest or weightlifting thrust (in the usual style) – the same scheme “ses / reps” as in squats.
Bench press (normal) – the same scheme “sets / reps” as in squats. Bench press with the lowest point in the frame better with a neck thickness of wcich is 7.5 cm – five singles, with a gradual increase of load to heavy, but not the maximal weight. Pull-ups, pull down, pull in the slope of the bar (or dumbbell in one hand) – four sets with the gradual increase of load to the maximalweight for five repetitions. Grip – 2-3 exercises of 2-3 sets each. Leg raise with weight attached to the legs – one set, 15-25 reps.
Noticed the readers? Two workouts per week. Large loads, in the sense of weights, but few repetitions, except abdominal exercises.
Brooks and his advanced friends bullied over themselves in a full program:
“Then we did the bench press lockouts in the rack – and again with three-inch neck. Each of us has made five singles with a maximum for each of us at the moment weight. I pressed 215 kg. We have recently included lockouts in our program, so we then went only to our maximal weights in this exercise. The previous week, I pressed 211 kg and was soon going to reach 227 kg. (Six weeks later I came to the result of 256 kg).
Was it easy for us? No. Was it easy for me to squeeze out 181 kg of the total amplitude? No. Was it easy to do lockouts with 216 kg? No. Each exercise required a deep, focused concentration, patience and relentless determination. And let us not trained to “complete failure” (as many do, doing sets which consist of several repetitions), but still we trained very, very hard. Every time when we came to the bar, we challenged the iron. Each repetition was a battle. Every time we straightened elbows at the end point of this huge uncomfortable three-inch neck, we celebrated the victory. ”
The next critical element in the training of “dinosaur” is the doing of the basic (“polyarticular”) exercises. As we know, such exercises are squats, bench presses, deadlifts, taking on chest, pull-ups, dips. All these exercises have been tested throughthe time, and, as Brooks Kubik says, people have built up with them tons of muscles. They involve large muscle groups over the entire body at once.
The reader, where are “tons of muscles from?” Yes, from where, by increasing the concentration of testosterone in the body. And its concentration increases in the performance of the basic exercises with heavy weights – we already know it.
Some Kubiks` statements may seem controversial. For example, he flatly denied pumping effect.
Hundreds of thousands if not millions, of words, says Brooks, has been written about how to increase the size of arms, “pumping up” the muscle with blood through frequent performance of many sets on biceps and tricep extension. The authors of such articles, courses and books want to convince us that the size and power of the arms increases, ostensibly, solely due to the volume of blood, which could temporarily drive into the arms during the training. This is simply not true, and such approval is the result of misconceptions about how to increase muscle size and strength.
The following fragment from the book by Brooks Kubik contains an apparent contradiction:
“Pumping” (pump) – is an artificial state of bloated muscle to the flowed blood to it – nothing to do with increasing the actual size or strength of muscles it hasn`t.
“Pamping” training systems, from the point of growth of the real muscles do not give practically anything. That is why supporters of the “pamping” training systems often look like impressive, but do not have such power, about which seemed to say their appearance.
I have seen huge people who could hardly wrung out six times on parallel bars – without extra weight! If their power is consistent with their appearance, these monsters would overcome the push-ups in the 6-8 reps with 90 kg. They could have everything, that is, a body that would not only look strong, but it was strong, but they do not have anything but a body that just looks good. I do not understand why don`t you want to be big and strong?
The problem of “pumping” approach to training is that this system does not load the muscle. Instead of “inflated” by performing from set to set with a light weight, trying to get a passing feeling of inflated muscles with blood, the training should be directed to lead the muscle fibers to the disintegration.
“Pumpers” may, finally, to get a big size of arms, humerals and lats, but they never gain a really impressive appearance.
So, Kubik realized that “pumping” still leads to muscle hypertrophy, a mechanism of this process wehas already represented. Yes, these hypertrophied muscles often do not possess sufficient strength. But bodybuilders do not put an ultimate aim to develop strength.
But the fact that muscles, grown in “pumping”result, do not look very impressive, it’s true. On this occasion, Kubik said:
“How Dr. Ken Lyaystner has written in the issue of” TPE Steel Tip »1987 in march, they have a lackof the” aura of power. ” Quoting a doctor:
“The man who has achieved a significant increase of muscles and did it with basic, heavy exercises and looks in a special way. It is even difficult to describe by words, although everybody feels it when he sees. Extremely swung bodybuilders often do not have this “image”, even those who have a very large muscle mass and volume. For all their size, they look like, using the expression of my younger brother, “as a set of body parts.” Those who practiced, mostly in the “basic” exercises and is able to cope with the fairly heavy weights in a moderately high number of repetitions, looks powerful and strong. He has a certain “aura of power”,which is difficult to definebut, nevertheless, it certainly exists. ”
Of course, weightlifter in weight to 105 kg visually looks even stronger than a bodybuilder of the same weight.
On the mechanism that initiates the growth of muscles of the body as a result of the doing of basic exercises, we have already spoken. Brooks says on the subject: exercises have both direct and indirect effects. This means that when exercises starts muscle growth in one part of the body (direct effect), it also triggers muscle growth, though to a lesser extent, throughout the body (indirect effect). Squats and deadlifts make a huge indirect effect. If you squat and pull, then you start growth not only into the legs and the back, you are growing everywhere.
Here we will digress and quote John McCallum. This bodybuilder and bodybuilding trainer certainly has evrn a literary talent. Thus, an excerpt from his text about the benefits of squats:
“I used to know such a guy.
I was training at YMCA several years ago. My friend started to train there. Skin and bones. His weight was 64 kg.
I told him about squats and showed him how to do them correctly.
He began to squat and gain weight, and after he got it enough he was taken to the police. But he liked this new feeling of strength in his muscles, so he continued to come in that small dirty room and went on squating, but his weight and strength were growing by leaps and bounds.
He finished what turned into a monster weighing 109 kg with a huge and powerful muscles and all necks were bent in the gym by his neck during squats.
At work, he was transferred to the patrol division, because he could throw drunkards in the car with one hand.
One evening, he went alone to a pub, where was a rowdy drunken sailor, swinging around with a broken bottle. Seaman rushed at him with a bottle and glass scratched his face. My friend had to slap a sailor once with the back of his hand. Sailor flew across the table back to forward, fell on the floor and was laying there. His mouth was covered in blood, and his head was lying under a strange angle to the body. When he was taken to the hospital, he was dead.
Hence morality: squats will give you tremendous power. Be careful with it.
Yes, the reader, care at home never hurts. But let`s to the book by Brooks Kubik.
Next, not a stone was left by Brooks of the larger part of the building, built, terrible to say! – by Joe Weider.
Curls and bench presses, says Kubik, opposed to squats and deadlifts, have a little indirect effect, if they have it at all. As for the “pumping ‘movements, such as straighten the legs, hack squats, layout with dumbbells and arms reduction in the simulator – they do not even have any significant indirect effect. This is one of the many reasons why it is critical to include squats and deadlifts intraining programs.
Kubik finally finishes off old Vader (why, and not him alone!) withan assertion that isolation movements are a waste of time. It is noteworthy that Stuart Mc Robert expressed also categorically about the isolation exercises and. And what is remarkable neither Kubik nor Mac-Robert can not boast with a special personal success in bodybuilding or powerlifting.
What conclusion can we make with you? There is a grain of truth in the “dinosaurs” system.
But you wil not develop the entire skeletal muscles by some squat thrusts. Workouts of already known to us Casey Vajyatora under the leadership of no less famous Arthur Jones are a good example.
The workout, which is described below, was held on the eve of the competition “Mr. America” (in which Vajyator won in five of the six categories), for two days. A witness of a training was Ellington Darden (this is a quote from his book):
“In the evening on the 10th of June 10 in 1971, two days before the competition” Mr. America “, we watched as Vajyatorwas doing the following procedure:
1. Leg presses on the simulator “Wagon” with a weight of 750 pounds (340.1 kg), 20 reps.
Then without a break:
2. Extensions for the legs on the simulator “Wagon” with a weight of 225 pounds (102 kg), 20 reps.
Then without a break:
3. Complete squats with a barbell with a weight of 502 pounds (227.7 kg), 13 reps. Then he rested for two minutes and had a drink of water.
4. Leg Curl on the simulator “Wagon” with a weight of 175 pounds (79.4 kg), 12 repetitions.
Then without a break:
5. Calf raises on one leg with a 40-pound (18 kg) dumbbells in hand (first on one leg, then on the other), and 15 repetitions for each leg.
Then without a break:
6. Pullovers on the simulator “Nautilus” with a weight of 290 pounds (131.5 kg), 11 reps.
Then without a break:
7. Thrust above the head (an exercise for the isolation of the lateral muscles) on the simulator “nautilus” with a weight of 200 pounds (90.7 kg), 10 reps.
Then without a break:
8. Reducting – breeding the hands on the simulator “Nautilus” from weighing 200 pounds, 10 reps.
Then without a break:
9. Thrust above the head on the simulator “Nautilus” (an exercise for the pumping of the lateral muscles) with a weight of 210 pounds (95.3 kg), 10 reps. Then he rested for two minutes and had a drink of water.
10. Breeding straight hands with dumbbells 40 pounds (18 kg) on each arm, 9 reps.
Then without a break:
11. Presses the bar up from behind a head, the weight – 185 pounds (83.9 kg), 10 reps. Then he rested for two minutes and had a drink of water.
12. Bending of biceps on the simulator “Nautilus” with a load of 110 pounds (49.9 kg), 8 reps.
Then without a break:
13. Pulling on the bar without weights, 12 repetitions. Then he rested for two minutes and had a drink of water.
14. Triceps extensions on the simulator “Nautilus” with a weight of 125 pounds (56.7 kg), 9 reps.
Then without a break:
15. Press on the parallel bars without weights, 22 repetitions.
Jones ‘pushed’ Vajyator through each exercise, and every set brought “to failure.” Cycle for the leg muscles (exercises 1-5) lasted 10 minutes.
Cycle for the upper top of body (exercises 6-15), including rest periods, lasted 17 minutes 40 seconds.
The entire training session from the beginning to the end lasted 27 minutes 40 seconds.
According to Jones, who teained Vajyator for 10 months, it had been his best workout so far. And it was the most amazing workout, which I `ve seen
But then John said something startling: over the past four weeks Vajyator trained only six times! That’s right, only six times in 28 days. ”
This was the high-intensity training. It means longer intervals of rest – see above (M. Mentzer system).
by Brooks Kubik
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