But the time is nigh where I talk about something actual relevant - an experimental 12 hour workout that my current steel-minded gym companion and I attempted. If you're a regular visitor to the site you may have read about Peary Rader's 'One Day Arm Blast'. Here he recommended working on muscle group (the biceps in the case of the article) with a single set at the end of every hour for 12 hours. We decided (fool hardedly), that this was a workout for pussies, and so we amped it up a little - by giving that muscle group (in our case pecs) a full and intense (albeit brief) workout on every hour. For us that full workout was performed on the chest press and consisted of 1 set to failure, then assisted reps - then a 10 second pause - then another set to failure, then more assisted reps... before dropping the weight and repeating. We had the added rule that if you must do 3 assisted reps, but if you managed to do one of those unassisted you then had to continue with the first set before doing the assisted reps again later. In total we dropped the weight twice meaning we did this three times overall - going past failure a minimum of 6 times in a session which took about 15 minutes in total. A great fast way to get your pecs burning on its own.
Then, just as in Peary Weider's arm blast, we would have a source of protein - either usually chicken or protein shake and then massage our titties until the next round. The theory here is sound - by continuously triggering an anabolic state followed by rest and protein we've created a micocosm of a full day's workout for that muscle group. Hyperthetically then the hope was that this would have the same benefit of 12 sessions - 12 or 6 weeks worth of training for most people - and add around half an inch over night.
What we didn't account for was quite how much it would hurt, or how constipated we would become. Nor how we would dread the top of each hour. More than anything this was a psychological challenge and we worried that we were doing more harm than good to our bodies. As we'd work out for nearly half an hour in total between us, then have to mix the shake on top of that, there was rarely time to do anything other than wait terrified like a POW for the next session. Our optimistic hopes of getting a jamming session (we're also a progressive rock band - Samsung calls Wednesdays 'Gym Jams'). Yet, being idiots, we ploughed on towards the final hour (which thanks to some bad organising was at 1am).
When it finished we were exhausted and I personally felt like I'd run the marathon. Obviously it was the next day we were worried about though (and I in particular was worried about my dump the next day after Simon had told me there was sometimes blood in it following too much protein). Surprisingly though, there was not really any severe pain in our pecs the following day (good thing too seeing as I had plans to drive to Southampton and go clubbing all night) and if anything it was my legs that ached. A bit like the bit at the start of Rocky 5 where Rocky says he feels as though something important has broken inside of him then curls up shaking in the shower. Another night's sleep though and we felt fine - and despite not pooing for around 66 hours (a record for me) there was no blood in my stool.
Stupidly we didn't think to measure ourselves before or after the workout, but I definitely at least feel bigger than I was previously and photographs seem to attest to this fact. It may be psychological, but I'd wager there's been at least a quarter of an inch of growth - which is still very impressive.
So was it a success? Maybe. Sort of. But it's really not worth and you'd be an idiot if you thought otherwise. An idiot that I respect.
This is how hard you should be working:
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