Weightlifting is a Waste of Time

Meryll Rose from NewsChannel 5 Nashville talks with best-selling author Dr. John Jaquish about why variable resistance training is more effective than weightlifting. Dr. Jaquish’s book Weight Lifting Is a Waste of Time: So Is Cardio, and There’s a Better Way to Have the Body You Want is available now.

Full Transcript

Meryll Rose: Most fitness experts will tell you that lifting weights is an effective way to gain muscle but is pumping iron the only way?

Fitness expert and best-selling author Dr. John Jaquish is here to talk about variable resistance training and why he thinks the benefits outweigh weightlifting.

Meryll Rose: Great to have you with us, Dr. Jaquish. How are you doing?

Dr. John Jaquish: Thanks so much. I’m thrilled to be here.

Meryll Rose: Alright so NFL star Tom Brady is a great example of someone who does variable resistance training. Obviously, it works for him. Tell us what it is.

Dr. John Jaquish: So we have very different capacities, as we move, especially multi-joint exercises. The big discovery that made this very easily understood by medical and fitness professionals is that we are seven times stronger here than we are here, so once you know that, why would ever train with a weight?

We’ve had band training for a long time but bands by themselves like if I throw a band around my back and went to go do a push up with it on the ground, my wrists would be twisted so that’s a problem.

Now if you add a bar to that weight and now you hook banding here and then you can go much heavier. When I do a chest press-up holding 550 pounds here, 300 pounds here, and 100 pounds here and that matches my biomechanics power curve.

So I can take the muscle to a greater level of fatigue and trigger more growth. There are hundreds of NFL players that are using this now and it’s so much easier to understand and makes a lot more sense and doesn’t need a whole gym.

The bar, the plate that you stand on, and a couple of bands and that’s it. You can bring your gym anywhere.

Meryll Rose: Sounds pretty easy. Okay so other than helping you gain muscle mass, what are the other benefits of variable resistance training?

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s safe. Most people will train heavily because that’s something they know will give them the best results until they reach about 22- 27 years old. And that’s when statistically you have a larger injury and gives them a lot of pain and then they start training lighter.

If you want to develop your body, there is no getting away from heavy. Heavy is relative. What my Mom does for her heavy exercises is different from what I do however it’s got to be relative and most people quit training heavy so they quite getting the benefit.

So this way, you end up training heavier than you ever would in a gym. You put more force on the place where you are less likely to become injured and where are likely to get injured, the force drops off to a nominal level so you can still fatigue all ranges but you don’t fatigue them with the same weight. Fatigue them with the appropriate weight.

Meryll Rose: Okay, Quickly before we go. Does this have the same benefits for women as it does for men?

Dr. John Jaquish: Absolutely. Now a lot of women want to develop different parts of their bodies than men do. Like men like having big arms. I don’t know a lot of women who want big arms but we can do that too.

There are sections in my book, Weight Lifting Is a Waste of Time: So Is Cardio, and There’s a Better Way to Have the Body You Want to talk about specific differences in men and women. Women typically just skip the arm workouts and they do the chest, the back, the legs, the glutes, exercise for your butt. A lot of women are interested in having that developed. So yeah, everything.

Meryll Rose: It’s all in your new book, Weight Lifting Is a Waste of Time: So Is Cardio, and There’s a Better Way to Have the Body You Want by Dr. John Jaquish. Thanks so much for being with us today.

Dr. John Jaquish: Absolutely.