PTP and Injuries...an update

[Toby]

Sorry Ford, didn't want to sound like a Pavel evangelist. I like his work, because it works for me, but I take it with a grain of salt. I'm certainly not a blind follower, just view it as a resource. I know you're not his biggest fan.

Re stretching - I've just always been lazy. I'm not saying that people shouldn't stretch, just that I've never followed a structured stretching program. I'd like to know how to do it, and do it effectively, but I couldn't e.g. do 1hr of stretching before 1hr of lifting. I did a fair bit of searching for a reference to the army study but I can't find it anywhere, so I can't use it as a reference. I'm 100% sure of the report but have no evidence to the findings so I shouldn't have brought it up.

Re the 1st set/2nd set - dunno why, but I always perform better on the 1st set, unless I do < 5 or 6 reps with about 1/2 of my 5RM. Since this doesn't seem to help me much anyway, I don't do it. For me, if I do the 90% set first, I'll struggle with the 100% set. I'm aware that the 2nd set should be the best, but it doesn't work that way for me.

Re the black ice - again, I was just answering Rub's question. But yeah, I think that drivers should do advanced driving courses as part of their licensing requirements, plus maybe every 5 years or so. That's a proposal that's been put forward where I live, since a few years ago kids with just a few hours experience could get behind the wheel with a license. No night driving, no loose surface driving, no poor weather driving experience required. Me, I did a lot of driving in the Oz outback when I worked in mining. As a young guy with a Toyota 4wd I (and my mates) would push the vehicles' limits regularly. 5 of my mates lost their jobs when they rolled vehicles in 3 months. No injuries except a minor concussion thank God. I believe that I learnt a lot about driving in that time. Expensive on vehicles, dangerous, but good experience.

[Ford Prefect]

Toby,

I think Pavel puts out some good material, but the marketing and presentation of it tend to brainwash people. As for the black ice ananology, I was trying to say that there are plenty of things you can do to be "better prepared" for dangerous situations in real life, but training them is dangerous itself. It's just not smart to set yourself up for getting hurt doing "this" because there is an off chance it will help you doing "that" (even though "that" might never happen). You only get one body in this life. If you don't need to hurt it, don't hurt it.

Just think of the example you gave in the first place. How special forces might have to exert a maximal force before warming up.... You think these guys don't prepare before a mission? Even on a mission, you think it's just like they roll out of bed and start exerting maximal force? More likely, they will only have to perform this after much running, swimming, etc to get to there objective. That's definately not anywhere near the same thing as rolling out of bed and nailing your 5RM.

Just look at elite lifters. They can lift a far cry more than most people, yet most always warm up with sets of 45, 95, and 135.

[Toby]

Ford, my special forces example was just answering Rub's question about Pavel's reasons for not warming up. I was paraphrasing Pavel's PTP book to the best of my knowledge, not offering my reasons why you shouldn't warm up.

I know my lack of warming up is a bad thing. But I'll keep doing it, because of various reasons. I'm not advising it, but it seems to suit me. FYI, I wasn't warming up long before I'd ever heard of Pavel (besides riding my bike 15 min to the gym, which I don't do anymore).