Yet, in spite of the simple, undeniable truth of that statement, literally millions of weight-trainees have wasted billions of hours of training time – because, without single exception that I have ever encountered, or even heard of, apparently all of them sincerely believe exactly the opposite.

In a set consisting of one repetition, there is no basis for comparison; the one repetition is “all things” – it is the easiest repetition, and the hardest, and it is also the safest repetition, and the most dangerous.

But in a set consisting of two or more repetitions – where there is a basis for comparison – then, in all cases if anything even approaching proper form is being maintained, the first repetition is the hardest repetition, and it is by far the most dangerous one. And I want it clearly understood that this has absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that you may or may not be properly warmed-up; the warm-up – or lack of a warm-up – has nothing to do with the matter.

Secondly, it should be clearly understood that the type of equipment being used has nothing to do with the matter either; nor does the particular exercise being performed – nor the amount of weight being used.

Remember, we are concerned here with actualities – not with appearances; we are interested in facts, not opinions.

Keeping it clearly in mind that the following would be equally – that is to say, “perfectly” – true in any possible example, regardless of the exercise involved, no matter how many repetitions were used, and with any possible amount of weight, let us examine what actually happens during the performance of a set of curls with 100 pounds; as opposed to what “seems” to happen. In this example, we will assume that you are capable of performing nine full repetitions – but then fail during an attempt to perform the tenth repetition, in spite of an all-out effort.

The first repetition will seem quite easy, and it will move rapidly; the second will appear to be a bit harder, and will move slower; by the time you reach the ninth repetition, you will be moving very slowly, and that final full repetition will seem very hard; the tenth repetition will not move, and will appear to be impossibly hard.

So much for appearances; now let us see what actually happened. In all ten repetitions the barbell weighted the same, 100 pounds; and during the first nine repetitions the “distance of movement” was the same, approximately two feet.

Now it should be obvious that “something less than 100 pounds of force” was generated during the tenth repetition; because, any amount of force in excess of 100 pounds would have caused movement in the tenth repetition -and since movement was not caused, it is thus clear that less than 100 pounds of force was involved.

And, in the ninth repetition, where movement was produced, it is also obvious that “more than 100 pounds of force” was produced. Even though the movement was actually quite slow – requiring something on the order of three seconds for full movement.

If we measure the actual amount of force being produced in the ninth and tenth repetitions we will find that it works out to about 110 pounds of force in the ninth repetition, and about 80 pounds of force in the tenth repetition.

But in the first repetition movement was faster, far faster – the full movement required only about one-third of a second; the weight was moving nine times as fast during the first repetition as it was during the ninth repetition – and nine times as much force was required to move it that fast, and since nine times 110 equals 990 it should be obvious that the first repetition was much harder than the later, seemingly harder but actually easier repetitions.

In the above example, the first repetition involved the production of approximately twelve times as much power as the tenth repetition did – and it was at least 144 times as dangerous as the tenth repetition; because the danger factor can only be calculated by squaring the differential of force application.

But, in fact, since the first repetition involved not only much more speed of movement but, as well, far greater acceleration factors, it is obvious that the actual danger factor was far greater than a ratio of 144 to 1 would indicate; it was probably something on the order of at least 1000 to 1 -that is to clearly say, the first repetition was probably at least one-thousand times as dangerous as the tenth repetition.

Then why did the tenth repetition “seem” so much harder?”

Because, at that point in the exercise, your muscles were exhausted – and the 80 pounds of force that you were able to generate in a failing attempt to move the last repetition represented 100% of your momentary ability; whereas, during the first repetition, you were fresh and strong, and at that moment you were probably capable of generating something on the order of 3000 pounds of force – and thus the 990 pounds that you actually were required to use represented only about a third of your momentary ability, and felt quite easy for that reason.

Yet out of a totally invalid fear of injury – most weight-trainees avoid the last, seemingly hardest repetitions; thinking that, by so doing, they are avoiding the danger of injury – whereas, in fact, all they are avoiding soing is to reduce their ability to build muscle fast.

And if a full understanding of the above leaves you feeling a little embarrassed for not having previously been aware of such an obvious point, such a plainly self-evident truth – then remember that millions of people watched a wheel come up out of the east and go down in the west every single day for thousands of years before it occurred to one of them to punch a stick through the middle of a similarly-shaped object and attach it to a sledge.

Thus, in fact, “…the harder a particular repetition seems, the easier it actually is; and, the apparently most-dangerous repetition is actually the safest repetition, by far the safest.”

Written by Arthur Jones.

At a recent physique contest in London, one of the leading entrants was asked which of several brands of high-protein diet supplements he used, whereupon he replied, “… protein? With Dianabol, who needs protein?” Dianabol is the trade name of one of the anabolic steroids, the so-called “growth drugs.”

While there seems to be no doubt that the use of such drugs is justified in certain types of cases, there is no possible excuse for their use by a healthy person – and great weight of evidence that strongly counter-indicates such use.

Basically, most of the so-called growth drugs are synthetic forms of male hormones – and massive doses of such drugs may temporarily increase the recovery ability of the body in certain areas; but the body responds to such treatment by immediately reducing its own natural production of such hormones – in an attempt to reestablish the formerly existing chemical balance. Thus any resulting increase in recovery ability is extremely short in duration – and additional doses of the drug must be given at ever increasing levels at very frequent intervals.

Eventually, if such treatment is continued for a long enough period – and in many cases this period is quite short – the body may actually lose its ability to produce such hormones naturally, and a man could literally be turned into a eunuch.

But totally apart from the obvious dangers involved, a great diversity of opinion exists within the medical profession as to the actual growth effects – if any – that are caused by such drugs; many doctors are of the firm opinion that any observed effects are directly due to placebo effect.

Yet such drugs are being used by literally thousands of athletes in this country – and probably by hundreds of thousands; within the last year, a high school football coach strongly recommended the use of such drugs to the author – and bitterly defended their utilization when questioned regarding the justification or propriety of such use. Nor does there seem to be any shortage of doctors that are willing to issue prescriptions for such drugs to healthy high school athletes on the recommendations of coaches.

Eventually, such drug usage will emerge in a major scandal – and the sooner, the better; but in the meantime, an unknown amount of potentially very serious damage is being done to large numbers of young athletes.

Viewed as simply another attempt to “win at any cost”, such drug utilization moves directly in the face of good sportsmanship; but in the light of the very real dangers involved, it borders on outright madness.

Worse than that, there is no slightest evidence to indicate that the results – if any – produced by the use of such drugs cannot be duplicated without such use; although they have been widely considered as such, the ever mounting records in weightlifting are certainly no proof of the effectiveness of such drugs. In the Olympic lifts, the greatest degree of recent improvement has been in the performance of the standing press – but most of this has been directly due to great relaxation in the rules governing the performance of this lift; as of the moment, most of the leading heavyweight lifters are capable of “jerking” very little if any more than they can “press”.

In fact, the performance of the press has degenerated to such a degree that serious consideration was given to the idea of dropping it as one of the three Olympic lifts.

In power lifting, great strides have been apparent primarily because of the fact that this is a very recently introduced sport; but some individuals were fully capable of executing such lifts in good form with very near present world-record poundage’s as long as fifteen years ago – long before the use of growth drugs.

The present record in the bench press is 617 1/2 pounds – but Douglas Hepburn lifted almost 600 pounds in good form well over fifteen years ago; and he did so at a bodyweight far below that of most of the presently-active heavyweight power-lifters.

Insofar as gains in muscular size is concerned, very few men have ever even approached the muscular size attained by John Grimek nearly thirty years ago.

When I mentioned the possibility of serious damages resulting from the use of growth drugs, the coach that was defending their use stated that such cases of damage were extremely rare and that, in any case, all such cases were due to “overdoses.” But in fact, such cases of serious damage are far from rare – although they have not been greatly publicized, for obvious reasons – and the entire effect, if any, from such drugs is entirely dependent upon “overdoses”. In a healthy individual, the system is fully capable of maintaining a very delicate chemical balance – and the use of growth drugs is intended to momentarily disturb this balance, as it must, if results are to be produced.

Written by Arthur Jones.

HGH is the most liberal hormone released from the anterior pituitary due mainly to the fact that almost 40 percent of the anterior pituitary gland is composed of somatotropic cells. In it’s most basic form, HGH is essentially composed of a string of 196 amino acids.

Because of the huge amount of misinformation spread about human growth hormone and HGH – there is a common misconception that HGH is responsible for nothing more than our growth from children to adults. This is simply not the case. In terms of adulthood, HGH is arguably the most powerful anti-aging molecule in the body – helping the cells in our body to repair themselves, regenerate and replicate.

In fact, unlike most other hormones produced by the anterior pituitary, human growth hormone does not focus on any specific gland or tissue in the human body. Rather it has a considerable influence on almost all tissues and cells of the human body. Below we will discuss the different effects that HGH has on both physiological functions and metabolism.

How HGH Interacts With The Body

Human growth hormone aids in the development of normal growth and development from infancy to adulthood. The considerable effects of HGH tend to decline once we have reached our predetermine genetic height and size.

The consistent and dramatic growth we experience from infancy to adulthood can be attributed to the effect that human growth hormone has on almost all the cells in our body. HGH helps increase the size and the number of cells in the body and also with what is called “cellular differentiation.”

What this means essentially is that HGH will help and individual cell differentiate itself by developing into either a muscle cell or bone cell. Human growth hormone causes an increase in the levels of protein in the cells that are used for bone development and in the specific cells that cause bone development to occur.

HGH Production.

HGH like all other hormone in the human body, is influenced by what is often referred to as a “negative feedback loop.” This negative feedback loop acts like a thermostat to regulate the amounts of human growth hormone produced by the body. The secretion of HGH by the pituitary is essentially controlled by another gland in the body called the hypothalamus.

The hypothalamus is like a “thermostat” in your house – as it always manages the changing shifts in hormone production and secretion within the body. The hypothalamus produces two hormones that help in the overall regulation of HGH production and secretion. These two hormones are called Meditropin and Somatostatin.

Aging and HGH Levels.

As we age we naturally see a drop in the levels of HGH secreted by the anterior pituitary. This decline in HGH is known as somatopause. In essence, the levels of HGH found in the body peak in early adulthood and then gradually decline as we age. Studies have shown that the levels of HGH found in the body in our 60s are only 20% of what they were in our early 20s.

Studies have also shown that the aging associated with reduced levels of HGH, are more apparent the lower the levels of HGH. In fact individuals in their 50s who have lower than average levels of HGH, will show the appearance of a person closer to the age of 65 years old. This is because of the significant role that human growth hormone plays in cell development.

It’s also due to the loss of protein in the tissues, which is often replaced with fat. The physiological effects of this process is an increase in fatty tissue, an increase in wrinkling of the skin while at the same time a decrease in muscle strength and overall muss mass.

Due to the fact that HGH production decreases as we age there is a wide array of effects that this has on the body. Here is a list of some of the effects that reduced levels of HGH can have on the body:

• Decreased immune system and function
• Decreased muscle mass and muscle strength
• Decreased levels of energy and vitality.
• Increased levels of body fat
• Increased risk of cardiovascular disease
• Increased wrinkling of the skin
• Decreased sexual desire and function
• Increased weight gain and reduced metabolic rate
• Increased anxiety levels and risk of depression
• Increased risk of osteoporosis
• Decreased stamina and well being

It is very clear from this list that HGH plays a very important role in human health and well being. It is obvious that HGH production effects our physiology and metabolism well beyond infancy and well into adulthood. Studies have shown that increasing the levels of human growth hormone naturally decreases the wide array of symptoms experienced as a result of the aging process.

Naturally Raising HGH Levels

It is widely known and accepted that the release of HGH from the pituitary gland can be encouraged using specific nutrients to stimulate the release of natural HGH from the pituitary. This can in tern have a dramatic effect on the aging process and help restore vitality and well being.

Naturally raising the levels of HGH found in the body can lead to increased levels of energy, increased stamina, reduced levels of body fat, increased levels of sex drive and stamina, improvement in muscle mass and strength, decreased wrinkling of the skin and increased tissue healing.

Until quite recently, these positive effects were only available to individuals using expensive injectable human growth hormone. However, over the last few years there has been an increase in the available alternatives that can be used to raise the levels of HGH found in the body. These include the following:

1. Applying various nutrients that are known to stimulate the production of HGH from the anterior pituitary.
2. Adjusting dietary intake to increase HGH production while avoiding foods that are known to inhibit HGH secretion.
3. Using exercise to build muscle fast, stimulate HGH production and increase human growth hormone secretion.

Many studies have shown that there are nutritional and botanical agents that along with a specific exercise and dietary program can help to naturally boost the levels of HGH found in the body. However, it is not enough to simply ingest the available nutritional supplements without following a very specific dietary and exercise program to maximize their effectiveness.

While it is true that stimulating the production of HGH in the body has many health benefits, it is also true that regular exercise combined with dietary and nutritional supplementation will yield the fastest and most enduring results. We now know that HGH is a powerful tool in the fight against aging.

Below is a list of some of these supplements, that research has shown, helps to naturally raise HGH levels.

• L-Glutamine
• L-Arginine and L-lysine
• GABA (Gamma Amino Butyric Acid)
• Alpha glycerylphosphorylcholine (Alpha GPC)

Now let’s have a look at these individually and see how they act to naturally increase levels of HGH without having to resort to injectable forms of HGH (Human Growth Hormone.) Note: You can also increase your natural levels of HGH with any exercise that will build muscle fast, and increase lean muscle mass.

#1 HGH Supplements – Alpha GPC

This amino acid acts to increase not only the levels of HGH secreted from the anterior pituitary, but almost every other hormone produced as well. These include but are not confined to FSH and LH, hormones that stimulate sexual drive and libido, ACTH, which is the hormone that acts on the adrenal glands, and TSH which actively stimulates the thyroid.

One of that biggest reasons that HGH levels decrease as we grow older is that the secretion of GHRH from the hypothalamus and from a decrease in GHRH receptivity in the cellular membranes. By increasing GHRH output, Alpha GPC naturally raises HGH levels by increasing the receptivity in the pituitary – thereby indirectly increasing HGH secretion.

#2 HGH Supplements – L-Arginine

This amino acid has a wide range of positive effects on the body. It is very well known and widely accepted that Arginine has the ability to stimulate the secretion of HGH. Arginine acts by actually inhibiting the release of somatostatin and increases the response from the somatotropic cells of the pituitary – indirectly increasing HGH secretion.

Arginine is so effective in this regard that it has been known to be used when treating patients who have received chronic steroid treatment – because it helps to normalize the levels of human growth hormone found in such patients.

While Arginine has been proven to assist in raising HGH levels, it is also widely documented that on its own, arginine is not as effective at increasing HGH as a combination of Lysine and Arginine together.

#3 HGH Supplements – L-Lysine

This is another amino acid that works very well in conjunction with Arginine. On its own, Lysine is not really very effective in raising levels of HGH, but in combination with Arginine – it is able to boost HGH levels considerably.

Not only this – but the combination of these two amino acids have been shown to enhance the development of bone growth. Individuals suffering from osteoporosis have been shown to increase bone density from the treatments that include these two amino acids.

#4 HGH Supplements – L-Glutamine

This is one of the most widely found amino acids in the human body. It is considered another very potent protein that helps aid the natural secretion of HGH. Glutamine can quite easily be converted into another amino acid called glumamate, a substance that helps release GHRH, which stimulates the pituitary to release human growth hormone.

L-Glutamine has proven to be a very effective supplement in the fight against aging. By stimulating HGH levels via the hyothalamus, it increases the receptiveness of the pituitary. It also acts as one of the primary sources of energy for the cells of the immune system – and has been known to increase mental alertness and enhance mood.

Using HGH Supplements to Improve Well-Being

It’s pretty obvious that these supplements can help raise the levels of HGH found in the body. Along with this benefit, they also promote a wide range of health enhancing characteristics. While they have a strong effect on the secretion of HGH from the pituitary, the use of these supplements alone can reduce the impact of a more complete approach.

These HGH supplements are all taken orally, and therefore this can reduce their potency due to the fact that they must travel through the digestive tract and liver before ending up in the pituitary. This has always been one of the criticisms of these oral supplements. Because of the way they are ingested, they fail to produce significant results when used alone.

This had let to the development of a new range of HGH supplements that attempt to bypass this disadvantage and increase the levels of HGH found in the body without reducing the potency of the acting agent. We will discuss these HGH supplements another time.