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Arthur Jones Nautilus Exercise Sport Science Article
A Response to a Post on the SportScience List
by Arthur Jones
There are so many mistakes, stupid theories, faulty assumptions and
other categories of outright bullshit contained in the stuff that
you sent me that it would require several lengthy books to respond
properly to all of them, so I will make no such attempt.
ONE: Frank Katch. If Frank Katch is a typical example of so-called
scientists involved in this field, and he may well be, then the
whole bunch should be burned at the stake. He is a liar, a perjurer
and an all-round phony, and knows something less than nothing about
exercise physiology. I have the original copies of two different
audio tapes that were made of conversations with Katch when he did
not know that his statements were recorded, and he lied in both of
them, told lies that can be proven in court if need be.
In his statements to help Gideon Ariel in his, Gideon's, attempt to
steal from me, Katch wrote, signed, and swore to a statement that
was utterly false, claiming that he had personally heard me make
threats against Gideon's life, and Katch wrote that statement more
than a year before he ever saw or spoke to me.
In a second instance Katch stated, on tape and before two witnesses,
that he had seen and counted checks totaling several million dollars
that I had been forced to pay Gideon; another outright lie since
Gideon never got a cent as a result of his phony lawsuit against me,
was, instead, forced to drop his suit "with prejudice," meaning that
he can never file such a suit again. Existing court records
document this fully.
TWO: Plyometrics. Having covered this matter repeatedly, and in
detail, in dozens of articles and several books, I will not now do
so again, will only say that anybody dumb enough to use plyometrics
will probably get just what they deserve, hurt.
THREE: Muscular friction. Everything in the universe that has both
mass and motion also has friction, and muscles are no exception.
Friction that inhibits (reduces) positive function while enhancing
(increasing) negative function, which is why your negative strength
is greater than your positive strength.
Quite a high percentage, if perhaps not a majority, of people with
an interest in muscle physiology have at least been aware that
negative strength is always higher than positive strength, and many
theories have been suggested in attempts to explain this difference
in strength; all but one of which theories were simply wrong, which
should not be surprising since all of these wrong theories were
based upon outright speculation while ignoring the simple laws of
basic physics.
To the best of my knowledge I was the first person to provide an
answer to this question, an answer which I first published about
twenty-five years ago in an article in the Athletic Journal entitled
The Metabolic Cost of Negative Work. Then being aware of, and
understanding at least some of the effects of, internal muscular
friction, I did not then possess the testing tools required to
demonstrate the results of muscular friction, but later I did have
such tools and the subsequent use of these tools taught me a great
deal about the effects of muscular friction. I learned that the
level of friction, and thus its results, varies as a consequence of
two factors, the speed of muscular contraction and the momentary
level of fatigue, both a faster speed of contraction and a higher
level of fatigue increasing muscular friction.
In some, but not in all, human movements, the speed of muscular
contraction does not vary in proportion to changes in the speed of
movement of the related bodypart; during the first 90 degrees of
angular movement of the forearm as the arm is bent around the axis
of the elbow, the speed of muscular contraction varies by about 800
percent even when the speed of angular movement of the forearm
remains constant, and thus the level of muscular friction varies.
The unavoidable result being that the difference between positive
and negative strength will not be constant throughout the movement;
for that reason, and for several other reasons, it follows that any
attempt to measure strength using a dynamic testing procedure is
doomed to failure. Nevertheless, there still exists a very strong
bias in favor of dynamic testing procedures, and thus there also
still exists an enormous level of confusion and controversy about
this subject.
A second factor that continues to add nothing but confusion about
this subject is a result of the common, almost universal, habit of
considering only "source" while ignoring "substance;" thus,
iniffect, "who says something" becomes all important while "what was
said" is ignored, or, if the source is "acceptable," then is
swallowed hook, line and sinker even of the statement is utterly
stupid, which, as it happens in this field, is usually the case.
Apart from the research that I have personally conducted, or paid
for when such research was conducted by others, there has been very
little meaningful research in this field; this being true for the
simple reason that the people attempting to conduct such research
did not have tools capable of measuring their results, and,
secondly, did not have anything even close to a real understanding
of muscular function.
But, since I am not a "member of the club," that is do not wear a
white coat and call myself "doctor," such people almost invariably
reject anything that I have to say. Which situation would be funny
if it was not so serious.
Secondly, many such people also reject my statements because I do
not "follow the rules," do not find it necessary to at least mention
every single one of the seemingly endless list of stupid theories
that somebody else has published. Nor do I bother to concern myself
with myths such as those concerned with things like ghosts, goblins
and religion: I might start to live in miracles when and if somebody
can demonstrate and measure one, but in the meantime continue to
ignore them.
FOUR: Fred Hatfield. Hatfield has published a rather long list of
lies about me in several magazines. But I will not waste any time
trying to respond to any of them. In that case you should consider
the source.
FINALLY: Having already published everything that needs to be said,
or that can be truthfully said on this subject, I am no longer
willing to even attempt to meaningfully communicate with fools,
liars and other such people. As Rhett Butler said . . . "Frankly,
my dear, I don't give a damn." I still have a few friends and if
most of the other people now alive are utterly insane, and they
obviously are, then that is their problem, not mine.
Sincerely,
Arthur Jones
Arthur Jones Nautilus Exercise Sport Science Article