Author: Pete Sisco

Sometimes I wish every one of you could be with me to hear some of the conversations I have with people in gyms. Recently I was showing a person how to do some static contraction exercises in a gym and, as often happens, a few people stopped their workouts to see what we were doing. Some had the honest curiosity to want to learn more and some just wanted to defend conventional training against any new ideas. One of the ways I like people to experience the benefit of SCT is by setting up a bench press in a power…

Ever since I began experimenting with more rational and efficient methods of strength training in 1992, I’ve run into people who want to defend the status quo. Basically their defense consists of insisting that any method of training other than what they do and believe must be wrong, otherwise they’d be doing it. One thing I’ve learned is a certain percentage of people basically refuse to understand anything that challenges their current beliefs and seem to have unlimited time and energy to debate with those of us who see things differently. Consequently, I’ve stopped responding to these folks, other than…

I’m about to say some rather nasty things so I want to preface all this by admitting that I’ve personally made just about every mistake a person can make when learning how to get strong and build muscle. I even remember being a teenager and telling friends “high reps build definition and low reps build mass.” Another young parrot of the unproven. From where does the garbage come? Personally, I see it almost everywhere. Women’s Magazines I’ve mentioned before my disgust at the blizzard of women’s style and fitness magazines that feature a flawlessly beautiful model holding a pink one-pound…

I don’t claim to be a historian or a cultural anthropologist but it seems to me that we live in the busiest, most hectic time in man’s history. Recent studies reveal many people get inadequate sleep, most households have two wage earners, families don’t eat together, commute times are high and even when people are supposed to be relaxing they are sending text messages, talking on their mobile phones or otherwise multitasking. It seems like common sense that efficiency should be the most sought after element of almost every endeavor. People literally don’t have time to waste and if something…

Back in 1999 I did a lot of testing to determine the relative intensity of dozens of common exercises. It always irks me when I hear someone say “Such and such is the best triceps exercise or the best ab exercise.” I always want to ask him, “By what measure? Exactly how was that determined?” I shouldn’t let it bother me, we live in a culture where people accept all sorts of things without questioning. But in the case of exercise it’s so easy to test these premises and basically anyone can do it. I used a few dozen bodybuilders…

There are a lot of clever, observant people who read my articles and, more specifically, who train using static contraction. Every week or so for the last 10+ years we get a note along the lines of: “I noticed in your 1993 book you said to do the lat exercise before the abs exercise, but in 2006 you said it the opposite way around. Which is better?” As you can imagine, there are many variations on this question using other groups of exercises. Which brings me to my point. Mathematically, for each workout there are 5 exercises that are chosen…

Pete Sisco has been innovating efficient, productive training methods since 1992. He is the inventor of the Power Factor, Power Index and Relative Static Intensity measurements and co-author of Power Factor Training, Static Contraction Training and many other strength training books. He is also the author of several bestselling strength training e-books including “Get This Strong”. My Articles: Stop Wasting Your Time Doing Useless Workouts How To Add 10 Pounds of Muscle in Only 10 Workouts Static Contraction Training & The Texas Tower Sniper Best Order of Exercises To Build Muscle Mass & Strength Choosing The Best Exercises To Add…