Total Results Blog

We are often enamored with things that are flashy and catch our attention, while at the same time we fail to realize how much effort goes into making something that is very difficult look easy. No matter how naturally gifted a person is in a certain endeavor, everyone starts with the basics. Michael Jordan, in my opinion, is the greatest basketball player that ever lived, and while he had a well-earned reputation for being a clutch scorer, he was also a tremendous defensive player. He learned from his college coach, Dean Smith, that you play defense with your feet rather than your hands, you must be able to see both your man and the ball, and you must stay between your man and the basket. In short, he learned the fundamentals of being an all-around player. In the Super Bowl last weekend, the Philadelphia Eagles reminded everyone (especially the Kansas City Chiefs) that while spread offenses and throwing the ball all over the field attract high ratings, football still comes down to the fundamentals of blocking, tackling, and forcing/avoiding turnovers. In short, success in any field, whether it is in sports, academics, or business, depends on mastering the fundamentals.

People who desire to achieve great things never get bored with the fundamentals. If you do not master the fundamentals, you cannot take the next step in your development. John Wooden won ten NCAA men's basketball titles, yet every season during the first practice he meticulously went over with his players how to properly put on their socks and shoes so that they could avoid blisters. That seems extreme, but it reinforced Coach Wooden's commitment to teaching the fundamentals that contributed to their success. Mastering the fundamentals is a critical element to the teaching that goes on at Total Results. Very few "trainers" or exercise enthusiasts understand the concepts that make up proper exercise, nor do they realize that these teaching points must be emphasized over and over again.

What are these exercise fundamentals that must be mastered in order to optimize success? The first fundamental is proper breathing. That seems a little silly at first glance, since everyone knows how to breathe, but there is a certain way that we want you to breathe during your workout. You should breathe exclusively through your mouth, in a shallow and repetitive fashion, with a relaxed jaw and no lip pursing. We want you to breathe freely, but also avoid overbreathing too early in the exercise so that you don't prematurely fatigue. This will help you to get oxygen to the working muscles, blow off carbon dioxide, and also prevent the pH levels in the muscles from becoming too acidic (this can also cause premature fatigue). This requires much prompting and cueing on the part of the instructor to establish good habits in the first few sessions, and while most clients get the hang of it fairly quickly, everyone needs a reminder now and again.

Another fundamental element to proper Total Results exercise is having the right mindset. Why exactly are we doing this? It is important to understand the main objective of exercise: thorough inroad. Some clients struggle with this either initially or once they start to encounter meaningful resistance. Most people assume their purpose is to perform as many repetitions as they can with as much weight as possible, but that is incorrect. What we really want to do is fatigue the muscles safely and deeply enough to elicit an adaptive response. If you are too focused on squeezing out more repetitions, you are far more likely to take liberties with your form and enter unsafe territory. This defeats the true exercise objective. Keep your mind in the right space and realize that when you are struggling and the movement arm is difficult to move, this is the most effective part of the entire exercise.

Our ideal speed of movement is ten seconds raising the weight and ten seconds lowering the weight. Bear in mind that while this is what we strive for, no client is perfect in terms of speed. Anything between eight and twelve seconds in each direction will meet our standard, so you have some leeway. We want to minimize potentially dangerous forces and maximize muscular loading, so ten seconds is the sweet spot. Pace goes along with speed. An evenly paced movement is preferable to one that is inconsistent, so I instruct clients to shoot for a rate of acceleration of about one inch per second. Even though each exercise has a slightly different stroke (distance between start point and end point in the range of motion), that seems to do the trick. Clients can help themselves by counting in their head or using the clocks that are situated on or near most of our machines in order to develop pace.

Our turnaround technique involves smoothly and carefully changing directions at the end of each positive and negative excursion. When Ken Hutchins first developed our protocol, he was unsure if this speed of movement could even be applied to compound exercises (movements that involve multiple joints and muscle groups). That dilemma was solved when he developed the turnaround technique. When changing directions at the lower turnaround, you want to let off the force just enough to bottom out the weight stack without unloading the musculature, and then push or pull just hard enough to begin the next repetition. This ensures a smooth and continuous movement. Naturally this becomes more challenging and fatigue increases, but attention to this small detail makes a huge difference.

These fundamental elements of exercise are introduced during both the preliminary considerations and sample workout portions of the initial consultation, and are reinforced during almost every workout going forward. If I see that a client is struggling with form, I will not hesitate to lower the weights to help them reacquaint themselves with proper fundamentals. Some of our most successful long-term clients are the ones that strive for mastery and realize that it is a life-long pursuit. Even when you master the fundamentals, you will always return to them, as they are the bedrock on which to build success.

If you're going to do something, you might as well strive to be the very best you can be. I read a great quote in Brian Johnson's book "Arete" that said, "Average performers practice something until they get it right. Elite performers? They practice until they can't get it wrong." Master the fundamentals and reap the full benefits of your exercise experience. Make it a game!

An initial consultation with a prospective Total Results client is very comprehensive and information-dense. The most important aspects of that hour-long meeting are to connect with and better understand the prospective client's needs, but also to learn about their medical history and to explain areas of preliminary consideration (which covers safety and expectations). Those are non-negotiable and must be discussed before we even go into the workout room. I also will give a general overview of our exercise philosophy and briefly touch on the fact that our workouts are brief, infrequent, and intense. Most people initially have a difficult time wrapping their minds around the fact that our sessions typically entail six or seven exercises and last about twenty minutes. Even in 2025 this concept runs counter to what most people in the exercise field are doing - traditional weight training workouts take longer to complete and are performed more frequently. Why do we use only one set of each exercise, and is it wrong to perform multiple sets?

Essentially, there are two philosophies in weight training: the volume approach and the inroad theory of exercise. The volume approach has its origins in the bodybuilding world, where trainees lift weights anywhere from three to six times per week and split up their routines by body parts (back and biceps on one day, legs on another day, chest and triceps on a third, etc.). Typically, multiple sets of each exercise are performed, sometimes going to the point of muscular failure, but other times completing an arbitrary number of repetitions per set. Workouts can last beyond 90 minutes, but the thinking is that a high volume of exercise will stimulate muscular growth. This excessively high volume approach has only gained popularity within the last half century; old-time bodybuilders of yesteryear used much lower volume than the enthusiasts of today. To be fair, a couple of well-known bodybuilders actually bucked the trend of the industry and trained with much lower volume and frequency. Dorian Yates won six consecutive Mr. Olympia competitions in the 1990s by using a more high-intensity approach. Mike Mentzer developed a low-volume and high intensity approach that he called Heavy Duty, and he was very successful in the 1970s (most observers believed he should have beaten Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1980 Mr. Olympia contest).

The problems with the volume approach to weight training are multifold. Most of these workouts are performed without a regard for speed of movement, and faster speeds lead to greater force, which is the root cause of any acute injury. Consequently, a greater volume of exercise will overtax the already finite recovery ability that most people have, thus increasing the risk of overtraining, stagnation (or reversal) of progress, illness, and overuse injury. Professional bodybuilders and competitive athletes that look muscular and fit when training in this fashion usually do so as a result of having favorable genetics and/or taking performance-enhancing drugs. Finally, this approach requires more time spent in the gym in one week than most people can spare. Ask yourself: is it realistic to spend 90 minutes in the gym 3-5 times per week and still have a meaningful life?

The inroad theory of exercise (which is what the Total Results exercise protocol is built upon) has its roots in the classic sciences of biology, chemistry, physics, muscle physiology, and concepts of motor learning. It starts with the understanding that the body wants to do whatever it can to maintain the status quo, so if you want to create significant and lasting physical change you must give the body a very good reason to adapt. This is the very point of training in a high-intensity fashion; by utilizing a slow speed of movement we eliminate momentum and force the muscles to contract with a greater amount of effort. Intensity can be defined as inroad (depth of the fatigue of a fresh muscle's strength) divided by time. We take each exercise to the point of and beyond muscular failure, which ensures that we have done everything in our power to deeply fatigue the group of muscles involved in a given exercise. This is the stimulus that we seek, and it is what the body interprets as an existential threat to mobilize its resources to make physical improvements.

Why do we only use one set per exercise? Dr. Doug McGuff, an emergency room physician, owner of Ultimate Exercise exercise studio, and author of "Body by Science" and Ultimate Exercise Volume 1" discusses how exercise has a narrow therapeutic window. This is really the same principle as is used (or should be used) in prescribing medication. Not enough of the drug will not produce any positive effect, while too much of a drug will cause a toxic reaction. Most people require a lot less exercise than they realize, and often sacrifice meaningful effort for a high-volume approach. We should strive for the minimum dose of exercise necessary to elicit the adaptive response, which lends credence to the idea of performing shorter and more intense workouts less frequently. Further, performing multiple sets of an exercise is redundant, especially if you train to failure. Going to failure is the stimulus that was needed, but completing two more sets does not go beyond the initial stimulus; it simply reintroduces the same stimulus (and likely less effectively) multiple times. Lastly, we want to keep cortisol levels from becoming elevated. Cortisol is a stress hormone, and elevated levels can result in anxiety or depression, high blood pressure, weight gain, and poor sleep. The high-volume approach can lead to these negative changes. On a lighter note, Arthur Jones (founder of Nautilus and the father of high-intensity training) told a story in his autobiography about Arnold Schwarzenegger visiting the Nautilus headquarters sometime during the 1970s when he was at the peak of his bodybuilding career. It was not uncommon for several of the top competitors of the era to workout at Nautilus from time to time, but Jones recounted that Schwarzenegger left the compound very abruptly because the workouts were too demanding for him. I guess he preferred his old high-volume approach.

Multiple research studies support the idea that single sets of exercise are preferable to multiple sets. A study performed in 2024 by Brad Schoenfeld concludes that one set of exercise taken to failure can produce better muscular growth compared to two submaximal-effort sets. Two 30-minute sessions was all that it took. The link to the study can be found here: https://sportrxiv.org/index.php/server/preprint/view/484/1032. Wayne Westcott and Richard Wientt conducted two studies in 2001 that examined the difference between training with a faster speed of movement versus a slower speed. In both cases, the slower-speed group produced better results. This study can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11894824_Effects_of_regular_and_slow_speed_resistance_training_on_muscle_strength.

Most people in the gym simply do not work that hard, because it is much easier to perform multiple sets of an exercise than one, intense, and properly executed set. It requires more effort, focus, and discipline to give your all for twenty minutes, and then get out of the way and allow the body to do what it needs to do. Time is a factor as well, and while intense workouts are psychologically and physically challenging, they are also shorter and more sustainable over the long term. After all, isn't uninterrupted meaningful progress what you really want? Let Total Results show you the way.

One thing that I have learned from coaching football over the last two years is that things rarely go exactly according to plan. When you draw up a play on a whiteboard it may look great, but when it is executed in a game (or even in practice) it seldom looks just like it was drawn up. Sure, you have a philosophy and a game plan to prepare for an opponent, but successful coaches know how to go off script and adjust as the game goes along. In a sense, the same holds true in exercise. Both the client and the instructor may have a vision in the days or moments leading up to the workout of how the things will unfold, but we all know that there are variables in life that will impact your preparation and focus. In theory we may strive for perfection, but we must understand that it will remain just beyond our grasp.

"Life is difficult." That is the first sentence of the book "The Road Less Traveled", written by M. Scott Peck. I started reading the book after hearing former Alabama football coach Nick Saban talk about it in a lecture that he gave several years ago. The author, who passed away in 2005, was a psychiatrist who wrote extensively about personal and spiritual development, and the first line of this well-known book perfectly encapsulates what we need to understand about the nature of life or undertaking any meaningful or worthwhile endeavor. Life is difficult, and it is not meant to be easy. Any significant accomplishment in your life was likely the product of effort, focus, and a drive to succeed. Dr. Peck goes on to say that, "When we extend ourselves, when we take an extra step or walk an extra mile, we do so in opposition to the inertia of laziness or the resistance of fear. Extension of ourselves or moving out against the inertia of laziness we call work. Moving out in the face of fear we call courage. Love, then, is a form of work or a form of courage." Interestingly enough, he also makes reference to exercise in the book, stating, "No matter how dedicated we are to spiritual development, we also need rest and relaxation, exercise and distraction."

If we expect to find perfection in a workout and do not achieve it, we will become discouraged. One question I often pose to new clients is, "How do you define success?" The answer to that question will help me to understand a client's mindset and how best to instruct them. I believe one should focus more on the process than the outcome of an exercise or a workout. The process is something that is more within your control, while the outcome may or may not be. Hall of Fame basketball coach John Wooden, who led UCLA to ten national championships in twelve years, never talked to his players about the score or about winning the game. Rather, he focused on teaching and preparing his players to be the best that they could be. He was never obsessed with winning or losing; instead, he would be happy if the team played well and would be upset if he felt they did not play as well as they were capable. The score was not important, and Wooden's mindset was process-driven, not results-driven. Wooden was way ahead of his time in terms of praising effort, when most of his colleagues suffered the highs and lows of worrying about wins and losses. Total Results exercise is really no different. Confidence is built, and achievement occurs as a result of putting in great effort and doing the right things session by session, week after week, and month after month. A workout is as much a mental experience as it is a physical undertaking. If you focus on the process, the end result will take care of itself.

How you handle adversity speaks volumes. Life will throw challenges at you that you may or may not be ready for, and how you respond to those challenges will tell the tale. Very rarely in life are we going to feel 100 percent, and you can't just show up for workouts when you feel inspired. I will share a personal anecdote about my workout on January 8th, 2025. I was physically prepared: I had slept well the previous few nights, my nutrition was good, and I had not consumed any alcohol in over a week. Mentally, I was great, except I forgot to bring my workout clothes to the office! This has only happened to me one time that I can recall in 25 years in the business. As a result, I worked out in dress slacks, a t-shirt, and wing-tip shoes; far from optimal, but I still managed to achieve something meaningful. In this case, the stage was not set for a perfect workout, but the outcome was still positive. Sometimes, you just have to grind it out.

We strive for perfection knowing that it is unattainable, but we hope to fall short of perfection and achieve excellence. Seldom will a client go up in time under load or weight on every single exercise of a given workout, but that certainly doesn't detract from the effort that they put forth. Sure, I have had conversations with clients after workouts when they tell me they felt like they were totally locked in and hit all the right notes, so to speak. More often than not, they simply buckle down and give everything they have, regardless of the outcome. That is all that anyone can ask of themselves.

Many Total Results clients can relate to the following scenario. You have just completed the first exercise of your workout, which is usually either the Seated Leg Curl or the Abduction/Adduction combination. Your hip and knee joints are sufficiently warmed up (which is largely why we perform these exercises first in the routine), and now you position yourself to start the Leg Press. When given the cue from your instructor to begin the exercise, you start to gradually apply pressure to the foot board to overcome inertia and get the movement arm into motion. However, something happens. In spite of your best effort, you find that you cannot budge the carriage of the machine. How could this be?

This has happened to me a few times over the years, and I can assure you that there is nothing wrong with you if you experience this unfortunate circumstance. No, you didn't lose muscle since your previous workout. This is not an altogether uncommon situation, and there are a few possible explanations for why it takes place. The Leg Press is the largest, most challenging, and probably most important exercise that you will ever perform, and it has the greatest overall effect on your metabolism. We perform this exercise near the beginning of the workout, simply because we want to exercise the lower body muscles when your body is relatively fresh. If your body is not properly recovered due to excessive physical activity, poor sleep, or insufficient nutrition, this can leave you at less than full strength for your workout. Consequently, you might have trouble moving out of the bottom out position.

What is another reason you can't move the Leg Press? In my experience, it is largely a mental phenomenon. I have said many times that the mental component of exercise should never be underestimated, and you need to have a sharpened intellectual focus in order to optimize your workout experience. If your mind is not in the right place, then you will not be prepared to grasp how much effort is required to overcome inertia. There can sometimes be a slight delay between when your brain sends the impulse to the muscles to fire (contract) and when movement of the movement arm actually begins. In reality, this all takes place in fractions of a second, but in your perception it feels like it takes much longer. When movement doesn't happen instantaneously it can become a self-perpetuating scenario, and once you think you can't do something, you can't do it. This is why it is important to always believe in yourself, and one of the most important aspects of my job as an instructor is to provide encouragement to the clients that I supervise. Additionally, this scenario is one reason why I will rarely tell clients in advance when I have raised their weight, as I do not want to cause them to have a mental block.

How can we work around this? In a pinch I can have the client start the exercise from the endpoint rather than the starting point by pulling the carriage all the way out and handing it off to them. If that doesn't work, we can utilize a Timed Static Contraction for that workout. More often than not, this is a one-time thing and it is not an ongoing issue. If this happens for several workouts in a row, the next option is to slightly reduce the weight. More than anything else, it helps the trainee to regain their confidence in performing the movement. I would rather a client use less weight but start the exercise from the bottom out position than start at the end point and use a higher poundage.

I believe that one of the greatest privileges of life is having a challenge to overcome. Once the challenge of life is gone, things tend to go downhill. You have a tremendous opportunity at Total Results to rise to the occasion. Doing hard mental and physical things sharpens your fortitude and your ability to overcome adversity; you get the best of both worlds in our facility. Mentally prepare in advance of your workout, and accept the fact that while it will be uncomfortable, you will come out of it better on the other side. The Leg Press is the biggest challenge that we face at Total Results, but it is not insurmountable. You can do this!

Knowledge is important, but people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. That is just one of the many important lessons that I have learned over the course of my 25 years in the exercise business. There is no greater teacher in this world than experience, and I have made more mistakes than I care to admit. I have tried my best to learn from those mistakes so that I do not repeat them, and I truly believe that if you have not failed at something, then you haven't tried. It has been an interesting and fulfilling journey, and it is one that I believe is just getting started.

When I began my career as an instructor I was fresh out of college, quite green, and knew very little about what constituted proper exercise. Fortunately, I had a couple things working in my favor: a natural curiosity and a desire to learn. This is how I came across the Super Slow Exercise Protocol, which is what the Total Results methodology is based upon. I worked in commercial gyms for several years attempting to apply this philosophy to the clients I was working with, and what I came to realize is that equipment and the studio environment matter. The exercise equipment should be made with the protocol in mind, and while you can perform the Total Results protocol with a variety of different equipment, the exercise experience is not the same if you are using machines with backward cams and poorly designed movement arms. Working with Super Slow Systems and MedX equipment changed everything. The same holds true for the exercise environment. I struggled for years in trying to get clients to focus while dealing with distractions like mirrors, crowds, music, and warm temperatures. A private and clinically-controlled environment is necessary so that the client and the instructor can completely focus on the task at hand. I developed a much greater appreciation for these aspects of the exercise experience when I went to work at Fairfax Racquet Club and Total Results, and have come to view them as non-negotiables.

After completing a few lower-level exercise certifications, I earned my first Super Slow Exercise Instructor certification in 2004. This involved six months of study and an internship at Exercise Defined in Georgetown under the tutelage of a Master Instructor, and I was an idealistic new instructor who did things exactly as Ken Hutchins did them. In fact, I can still remember the instructional scripts that I had to memorize for my practical exam. Over time, I learned to adopt my own teaching style and verbiage to best fit my personality. I am grateful that my former boss Tim Rankin gave me a lot of independence and plenty of room to make mistakes. Long and drawn out explanations, while appreciated by some clients, can often seem boring and overwhelming to others, so a balance must be struck. This has helped me to still be thorough while also more efficient when performing initial consultations.

It is important to be a good listener; this is something that we often think of as a passive activity, but it is really quite the opposite. Over the last few years I have worked to become a better listener, to simply hear what a client has to say rather than rush in with a response. Clients need to feel that their concerns are being heard, and listening is the best way to learn. There were times when I wasn't such a great listener, when I felt that what I had to say was more important. Consequently, I have lost clients over the years because of poor listening. Asking clients periodically for feedback gives them a feeling of investment, and we want them to know that they have some say in the direction of their workouts. I have learned that conducting regular check-ins and holding brief conversations now can stave off potential problems down the road. There is still a need to occasionally have some tough conversations, but if there is an environment of openness and honesty, clients are much more likely to take on a mindset of ownership and accountability.

Less is more when it comes to exercise instruction. I often tell clients that one of their goals should be to get me to shut up, because it means that they are executing better and there are fewer form discrepancies for me to correct. In turn, this allows me to conserve energy over the course of a long day. When I prepared to take my practical exam I had the tendency to overcorrect and talk too much; in fact, my Master Instructor had to tell me to stop babbling and say less. She was 100 percent right. I have learned to correct only when necessary, and that sometimes pre-emptive corrections go a long way. One of the most challenging concepts that I had to understand is that not everyone is as enthusiastic about exercise as I am. Some clients are very excited about the possibilities of what Total Results can do for them, while most trainees see this simply as a means to an end. I used to grow frustrated when I perceived that some of the people that I instructed simply didn't seem to have the same sense of urgency about exercise that I did. Over time I have come to recognize that every client has their own personality and their own values. It is my job to adapt my approach to best meet their needs, while at the same time staying true to our guiding philosophy.

I am still just as passionate about exercise as I was when my journey began over 25 years ago. If anything, the passage of time has helped me to become more appreciative and realize how fortunate I am to be able to do this for a living. There is less rigidity in my instructional mindset and I am far more adaptable than I was earlier in my career, which has probably gone a long way toward preserving my sanity. At the same time I must continue to learn and grow, and never be satisfied enough to rest on my laurels. Thank you to all the people who have helped me along the way, and thank you to all the clients that I have had the privilege to work with over the years. The best is yet to come!