Arthur Jones And The Colorado Experiment

[carter1990]

Overview of the Colorado Experiment

Conducted in 1973 by Arthur Jones, the Colorado Experiment was meant to demonstrate the effectiveness of certain kinds of muscle building equipment. (Notably, he himself was an inventor of such equipment.) The experiment used a man named Casey Viator as the subject. The Colorado Experiment was trying to demonstrate that a certain kind of muscle development—more specifically, astonishing muscle development over a very short period of time—was possible. There are many variables present in the Colorado Experiment, so it’s difficult to make too many generalizations about its findings. At some level, it's difficult to say which variable may have caused it which effect. There's a lot of ambiguity and potential in the findings, and in all fairness its necessary to acknowledge that some good can probably come from its findings. However, there are significant aspects of the whole setup of the Colorado Experiment which are extremely problematic. The result is that all the findings are to some extent unstable and arbitrary.

Colorado Experiment: The Basics

Amongst the various findings of the Colorado Experiment, he most notable finding was that through the use of a particular workout program, the subject gained a total of 63 pounds of muscle in a matter of 28 days. In this analysis, I won't bother going into the specific workouts; instead, I'll just focus on the idea that this kind of result is possible, whatever the workout used. Now, for anyone who has a basic awareness of the human body, this sort of data should raise a red flag: No matter how much we might desire fast results, the sort of data presented in the experiment is simply impossible for any normal person to achieve. The particular workout involved isn't relevant, because the human body as such is physically and genetically incapable of performing this sort of feat.

This isn't the say that the data from the Colorado Experiment is fabricated. Rather, it shows that the subject probably wasn't a normal person. This in and of itself isn't a problem: After all, it isn't a crime for the subject to be abnormal, and the Colorado Experiment still demonstrates something valuable by showing that such a feat is possible for any human being, normal or otherwise. It's an enormous problem, though, when this passing off this data as typical and something which is in principle achievable by the average person. But this is false: The results of the Colorado Experiment are fundamentally atypical. Not only is calling the data normal a misrepresentation of the data itself, it's also dangerously misleading for the average person with workout ambitions. Taken in and of itself, this finding of the Colorado Experiment is quite interesting. But the finding needs to be read in context and seen as something specific to the subject of the experiment, and not generalizable to the human species as a whole.

Colorado Experiment Data: Possibilities

There are three main ways in which the abnormal results of the experiment can be explained: 1. Casey Viator was on steroids; 2. he was making use of muscle memory; 3. he was genetically beyond the bounds of the ordinary.
Clearly, none of these possibilities suggest that the average person who hasn't had deep experience with muscle building before could benefit from this sort of program.

If steroids were involved in the Colorado Experiment, then this more or less renders the data meaningless. After all, even if steroids could produce this kind of result, it would still be obviously unadvisable for the average person to therefore begin taking steroids. All this would prove is that such muscle gain is only possible through unhealthy practices and the infliction of serious trauma on the body. If this is the case, then the findings of the Colorado Experiment have no relevance for the average person.

And if any part of the data is a result of muscle memory, then the Colorado Experiment is relevant to people who already have profound experience with workouts. Muscle memory refers to the phenomenon where previously developed muscles which have been dormant for awhile are suddenly woken up again by substantial exercise. The thing is, this isn't muscle development per se: The muscles were already developed, and they were just activated again. So insofar this variable is involved in the Colorado Experiment, the findings about Casey Viator are simply false. However, this could only account for a part of the data, not all of the data.

So, that leaves us with the possibility that the subject of the Colorado Experiment was just genetically abnormal. In fact, much circumstantial evidence suggests that this was probably the most significant reason for the results. But in this case, the findings of the Colorado Experiment are of no help whatsoever to anyone else who wants to make use of the program demonstrated in the experiment. The data is not only atypical, it’s totally unique to the experiment's subject. There's no point whatsoever in anyone else trying to mimic it, because it simply won't work.

Alternatives to the Colorado Experiment

No matter how much we'd like to get results as quickly as possible, it really isn't possible to avoid developing a meaningful basis of proper nutrition and exercise. The shortcuts offered by various parties are generally based on incomplete or even outright false information. The only way such gains would be possible is if you were like the subject of the Colorado Experiment (and virtually no one is like the subject of that experiment). It's probable that the data of the Colorado experiment has been misused by many people, including the scientist himself, for the sake of unreasonably getting people's hopes up and selling products which are supposed to mimic the unnatural results of the experiment. Again, there are many aspects of the experiment which could be valuable. However, it's basically misguided to assume that such results are typical, or that the experiment's method is a substitute for conventional routes to developing a good body. Ultimately, nothing can take the place of good nutrition and exercise.

[Schonaye242]

Wow how this book is summarized makes it sound boring and uninteresting.