Dr. John Jaquish (pronounced: Jake-Wish), a well-established figure in the biomedical engineering field and popularly hailed as the “Tony Stark of the fitness industry,” has altered the concept of traditional weightlifting and aims to reinvent the way individuals build strength and muscle.
Jaquish’s journey began with his invention of OsteoStrong, a medical device designed to increase bone density in all people, but most importantly, the high risk of fragility-fracture population, postmenopausal women. After a decade of international success and promoting OsteoStrong at medical conferences worldwide, with 300 clinics in 15 different countries with over 1 million users, Jaquish turned his attention towards addressing what he views as the flaws in conventional fitness.
“Doing the first clinical trial of the bone density devices, an extremely profound discovery was made. As the devices look to emulate high-impact force, which is in essence what builds bone density, we see extraordinarily high loading even with deconditioned people. If you look at the impact-ready positions that the human body assumes to protect itself by reflex, these levels of force are seven times higher on average, compared to the weights we choose in standard weightlifting. And that’s only because, in standard weightlifting, we pick the weight that we can handle in the weakest range of motion. Once I realized there was a seven-fold difference from the weaker range to the impact-ready range, it was obvious that weightlifting is a very poor stimulus for muscular growth.” States Jaquish. Further, “while I was going through this research, I remember watching a video where Dr. Peter Attia was speaking about how weightlifting tends to overload joints and under load muscle. And this is the other problem with standard weight lifting, the stress on the joint is highest when you’re in the weakest range of motion. With regular weightlifting, it’s almost like we are guaranteed injury over time, and only given a small chance for a small amount of growth. The next time you run into a professional bodybuilder try to get him to high-5 you. They probably won’t be able to do it, based on the chronic shoulder damage they have from heavy bench pressing. For almost all of them, the pain is too great.“
As detailed in his Wall Street Journal best-selling book, Weight Lifting is a Waste of Time, John’s approach is to have everyone use high-ratio, variable resistance. This means higher tension in stronger ranges of motion, with lower tension in the more compromised ranges of motion. All this is to be done with constant tension, and most importantly, a diminishing range. This means as you fatigue, during the single set, you eventually can’t get to the high-tension area of the range, thereby you shorten the range until your repetitions are just in the weaker range. This is complete, muscular fatigue, something that will never be possible with a weight.
There are multiple approaches to applying variable resistance in exercise, but some of them are hard to set up. In the last few years, most of seen pictures and articles about training with chains and bands added to the weight can accomplish this objective, but Dr. Jaquish has a more targeted approach that he invented and launched: X3. As seen in the X3 bar, Users group on Facebook, the users frequently talk about how they received more muscular growth with X3 in six months than they did in 10 years of weightlifting.
“We’re doing about $50 million in sales a year,” shared Jaquish. “X3 is the best-selling and fastest-growing fitness technology in the world at the moment, and that’s not going to change.” The device has already demonstrated its effectiveness, with professional athletes (NFL, NBA, major league, baseball, and Olympic athletes) using X3, as seen on the X3bar.com website.
“Doctor J” as his fans call him, mostly because his last name is difficult to pronounce, is well aware that his ideas are extraordinarily controversial. He urges people to actually look into the science he’s referencing and read his last book which is available on Amazon, so that they can better understand variable resistance. If they apply it in a gym with chains, or they buy his product, he doesn’t really care because he knows variable resistance is the future, and at some point, we will all look at standard weightlifting, probably as a sport only, not as a training method just because if it’s obvious drawbacks by comparison to what we can do with variable resistance.
For more information about Dr. John Jaquish, his groundbreaking fitness technology, and his philosophy on strength training, visit his website at jaquishbiomedical.com and his Instagram profile @drjaquish.
M&F and editorial staff were not involved in the creation of this content.