The Colorado Experiment Archives - www.oldtimestrongman.com

Omni Machines

Posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2018 by John Wood

A rare look at Casey Viator training during The Colorado Experiment. Many of the machines used during the Colorado Experiment, dubbed the “Omni Machines” revolved around “negative” training techniques. The one Casey is using, for example, was an overhead press machine. On the right is the infamous “Mr. Happiness” negative bench press machine. Both of these machines were prototypes and never made it to actual production.

Nautilus Omni Machines

Posted on Friday, December 8th, 2017 by John Wood

The Nautilus Omni machines were used primarily during the Colorado Experiment and provided training advantages that no other piece of equipment ever provided – a foot pedal that allowed the trainee to perform the exercise in a negative only or negative accentuated manner in the most efficient way possible. These were the only machines, before or since, that allowed all five distinct methods of training to be performed. Above, Casey Viator does a set on the Omni-Bicep machine.

Jones and Pullover

Posted on Wednesday, November 22nd, 2017 by John Wood

A rare shot of Arthur Jones training on Nautilus Pullover during the Colorado Experiment. That’s Tom Wood, my uncle, spotting on the right. He is one of the few people in the world that could say “Arthur, quite screwing around and get another rep.” My uncle was also Casey Viator’s roommate during the whole Colorado Experiment – so yeah, that’s how I know things were legit.

Casey Viator and The Colorado Experiment

Posted on Monday, January 4th, 2016 by John Wood

In the early 1970’s, Arthur Jones wrote a series of articles for Iron Man magazine outlining some of his unique training ideas…

These training articles were like nothing anyone had ever seen before… Arthur simply gave a name to some ideas about training that had always been “true” — and while they were simple, and involved common sense and self-evident truth they rocked the strength world to its knees.

He had, in the previous years, put his ideas into practice and the results were tremendous, but what he needed was close supervision and justification for his ideas in a controlled setting where the results could be monitored and recorded.

In 1973, Arthur got his wish and “The Colorado Experiment” began at the Department of Physical Education, Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado and supervised by Dr. Elliott Plese, Director of Exercise Physiology Lab.

Over the course of one month, with himself and Casey Viator as the subjects, training ideas would be put into practice and studied extensively.

For an article in the September 1973, Volume 32 Number 6 of Ironman Magazine, Arthur wrote up his thoughts:

PURPOSE of the EXPERIMENT . . . it is the author’s contention that the growth of human muscular tissue is related to the intensity of exercise; increases in strength and muscle-mass are rapidly produced by very brief and infrequent training … if the intensity of exercise is high enough.

It is the author’s second contention that increasing the amount of training is neither necessary nor desirable . . . on the contrary, a large amount of high intensity training will actually reduce the production of strength and muscle mass increases.

It is the author’s third contention that “negative work” (eccentric contraction) is one of the most important factors involved in exercise performed for the purpose of increasing strength and muscle-mass.

It is the author’s fourth contention that nothing in the way of a special diet is required . . . so long as a reasonably well-balanced diet is provided.

It is the author’s fifth contention that the use of the so-called “growth drugs” (steroids) is neither necessary nor desirable … on the contrary, repeated tests with animals and double-blind tests with human subjects have clearly demonstrated that the use of such drugs is strongly contraindicated.

It is the author’s sixth contention that maximum-possible increases in strength and muscle-mass can be produced only by the use of full range, rotary form, automatically variable, direct resistance.

And the results:

First subject (Casey Viator), 28 days
Increase in bodyweight……..45.28 pounds
Loss of bodyfat…………..17.93 pounds
Muscular gain……………..63.21 pounds

The Nautilus Upright Squat Machine

Posted on Friday, May 4th, 2012 by John Wood

Casey Viator, using the Nautilus Upright Squat Machine during the Colorado Experiment

During the “Colorado Experiment” Casey Viator famously gained 63 pounds of muscle mass in 28 days. The workouts were brief and intense and while not an “experiment” in a truest sense of the word, it did show that dramatic results were quite possible under a certain set of circumstances. Interestingly, much of the equipment used was in fact, experimental, and never actually made commercially available.

The Nautilus Upright Squat Machine, shown here, is a good example of this. This machine was designed to provide all the benefits of the barbell squat, while reducing or eliminating the drawbacks. This was the only leg machine that Casey used in every workout for the duration of the Colorado Experiment. While it was effective, the potential for the user to be catapulted right out of it was deemed far too great, so this was the only one ever manufactured.