It’s not the first time he has lifted a car with his legs. The 49-year-old Sisco has accomplished the feat numerous times, a testament to static contraction training, a weightlifting technique that Sisco helped create in 1992 and has been tested with more than 200,000 trainees worldwide, including bodybuilders, golfers and other athletes. Anyone, Sisco says, can get strong enough to leg press a car thanks to static contraction training. In fact, his 16 year old son, Jeff, was also able to lift the Toyota after only 45 seconds of total training time. “That’s the real news, here.” says Sisco. “The training time to get this strong is so ultra-efficient it can be measured in seconds.”

Basically, you gain more muscle lifting 400 pounds a few inches than you do by lifting 100 pounds through your full range of motion.

“In the principle of static contraction training, muscles are forced to generate their maximum possible output by limiting the range of motion to the very strongest position and therefore using the highest possible weight,” says Sisco, who lives in Boise with his wife and six children. “The duration of each exercise is reduced to the minimum (five seconds) so resistance can be increased to the maximum. There are no reps, just a static hold.

“Simply put, limiting the range of motion in an exercise is an effective way to increase intensity,” he adds. “Basically, you gain more muscle lifting 400 pounds a few inches than you do by lifting 100 pounds through your full range of motion.”

Sisco performed the leg press of the Toyota Corolla during a private demonstration for a YouTube video to illustrate how static contraction training can help men and women of varying fitness levels gain this kind of strength.

Sisco – who is the co-author of Power Factor Training, Static Contraction Training and most recently the e-book Get This Strong – is also editor of the five-book Ironman Ultimate Bodybuilding series, and chairman of his newest company, Super Rep Equipment (www.superrepequipment.com), which sells the SR Streamline, the home fitness machine built specifically for static contraction training. His foray into the fitness industry started in the early 1990s.

“I’ve never been a bodybuilder. For me, lifting weights is a means to get stronger so that I can use the strength doing something I enjoy outside of the gym,” says Sisco. “I started researching ways I could significantly increase my strength spending the least amount of time, since I don’t like spending lots of time inside a gym.”

Based on Sisco’s research, Sisco and co-author John Little wrote Power Factor Training in 1992 and five years later Sisco formed Precision Training, his first fitness-related company. Sisco approaches weightlifting with a view from math and physics, subjects he studied in college.

“In the realm of physics, if you lift 200 pounds six inches it is the same amount of work as lifting 400 pounds three inches and 800 pounds 1 ½ inches. But in the gym the heavier weight is more important than the distance you move it,” he adds. “I started measuring how much weight you can lift in a minimal time, and that led to technique of static contraction training. Initially, we had test subjects hold the weight for 20-30 seconds. Eventually we discovered that you can hold the weight for just five seconds and still get maximum benefit.”

Static contraction training is not limited to bodybuilders and athletes, Sisco says. Men and women of all fitness levels – from beginner to advanced – can benefit from this fitness regimen, thus the reason Sisco’s web site, GetThisStrong.com, is emblazoned on the side of the Toyota Corolla he will leg pressed.

Intensity and recovery time are two important elements of static contraction training.

“First, you need to know the very best exercises for delivering the highest overload to each muscle group. Then you need to use those exercises in the best possible way to maximize overload and minimize the time spent doing it,” Sisco explains. “Short workouts are more beneficial and efficient than long workouts. And the more intense your workouts are, the more rest you need between workouts.

“With a low intensity workout, you don’t need very much rest time. That’s why so many people can start out lifting weights two or three times per week and make some progress.
But as you get stronger, your workouts get more intense, and you absolutely need more time off. Yet most fitness trainers encourage you to keep training three days a week. This strategy often leads to failure since your body does not have ample time to recover and therefore does not get the opportunity to build new muscle.”

In static contraction training, Sisco points out, workouts are increasingly spaced further apart. For example, advanced trainees who Sisco has used in testing and research workout once every six weeks.

“There are 10 exercises, and you do five, take six weeks off, do the other five and take another six weeks off,” Sisco explains. “Each exercise is five seconds long. They are all common exercises.

“You notice from the beginning that you can immediately handle more weight the next time you workout,” he adds. “If you bench press 175, you can start at 250-275 with static contraction training. You stimulate new muscle fibers since those muscles are not accustomed to 275 pounds of resistance.”

Sisco developed the SR Streamline machine to accommodate fitness enthusiasts whose main regimen is static contraction training since “many people eventually max out a traditional machine in a gym using the static contraction training method.”

He decided to leg press a Toyota Corolla to demonstrate the effectiveness of static contraction training.

“It is understandable if people are skeptical when I tell them I can leg press 2,400 pounds, so instead of telling them, I thought it would be interesting to showcase the concept of static contraction training by lifting a car, since people can relate to a common object,” Sisco said. As the web site on the side of the Toyota says, anyone can Get This Strong.” (www.GetThisStrong.com)