Training on the Eisenhorn: 5 minutes all in
Along with an innovative fitness device, Mike Schrag has devised a training concept: «Mike5». During a short but intensive taster workout, I chat with him about what can be achieved in five minutes a day.
I’m on a company visit to Eisenhorn HQ. First and foremost, I’ve come to find out how the years have turned a vision into a market-ready product. And sure, I’d like to have a go on it, too. The contraption, comprised of iron, wood, a piston and a carriage, is suitable for a living room set-up – and I’m dying to try it. Training on the Eisenhorn works by means of slotting the wooden bar into its holder and performing the five basic exercises it allows: bench presses, deadlifts, squats, shoulder presses and lat pulls. These form the basis of the «Mike5» training concept. Five exercises, five minutes a day. Brief, intense, no compromises. And we already know that Mike isn’t into the latter.
Mike, before we start the workout, please explain the mechanics of the Eisenhorn in more detail. Is the resistance only altered by the angle?
The pressure in the piston is constant, but by changing the lever, you can very gradually choose the appropriate resistance. With a shorter lever, you get less resistance. Another exciting and pretty unique feature is that from level eight upwards, there’s a slight upward curve in force progression, so the resistance increases as you train. That’s exactly what you’re looking for when it comes to basic exercises. In the lower turnaround point, for example, you have more force than in the upper one. This progression allows you to really push your muscles across the entire range of motion.
Speaking of pushing yourself, how high is the maximum resistance at level 12?
With the standard piston, you go up to over 50 kilogrammes, which for many customers – and exercises – is enough. There’s also another optional piston which takes you right up to 112 kilogrammes. This caters to everyone except pure strength athletes or wrestlers. These athletes can simply wear a weighted vest in addition when they’re doing squats.
I definitely don’t need a weighted vest. Mike sets up the Eisenhorn for me to do shoulder presses. He twists the dial, pushes the carriage into position and rotates it 180 degrees so that I can push upwards against the resistance of the piston. Then he starts «Mike5». The training concept comes included in a subscription package for a monthly fee. You can, however, get explanations on how to correctly execute over 100 exercises (https://eisenhorn.com/exercises/) with the bar, cable pull and strap online for free. He opens the interval timer, which today allocates me four sets, each lasting 50 seconds. Between each one there’s an 80-second break before I continue at full steam ahead.
Apart from the gentle «Fffft» of the piston, the only audible thing is my quickening breathing. I get shakier with every rep. I like the fact that the exercises aren’t completely guided. The bar has a bit of play, so it challenges my sense of coordination, too. Instead of lifting cast-iron dumb-bells, I’m flexing against a gas spring and the law of the lever. And according to Mike’s training plan, I should be doing this five days a week.
You’re your programme’s living, breathing testimonial. At least, your name is in it – it’s called «Mike5». What’s the idea behind that?
There are five basic components to strength training, sometimes known as «The Big 5»: bench presses, deadlifts, squats, shoulder presses and lat pulls. They’re also referred to as «multi-joint exercises». With these kinds of exercises, you target all of the main muscle groups – a prerequisite for making progress in strength training. Now, if you want your biceps to have a bit more bulk by the time beach season comes around, they’ll obviously grow if you start constantly doing bicep curls. But the basic exercises are key if you want to structure your strength training programme in a meaningful way. That’s what the 5 in the name refers to. One of the people who made the basic exercises world famous was Arnold Schwarzenegger. They were always a part of his training programme.
Regardless of what the specific exercise is, at the end of the day, the goal is to provide the stimulus that makes training effective – including at the moment of supercompensation, when your fitness level surpasses what it was before.
That’s right. The first criterion is the high volume of hormones release due to the basic exercises. The second is the supercompensation principle. Once you’ve applied the stimulus, the recovery phase comes next. You get tired at first, then there’s an upshot – and this is the point when you need to implement the next stimulus. That’s how you can develop step by step.
A lot of people go to the gym three times a week and do bench presses every two days. You recommend sticking to one basic exercise per day. So that’s bench presses or squats just once a week. Is that really enough?
If you spread the basic exercises over the weekdays and complete them in a clever order, you get good overlap in terms of muscle groups. That leads to having several training stimuli per week and fulfils the supercompensation principle. Of course, you can always do more. But my main priority was to develop a viable system that even regular people juggling work and family life would be able to use.
So what you’re saying with your concept is: train with the device daily, but only for a short time.
Consistency is the absolute killer criterion. It doesn’t do much good to eagerly go to the gym four times a week in January, reduce it to twice a week in February, then give up completely in March. You can spare yourself the bother, because in April, you’ll be just as fit as you were in the first place.
I’m done now. At least with the shoulder presses, which bless me with an almighty muscle ache the following day. That would normally conclude the day’s basic training. But seeing as I’m here, I want to work my way through the Big 5. The Eisenhorn can be attached to the top of the rail for pull-ups. Here, too, the bar has a bit of play and requires coordination. I notice this as soon as my strength dwindles and my pull-ups become uneven. Lat pulls, which involve pulling the bar down against the desired resistance are the easier option.
During bench presses, the carriage moves down, where it can stay in place for deadlifts afterwards. Reconfiguring the device only takes a couple of seconds each time. And training on the Eisenhorn is effective due to the high intensity alone, too. You don’t need to lock a barbell into a rack – you can let go of the bar at any time. That way, you’re in no danger of overdoing it on your last rep and having to call for help. The coordination component is eliminated during squats because the bar sits at the neck, and you centre yourself under the resistance piston instead of balancing weight plates to the left and right.
The five minutes you’ve estimated per day are definitely doable. But is it really on par with a gym session, where the warm-up alone takes ten minutes and you follow that up with ten different exercises?
You can achieve that by pushing yourself to your absolute limit. At gyms, lots of people do very little with the equipment. It’s still better than doing nothing whatsoever, but it isn’t really effective training. There’s a lot of empirical data on how to achieve an effective muscle stimulus and how that’s dependent on training duration. The less time you pencil in for a training session, the higher your mental capacity will be to push yourself to your limit. If you want to get stronger and build muscle, the muscles need to be put to the test – to the point of muscle failure.
Nevertheless, if you always do the same exercises in the same rhythm, you’ll stagnate eventually.
Here’s where periodisation comes in. There are different ways of doing it. We do it by altering the interval every couple of weeks, sometimes with less weight and shorter breaks, sometimes with more weight and fewer reps. To achieve this, you adjust the tightness of your grip. This way, you’re always getting a new stimulus.
How would you sum up your training philosophy?
Combining all of these points, you end up with exactly what «Mike5» stands for. You plan one basic exercise per day. You tackle it in an extremely focused way, with the intention of pushing yourself to your limit during the interval in order to create a muscle stimulus. That’s surprising to lots of people who’ve trained differently before. They think: «Oh, on Monday I only did bench presses but now my pecs are still aching on Wednesday.» After five minutes of training. The system does give you suggestions and options to do more if you have the time and inclination. But mentally, you approach it every day saying: Big 5, all in. That’s what pays off in the long term – and keeps you coming back even when it’s summer and the weather’s nice. When it comes to these basic exercises, you just ... do them.
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Michael Restin
Senior Editor
Michael.Restin@digitecgalaxus.chSimple writer, dad of two. Likes to be on the move, shimmies through everyday family life, juggles with several balls and occasionally drops something. A ball. Or a remark. Or both.
