-------------------- 1 --------------------
#1. Re: HIT Digest #133 - from DejaGroove
Top
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 22:55:52 EDT From: DejaGroove <DejaGroove@aol.com> Subject: Re: HIT Digest #133 To Eric and other doubters, a challenge: On any exercise, test your 1rm at superslow speed (10/4, right, Andrew?). Then, once fully recovered, and wait as many hours, days or weeks as you feels you need to, test your 1rm explosively. If you are not willing to do this, and I know some of you worry about the risk factors of explosive training, at least try it at typical Nautilus tempo (2-4). I await your results, ladies and gentlemen. By the way, Eric, please back up what you say. What I wrote in that post, that "pile of BS" was paraphrasing others' research, and I even quoted the names. If you would like the books' titles, and page numbers, I can supply them as well, it's just that it was very late and I was very tired when I posted last time.
-------------------- 2 --------------------
#2. speed of movement - from Lyle McDonald
Top
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 00:02:55 -0500 (CDT) From: lylemcd@onr.com (Lyle McDonald) Subject: speed of movement >From a couple of digests ago: Sonofsquat@aol.com wrote: >Schneider, Hageloch, and Weicker (1988) studied several track athletes >(sprinters and middle distance runners, as well as a control group) and noted >the load - dependant ammonia levels during 200, 1000 meter tests as well as >ergometer tests. Through these tests, the researchers noted that the >sprinters did indeed use higher percentages of type IIB fibers: Huh? More Type IIb compared to what? the question is not whether high intensity activiites recruit Type IIb or not, it's whether you HAVE to lift explosively to get them to recruit. >Smith and Melton (1981) conducted at study which used 4 groups: control, >isotonic variable-resistance training, low-speed isokinetic, and high speed >isokinetic training. The researchers report: ìAll exercised groups showed good >gains in strength when tested isometrically, isotonically, and isokinetically. >However, when the individuals were tested for motor performance, the high- >speed isokinetic group dominated. This article emphasizes specificity in >training.î How did they define motor performance? And if specificity is paramount (I agree) how does isokinetic equipment (which eliminates acceleration) offer specificity to sports (where acceleration is a prerequisite)? >Stone and Kroll (1978) state: ìIn most athletic activities high speed is a >very important factor. The strength training for athletics should therefore >be performed at high speed if the skill is performed at high speed. The slow >speed strength developed by resistance training is primarily transferable to >athletic movement only at the slower speed at which it was developed.î Once again, please comment on the fact that 'high speed' movements in the weight room are at least an order of magnitude slower (in terms of angular velocity) than anything that occurs on the sporting field. Saying that a movement at 300 deg/second will have significantly more carryover to an event at 7000 deg/second than a movement lasting 100 deg/sec is reaching to put it mildly. >Newton et al (1996) conducted an experiment using a modified bench press >machine which eliminated ballistic forces on the subjects and allowed >compensatory acceleration throughout the entire range of movement. this differs *significantly* from anything most athletes can do in the gym (unless they have access to Wilson's Plyometric Power System). The physics of traditional weight training (initial and final velocity = zero by definition) makes the concept of a positive acceleration throughout the movement impossible. >Personally, I believe all types of speeds at one time or another should be >used for athletic training. In a nut shell, an athlete should start with the >speeds which are nonspecific to their training (almost always slower speeds >with higher weight) and move towards the speeds in which they train as their >competition grows closer. Once again, how fast can you possible perform a 'high speed' squat? And considering the incredible differential between the speeds at which they train and the kinds of speeds you can reach in the weight room, how close are you really gonna get? Let's be nice and say you can get it done in 0.5 seconds. that's still almost three times as slow as anything which happens in sports (average 0.2 seconds). Fine, it may have *slightly* more carryover than a squat taking 2 seconds but you're drastically inreasing peak joint forces and potential injury risk. Lyle McDonald, CSCS Do NOT send me unsolicited binary files. "Your kung-fu is no good! Now you must fight.....ME!" - Any guy on Kung Fu Theatre
-------------------- 3 --------------------
#3. Re: routine/warmups - from Lyle McDonald
Top
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 00:03:10 -0500 (CDT) From: lylemcd@onr.com (Lyle McDonald) Subject: Re: routine/warmups >Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 05:39:05 -0500 >From: ivan_and_princess@juno.com >Subject: Routine > >IS this any good? > >Monday: > >Squats- 135x15, 325x19, 325x13 >Pullovers- 180x12 >Dips- bwt+45x12, 10 >Pushdowns- 200/130x8,15 >21's- 20x21x2 I would ask what benefit the 135X15 set had other than to tire you out. Unless you've got a weird injury you need to warmup, I think you're better off with low rep warmup sets. Just enough to fid your groove but without wasting a bunch of energy or generating a lot of lactic acid. Instead try something along the lines of: 135X5 225X3 315X1 go into work sets. I bet you'll get more reps on that first heavy set of squats. Lyle McDonald, CSCS Do NOT send me unsolicited binary files. "Your kung-fu is no good! Now you must fight.....ME!" - Any guy on Kung Fu Theatre
-------------------- 4 --------------------
#4. Re: Intensity - from Lyle McDonald
Top
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 00:03:15 -0500 (CDT) From: lylemcd@onr.com (Lyle McDonald) Subject: Re: Intensity >Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 11:10:18 -0700 (PDT) >From: SAILOR@webtv.net (Ken Roberts) >Subject: Re: HIT Digest #132; Thoughts and questions r.e. slow/fast etc. >exponentially the faster I move it, albeit only through the inital phase >of the movemnt. However, wouldn't that be enough to recruit 100% of the >fibres and secondarily, fatigue the IIB fibres more effectively? The thing being that recruitment doesn't necessarily equal fatigue/adaptation. If it did we could just do a 1 rep max (recruits all musle fibers) and get the heck out of the gym (John McKean and his disciples actually do this but that's a different story). While you will generate maximum force for the initial part of the movement with explosive lifting, you will be generating less than the weight on the bar for the latter part of the movement. Meaning that you *may* no longer have maximum force requirments meaning you *may* not be recruiting all fibers. So you *may* not get fatigue of hte Type IIb's. And I say *may* because all of htis depends on far too many other factors for there to be ANY absolutes. >Assuming that being the case, wouldn't it be more effective to combine >fast with slow? I.E. fatigue the fast twitch fibres first with a heavier >weight moved quickly then a lighter weight for higher reps moved more >slowly? That way one would be assured of maixmal inroad? >Which leads me to ask, why the 20% rule? Wouldn't one be able to make >better gains in muscle size with greater inroad (given adequate >nutrition and recovery)? I've been thinking about this issue a lot lately. Gonna be the topic of my next nutrimuscle colume (tired of writing about nutrition for a while). I realize that the focus of HIT is on intensity (nebulously defined but let's use inroad for the time being). While everyone like to talk about maximum intensity, no one ever really defines it. Is it maximum momentary effort, the last rep taken to failure, what exactly? WE might draw a continuum between an activity you could do indefinitely up until the poit of momentary muscular failure. But when you get into momentary muscular failure, you have to be more specific. how do you end the set? Is failure when you can no longer maintain an arbitrary lifting speed (say your concentric goal is 5 seconds and it takes you 6 seconds to complete the lift) or when you can no longer move the bar at all (maximal isometric). And when you hit that isometric, what do you do? Drop the bar? Push into it for 2 seconds then drop the bar? push into it for 15 seconds and then do a slow negative? have a spotter help you through force reps. Go to eccentric failure? What I'm getting at is that there is a genral lack of definitions and we may need to define low volume failure (hit isometric, do final 4 second negative, set ends), medium volume failure (push into iso. for 15 seconds, 10 second negative), absolute muscular failure (concentric, isometric and eccentric failure), etc, etc? If you take HIT doctrine to it's logical extremes, the best method of working out would be the most intense (absolute muscular failure) done the most infrequently. But I don't know of anyone who trains that way. Does this mean that medium volume failure is actually sub-intensity? Of course not, but it's not anywhere close to maximal intensity/inroad. And (in my mind at least) even more obviously we're all going ot fall somewhere on the curve of recovery in terms of what balance of volume and intensity we should optimally use. There was a guy in Hardgainer a couple issues back who trained each bodypart once every 30 (that's not a typo) days and swore anything more and he couldn't progress. Tells me he was doig something wrong in his training. Perhaps in his quest for maximal intensity, he was overloading some critical subsytem. Maybe by training with less intensity (he didn't define) he would have bene able to train more frequently and add weight to the bar more frequently. My point? Umm, I forgot. Wait, I remember now. The question was why 20% inroad instead of 50%, or total muscular failure (the drop set from hell)? Because somewhere on that road you'll find a level of inroad that pushes you past stimulation of a muscle into annihilation (trivia test: what ex Mr. Olympia used to say "Stimulate, don't annihilate"?) That's it, no more caffeine late at night. Lyle McDonald, CSCS Do NOT send me unsolicited binary files. "Your kung-fu is no good! Now you must fight.....ME!" - Any guy on Kung Fu Theatre
-------------------- 5 --------------------
#5. Re: SuperSlow vs. Explosive training - from Jon Isacson
Top
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:06:29 +0200 From: "Jon Isacson" <ji@objecta.se> Subject: Re: SuperSlow vs. Explosive training Erkki Turunen wrote: >If you are contracting as hard as possible why doesn't the bar accelerate? This is quite easily explained. Working out is all about creating force, we battle gravity every time we do a rep. So if the bar doesn't accelerate (in any direction) the force you generate is equal to the reacting force (gravity, if you omitt friction). So if it wasn't for the need for full range motion the best and safest way would be to just train static. Jon
-------------------- 6 --------------------
#6. force - from Andrew M. Baye
Top
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 12:20:45 -0400 From: "Andrew M. Baye" <drewbaye@gdi.net> Subject: force >>>The force requirements are higher to move the weight faster; if the forces weren't higher, then there would be no safety advantage in going slower. The faster the reps, the higher the force requirements, the higher the forces that could cause injury. The slower the reps, the lower the force requirements, the lower the forces that could cause injury.>>> No. The amount of force the muscles are called upon to produce and the amount of force the body is exposed to are two different things. Maximal muscular force production is desirable, maximal exposure of the joints and connective tissue to force is not. Take timed static contractions for example: absolutely no movement at all is involved, yet if a heavy enough weight is used, it is possible to produce a deep level of inroad in a reasonably short time under load. So much for having to move quickly to force the muscles to contract as hard as possible. If a person is using the heaviest weight they can handle for a reasonable amount of repetitions during an exercise using a 10 second positive repetition speed, they are going to be contracting as hard as they can (maximal muscular force production) yet minimizing the amount of force the body is exposed to, thus reducing their risk of injury. As for the idea that force requirements are the same for moving a given amount of weight a given distance regardless of the movement speed, this is nonsense, as anyone who cares to try the following will realize: Take the amount of weight you currently use for a set during a particular exercise. Lift it 1 second and lower it in 1 second. Make a note of how demanding the repetition was. Rest for 10 minutes or so. Using the same amount of weight, lift it in 10 seconds, and lower it in 10. Then see how much of a difference it makes. Andrew M. Baye The SuperSlow Exercise Guild http://www.superslow.com/
-------------------- 7 --------------------
#7. I know you're sick of rep speed, but this is new . . . - from Don Gwinn
Top
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 12:04:14 -0500 From: Don Gwinn <dgwinn@monm.edu> Subject: I know you're sick of rep speed, but this is new . . . As always, everyone must keep in mind that I'm not a professional. However, I think a lot of the personal trainers and coaches on this list have lately forgotten that not everyone has a trainer or coach to monitor his/her form. For the rest of us, anything which makes form harder to maintain with the same weight/speed is obviously detrimental. Thus, there's another reason to avoid high speed movements. Maybe momentum with good form doesn't do the work for the trainee, as someone stated in hd #133 (I have my doubts.) But what about body swing? Has no one on this list ever swung his hips into a curl and noticed that his arms got a break? Doesn't the necessity for a complete stop between reps argue for a lower speed? In my experience, a fast-moving barbell tends to either swing or bounce and is difficult to stop or control. This leads to cheating and body swing. I know Muscle & Quitters says you need to cheat to do the heavy weights, but c'mon. I'd also be interested in whether anyone has studied this and whether the results were with me or agin' me. Also, although I disagree with most of what Dr.(?) Koch says, I must say that "Deja Groove" is quite a shagadelic name. Don Gwinn dgwinn@monm.edu http://geocities.datacellar.net/Athens/Olympus/6297/ Author of the Five Words. 4-time UFFC (Ultimate Fake Fighting Championship) Superfight Champion.
-------------------- 8 --------------------
#8. Does Super Slow make you super slow? Hell no! - from ivan_and_princess@juno.com
Top
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 06:58:52 -0500 From: ivan_and_princess@juno.com Subject: Does Super Slow make you super slow? Hell no! You either work the muscle or you don't. That's my take of it all. If you want to work on getting faster...Run! That's it. I squat very slow and methodically, but at 5'11" I can almost dunk a basketball. All of the explosive lifting that I tried seemed to "blow up" in my face. We tell people to use good form and technique, yet the rules are nearly out the window for explosive training. It never. ever helped me at all. I base my thoughts on that, and common sense. STB "The_Future"
-------------------- 9 --------------------
#9. Tempo: important for the gym rat - from Adam Fahy
Top
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 19:50:36 -0700 From: Adam Fahy <afahy@student.umass.edu> Subject: Tempo: important for the gym rat > From: "Mr. Intensity" <mrintensity@hotmail.com> > Subject: Explosive vs slow > > While I admit that the current debate about slow training vs explosive > or plymetrics training is interesting. It is also getting out of hand. > What value does this discussion provide to a body builder or some one > who is interested in optimum exercises for general health. The average > gym rat could care less about type x fibers or how quick he could sprint > to the water fountain. This list seems to be degrading into the High > Intensity Debating list. This is a short-sighted statement... Bear in mind that not everyone on this list is only interested in bodybuilding. As we have seen, many are athletes -martial artists, etc- for whom increased speed/rate of force development is very much in-line with their goals. Indeed, the "average gym rat" would do well to be interested in how to encourage maximal recruitment [& fatigue] of all muscle fibers. That is to say, if they are interested in maximizing size/strength gains. One need not go far in order to see how these issues effect even those not interested in increased speed/ROFD. Every strength trainee needs to perform repetitions, correct? As we have seen from the last few digests, it is clear that speed/tempo of repetition is of some importance WRT training effect. Certainly one cannot proceed haphazzardly with rep performance -if one were to do so, # of reps performed would have absolutely no meaning! Ten reps at a 4-0-2 (ECC-pause-CC) tempo provides a much different training effect than ten reps at a 1-0-1 tempo (close to what the average trainer would demonstrate as supposedly "slow, controlled reps"). Generally, a TUL of ~40-70" is considered the 'hypertrophy' range. Yet there can be an infinite amount of tempo variations to stay within this range. The slower one performs a rep, the more constant the CC force output by the musculature throughout the ROM (assuming lack of 'stuttering'). WRT functional CC strength gain throughout a ROM, this would be quite important. Is it so important for hypertrophy concerns? IMO the evidence is not there. Certainly slower rep performance necessitates lower intensity work (% 1RM) for a given TUL. As well, by deliberately slowing rep performance, one is not "contracting as hard as possible" throughout a set. But most important, IMO, the strength drop of ~30-40% for 5-0-10 [SuperSlow] reps translates to far less ECC work per rep for a given rate of lowering (meaning, more ECC work for 5-0-x reps than 5-0-30 reps). [However this last point can, to a certain extent, be assisted by manipulating the performance of each rep - for instance, performing the CC portion of a dumbell bench press, with the ECC phase being a fly motion (see Telle for better advice)] However, rapidly performed reps provide their own disadvantages - greater ballistic forces, uneven force output throughout the ROM, more difficulty (as intensity decreases) in sustaining sufficient TUL/set... As Lyle mentioned, it need not be an either/or issue - To me, it is clear enough that a systematic, planned variation in rep tempo is the only way to get the most out of all training effects... -- "Work smarter, not harder!" -Scrooge McDuck Adam Fahy afahy@oitunix.oit.umass.edu
-------------------- 10 --------------------
#10. Timings - from Martin-Bragado Guillermo
Top
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 98 9:01:00 +0200 From: "Martin-Bragado Guillermo" <Guillermo.Martin-Bragado@DEHVALENCIA.DGIP.meh.es> Subject: Timings To Lyle or who knows it: I'd like to know, in order to hypertropy muscles, what TULs are best. I read you said about 30 sec for IIa and 60-70 for IIb fibres. But... what fibres look larger when hypertrofied? In other words: looking for bigger muscles, I would try hypertropy through stimuling IIb or IIa (or I) or all fibres? Another question: I have observed that my number of reps for a weight is more or less the same whatever my rep cadence was. I mean that if I try lifting the same load in a 2/4, 1/3, fastest possible... fashions, I reach failure in the same number of reps! What does it mean? The only difference is that if I try faster speeds, the first reps are very very easy, and, suddenly, failure appears in one or two very hard last reps; by other way, with slower speed I feel the weight hard through all reps, and fatigue is going up to the last rep. Any suggestion to this? William Martin.
-------------------- 11 --------------------
#11. Are "light" 1RMs still dangerous? - from Berserker _
Top
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 20:38:22 PDT From: "Berserker _" <berserker78@hotmail.com> Subject: Are "light" 1RMs still dangerous? I have a damn good question. In the dumbbell flye/incline press superset, Mentzer recommend doing only 1-3 reps with the incline press. The only reason behind that that I could think of is that the 1-3 reps act as forced reps and being able to do too many forced reps would turn the set into an endurance workout. Now here's the question: Since doing pre-exhaustion usually forces the lifter to decrease the amount of weight he'd normally do with the compound movement alone, would being able to do only 1-3 reps with a weight that you could get say, 8 reps with be dangerous? I mean, the body can't tell the difference, can it? The weight will "feel" just as heavy as a 1RM. Another thing. If one did one thousand drop sets, he would eventually come to the point of only being to do one rep with one pound. Would that be considered dangerous, since that would be a 1RM? Excuse my ingnorance, but I have a feeling that physics and that sort of stuff plays a role in this. Thanks in advance, Ben ICQ#—9719468
-------------------- 12 --------------------
#12. Re: SS and TUT - from Erkki Turunen
Top
Date: Fri, 01 May 1998 10:03:16 +0300 From: Erkki Turunen <eraturu@mail.dlc.fi> Subject: Re: SS and TUT >From: lylemcd@onr.com (Lyle McDonald) >Subject: Re: SS and TUT > >>Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 21:49:59 +0300 >>From: Erkki Turunen <eraturu@mail.dlc.fi> >>Subject: Re: Recruitment and speed of movement > >>I understand that you cannot get as many reps with a certain weight with a >>slower cadence but why would you have to decrease weight in SS for a certain >>TUT? If a trainee can get 10 reps with 2/4 speed why couldn't he get 4 reps >>with 10/5 cadence with the same weight? The TUT would be 1 min in both >>cases. Thus it seems that even Superslow would enable substantial weights if >>the rep number is kept low. > >You would think this the case but it's far from true. The change in >movement speed from a 2 to 10 second concentric drops how much weight you >can get through the sticking point vastly. I've seen various numbers in >the SS literature, anywhere from 30-40% drop in how much weight you can put >on the bar. Are you sure that those figures are for the same time under tension (TUT) or for the same rep number? Anyway, how much rep speed affects the TUT for a given weight is dependent on the exercise in question. I think that in free weight exercises where there is a distinct sticking point the influence on the TUT is greater than in machine exercises which are better suited for SS style of executing than free weight exercises. Erkki
-------------------- 13 --------------------
#13. Re: Didn't we just go through this... - from Erkki Turunen
Top
Date: Fri, 01 May 1998 10:03:27 +0300 From: Erkki Turunen <eraturu@mail.dlc.fi> Subject: Re: Didn't we just go through this... >From: lylemcd@onr.com (Lyle McDonald) >You might wnat to look at some of Greg Wilson's work on bench pressing and >force time curves. he showed quite well that even a 1.5 second bench press >movement (81% of 1RM) has over 1/2 of hte movement as a decceleration. The >physical fact of a necessity for ending velocity of zero (Vf = 0) in most >weight training movement (Olympic lifts are an exception as is work on the >Plyometric Power System and others) means that there will be a significant >decceleration phase. > >The implications of which being that the faster you start out of the >bottom, the sooner and the harder you have to slow down. So while you will >show a higher peak force this way, you will spend a considerable amount of >time (over half of the movement) applying a force which is less than what's >on the bar. I agree that slower movements start to approximate an >isometric but that means that the average applied force will be much closer >to what's on the bar (since peak accelerations will be minimized) Quite true this far... >and you >will load the full ROM much more evenly. ....but your conclusion seems a little hasty because you left the influence of strength curve out of consideration. At least I understand that even loading means that the resistance is equally demanding at every point of the ROM. I'll illustrate this with an example. Let's look at the close grip bench press which is a good exercise for this purpose. If we simplify a little, it is easy at the start and difficult at the finish, in other words it represents an exercise of decreasing strength curve. The sticking point which means the point where the force output production is at the minimum is near the lockout. Therefore it doesn't make much sense to me to lift the bar in SS fashion in the close grip bench even though the force one exerted on the bar would be more even. It would be more sensible to accelerate the bar at the start of the ascent because in that way you make the lift more demanding even on that otherwise easy part of the lift and though it means that you must decelerate at some stage of the lift even the deceleration part taxes your muscles adequately due to the fact that you are weaker at that part of the lift. The strength curve of an exercise determines the "optimal" (= equally demanding through ROM if possible) acceleration/deceleration function for that exercise. If you take a moderate weight (in the close grip bench press) and accelerate it as hard as you can then of course it's gratuitous to believe that you will get much out of the end-range of the movement. On the other hand, the strength curve of an exercise may also be such that it is not well suited to CAT. To that category I'd classify an exercise, the strength curve of which is increasing or where you are weak at the start and strong at the finish (examples: very wide grip bench press and sumo deadlift) in which case I see no point in making the finish part even easier. >So if you want to develop maximal strength across the fullest ROM, slower >training makes sense. Referring to my text above, slower training is superior only in certain exercises. Exercises done in properly designed machines of variable resistance are especially suited to slower training. Erkki
-------------------- 14 --------------------
#14. Strength Training and Pitching, a good mix? - from PViola4565
Top
Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 18:09:59 EDT From: PViola4565 <PViola4565@aol.com> Subject: Strength Training and Pitching, a good mix? When I began weightlifting (like many other begining trainees) I knew very little about training and so ended up with little results. A few months ago I discovered Cyberpump and finally began to understand what productive training was all about. I then bought the book "Brawn" and "A Practical Approach to Strength Training" and finally realized how to train properly. Now, finally to my question. I am 20 years old, 5' 9'' and weigh around 165 lbs. Since I graduated high school I have increased the speed of my fastball a little bit each year (even as I don't play organized baseball anymore and even as I hardly got stronger). Currently, I can throw a baseball around 85 mph and maybe even harder (not bad for a small guy). If I am able to put on around 20 lbs of muscle by adding 100 lbs to my Squat and Deadlift, and practice the skill of pitching, is it concieveable that I could throw even harder. I am wondering because I am thinking of playing college baseball next year and would like to be at my best. Also, I am very intimidated by some of those big boys who play because I look like a high school player with my small 6 3/4 inch wrists. Let the record stand, I don't lift that much weight yet, so I have plenty of gains left in me.What do you guys think, is it possible through proper strength training (accompanied by practicing the skill of pitching) that I could maybe one day reach 90 mph? Or is weighlifting hardly beneficial for pitching a baseball? One would certainly think stronger legs would give me more power when delivering a pitch. I know there are many brilliant minds on this digest, so I hope I gather enough responses. Thanks for listening, Pete