Strength Training

[[old] Yoda1]

I've been doing more reading in the last three weeks about the different protocols in strength training than I care to talk about. But, a lot of thoughts and ideas were brought to the surface in this guys old head. They say it's good to keep the mind active as you grow older. And to be honest my grey matter was cooking overtime with some of this information. Rather than go on and on I'd like to share some of this info.<br /><br />Basicly, these are what I believe are the most important facts about strength training protocols. <br /><br />1. Makes no difference whether the speed of a given lift is slow or fast. The slow twitch muscle fibers are going to be recruited first, then the fast. As the muscle fatigues more fiber will be called upon until failure takes place. <br /><br />2. I hate to say this one. Super Slow is not any better than any other traditional protocol. Except for older individuals and folks with joint problems. <br /><br />3. It is generally agreed by experts than lifing weights should not be done before the age of 16. Bone end problems.<br /><br />4. The key to enlarging and strengthing the muscles is in the intensity of the work. If a person does 3 sets of 8 reps with a given poundage for more than a few weeks without raising the resistance, he will maintain his size and strength. If he raises the resistance, then growth and strength will take place. But the progress will be slower than if that same person takes those 3 sets to failure. <br /><br />5. Size of a muscle does NOT determine the strength level. It does determine whether or not you're pretty, though. HeHe!!!!<br /><br />6. Resistance training does not guarentee a specific sport performance. It is the sport it's self that determines that performance. Makes no difference how many pushups, dips, situps, squats, deadlifts you do, it is the specific moves of that specific sport that will determine your performance.<br /><br />7. In order to reach a peaked level of performance in a given sport, weight training must be removed from the trainees training program. Got to cycle through out the year.<br /><br />I have sent emails to a number of well known people asking for additional NEW information regarding different protocols and how well some of these protocols carry over to specific sports. I know these folks are busy, but none have returned any answer. Since most of the information we all gather is coming from these folks you would think they would respond, but unfortunately that hasn't happened. Maybe I'll get something soon. If I do I'll be happy to pass it on. <br /><br />One other thing that did pop up with all this reading. There are some new feelings about tubes and straps. I think I mentioned this a while ago on a different post. The general feeling is that tubes and straps stretch and contract like muscles do and that it may be benefitcal to use them in training along with other forms of resistance training.<br /><br />No yelling, it raises my blood pressure. Mumbling is acceptable.<br />Yoda

[[old] Robbo]

Yoda,<br />you say in point 7 that to reach a peak performance in a sport, weight training must be removed. Are you saying I shouldn't weight train to erg?<br />Robbo

[[old] gw1]

Yoda, <br /><br />Well put, great to see some one with an open mind and a passion for ALL aspects of training.<br /><br />For more fun and insight go to this site, register and go through the archives, there are some excellent threads. Unfortunately Dr Siff passed away last year, but his legacy lives on.<br /><br /><a href='http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Su ... g/messages' target='_blank'>http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Su ... ges</a><br /><br />GW<br />

[[old] pduck]

<!--QuoteBegin-Robbo+Mar 2 2005, 07:30 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Robbo @ Mar 2 2005, 07:30 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Yoda,<br />you say in point 7 that to reach a peak performance in a sport, weight training must be removed. Are you saying I shouldn't weight train to erg?<br />Robbo <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br /><br />Robbo, I think what Yoda meant was that weight training should be stopped when you are starting to peak for your competitive season. When I was coaching track and cross country, we would lift during the off season and pre season, but we would stop lifting about three weeks before the big championship races at the end of the season. You want to make sure that your muscles are well rested going into the championships.<br /><br />If general fitness is your goal, and not competition, then I think weight training could be used all year. Still, I think that it's a good idea to take a couple of weeks off per year.

[[old] Robbo]

pduck,<br />thank you for pointing that out. The good thing about this forum is the quality of the advice and the pointers to points of reference.<br />Robbo

[[old] John Rupp]

Yoda,<br /><br />Thanks for another of your helpful messages.<br /><br />My competitive weightlifting in my 20's was great for building strength, but turned out to be not all that useful and even counter productive when I went back to running again.<br /><br />Conversely, one summer at age 42 I had a program of lifting a light weight for 100 reps and did this a couple of times each week, along with running hill reps or hill runs every day. The weights were 100x overhead press with a 16 pound bar or two 9 pound hand weights, 100 situps, 100 bent over rows, etc. I started each time doing them quickly and evenly and by 80 or 90 was then doing them more slowly and muscles burning by the end just able to keep my arms moving.<br /><br />I was running very well at the time and felt that these exercises, even though they were for my arms and upper body, made my legs stronger and more enduring for the hills. Something about the endurance in my muscles locally, worked for the muscles in my whole body as well.<br /><br />Perhaps a combination of these two methods works best, though the muscular endurance proved to be most vital for me.

[[old] arakawa]

<!--QuoteBegin-Yoda1+Mar 3 2005, 01:12 AM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Yoda1 @ Mar 3 2005, 01:12 AM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->One other thing that did pop up with all this reading.  There are some new feelings about tubes and straps.  I think I mentioned this a while ago on a different post.  The general feeling is that tubes and straps stretch and contract like muscles do and that it may be benefitcal to use them in training along with other forms of resistance training.[right] </td></tr></table><br />Although I know very little (maybe nothing) about tubes and straps as a form of resistance training, I can say that, if we treat tubes and straps as ideal springs, the force that the tube/strap will exert on its ends will be proportional to how far past its natural length you pull them. So, if a tube/strap is naturally 1 m long (i.e. if you do not pull it at all but it is not slack) and it takes some force X to hold it at a length of 2 m, you'll need a force of 2X to hold it at a length of 3 m.<br /><br />I actually believe that tubes and straps do *not* stretch and contract like muscles do. If muscles did stretch and contract like muscles do, you'd experience the greatest muscle strength when the muscle was fully extended and zero muscle strength when the muscle was fully contracted. Such behavior is counter to my experience.<br /><br />This kind of relationship between displacement and force for ideal springs is different from the relationship between displacement and force for weights (under the assumptions that (a) the total displacement is small compared to the distance to the center of the earth so that we can ignore the changes in the gravitational field from the bottom of the lift to the top of the lift, and (b) the speed at which the weight is being lifted/lowered is sufficiently low that we can ignore relativistic effects) - the force needed to lift a weight from a height of 1 m off the floor is equal to the force needed to lift the weight from a height of 1.5 m off the floor.<br /><br />What all this theoretical physics neglects is how multiple muscles work to lift a weight. For example, when I do a bench press, it feels like my pectorals are working more than my triceps at the bottom of a repetition, whereas it feels like my triceps are working more at the top of the repetition.<br /><br />Also, there must be significant benefit to using tubes and straps as resistance training. Both times I broke my ankle, as well as the one time I had a partial tear of my deltoids, I was given latex straps as part of my rehabilitation.

[[old] akit110]

<!--QuoteBegin-John Rupp+Mar 3 2005, 03:35 AM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(John Rupp @ Mar 3 2005, 03:35 AM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Yoda,<br /><br />Thanks for another of your helpful messages.<br /><br />My competitive weightlifting in my 20's was great for building strength, but turned out to be not all that useful and even counter productive when I went back to running again.<br /><br />Conversely, one summer at age 42 I had a program of lifting a light weight for 100 reps and did this a couple of times each week, along with running hill reps or hill runs every day.  The weights were 100x overhead press with a 16 pound bar or two 9 pound hand weights, 100 situps, 100 bent over rows, etc.  I started each time doing them quickly and evenly and by 80 or 90 was then doing them more slowly and muscles burning by the end just able to keep my arms moving.<br /><br />I was running very well at the time and felt that these exercises, even though they were for my arms and upper body, made my legs stronger and more enduring for the hills.  Something about the endurance in my muscles locally, worked for the muscles in my whole body as well.<br /><br />Perhaps a combination of these two methods works best, though the muscular endurance proved to be most vital for me. <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />Perhaps the increased upper body endurance was beneficial in terms of stabilizing your upper body when you run (more efficient) and allowed you to pump your arms more quickly when you were driving up the hills (increases cadence of the legs)?<br /><br />I prefer endurance training too. However, I am thinking as one gets older having additional muscle mass (i.e. from weight training with lower reps and heavier weights) may be increasingly beneficial to offset the effects of age-related muscle atrophy. Similar to the way one builds up bone density in youth to offset the effects of age-related osteoporosis in later years.<br />

[[old] Yoda1]

arakawa,<br /><br />I'm not sure I understand what you are saying about the tubes and straps. If you are doing a curl as the bicep is contracting the tube or strap is stretching. As you lower your arm the bicep is stretching and the the tube or strap is contracting.<br /><br />In the bench press, the frontal delts and pecs are working there hardess. It is as you pass the 90 degree point of the elbow that the triceps take over. This is why powerlifters use the "Ray bar" or "Mcdonell bar". Both pieces of equipment give the pecs a larger stretch at the bottom of the move. They are both excellent pieces of equipment to develop the explosion off the bottom of the bench.<br /><br />No yelling!<br />Yoda

[[old] arakawa]

<!--QuoteBegin-Yoda1+Mar 3 2005, 06:20 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Yoda1 @ Mar 3 2005, 06:20 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->No yelling![right] </td></tr></table><br />I didn't mean to yell. My bad if my post was construed as yelling.<br /><br /><!--QuoteBegin-Yoda1+Mar 3 2005, 06:20 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Yoda1 @ Mar 3 2005, 06:20 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I'm not sure I understand what you are saying about the tubes and straps.  If you are doing a curl as the bicep is contracting the tube or strap is stretching.  As you lower your arm the bicep is stretching and the the tube or strap is contracting.[right] </td></tr></table><br />I was responding to your statement that "[t]he general feeling is that tubes and straps stretch and contract like muscles do". If one models a tube or a strap as an ideal spring (i.e. a spring for which <a href='http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/HookesLaw.html' target='_blank'>Hooke's Law</a> applies), then the force exerted by the tube or strap increases the more you stretch it. My statement was that muscles don't work the same way because the force they can exert does not increase the more they stretch.<br /><br /><!--QuoteBegin-Yoda1+Mar 3 2005, 06:20 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Yoda1 @ Mar 3 2005, 06:20 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->In the bench press, the frontal delts and pecs are working there hardess.  It is as you pass the 90 degree point of the elbow that the triceps take over.  This is why powerlifters use the "Ray bar" or "Mcdonell bar".  Both  pieces of equipment give the pecs a larger stretch at the bottom of the move.  They are both excellent pieces of equipment to develop the explosion off the bottom of the bench.[right] </td></tr></table><br />I am not familiar with the "Ray bar" or the "Mcdonell bar". Can you briefly describe them?

[[old] Yoda1]

arakawa,<br /><br />The McDonell Bar was developed by Mike Mcdonell. He was an extremely powerful bench presser. I believe he lifted as a lightheavy weight. Basicly, it's a straight bar with a 4" drop in the middle that is about 24" wide. <br />____/--------\______ Looks a little like that. When you bring the bar to your chest it allows the hands to go below the level of the chest. The Ray bar is shaped the same way except there are hand grips spaced 4" apart allowing the hands to be in the neutral position. If you turn the Ray bar on it's side it looks like a ladder. It too has a 4" drop to allow for the additional stretch at the bottom of the bench press. I should tell you that both of these bars are hard to find. I credit my bench press total of 361 to the use of the Ray bar and a lot of heavy dips. I also credit the Ray bar and the McDonell bar partly for the destruction of both of my shoulders. <br /><br />I didn't think you were yelling, I post that all the time cause there are some folks that yell on this forum. We should all just mumble along. It's kinda like walking quietly but carrying a really big stick.<br /><br />Yoda <br /><br />

[[old] arakawa]

<!--QuoteBegin-Yoda1+Mar 3 2005, 10:07 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Yoda1 @ Mar 3 2005, 10:07 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I didn't think you were yelling, I post that all the time cause there are some folks that yell on this forum.  We should all just mumble along.  It's kinda like walking quietly but carrying a really big stick.[right] </td></tr></table><br />I too would prefer that people focus their energy on the strength and validity of their position in an argument and not on the level of vitriol in their name-calling.