[quote]twiceborn wrote:
“In the bench press, I can use significantly more weight in touch and go style. I never pause benches unless it’s a contest.” - Ed Coan (565 @ 220)
“It’s all about the explosion. There’s a time and place for feeling the muscle but benching 700 isn’t it.” - Jim Williams (725 at SHW)
“The goal is a controlled explosion that launches the bar off your chest.”
and
“Isometrics never worked for me, so I dropped them.” - Bill Seno (585 @ 242)
I’d love to know if you ever broke 300.
/sarcasm[/quote]Yep. Although my comment was a general comment to the thread. Could be mistaken but here in the bb forum, I assumed the curiosity was geared torwards building mass and not powerlifting, in which case isometrics, negatives and slow tempos absolutely work.
Funny, Jim Williams mentions “a time and place to feel the muscle” but not at a power lifting meet. No contest there.
@Houston - I took your comment the wrong way, I apologize. In that context, yep, you’re right. Time under tension still rules for hypertrophy.
[quote]Bull_Scientist wrote:
I don’t know if this question has been answered, but I am confused on how high threshold motor units (HTMUs) get recruited. According to Clarence Bass, Zatsiorsky, and Thomas Kurz, moving slowly in resistance training fatigues the fast-twitch fibers more so than moving fast in resistance training, even if the weight was moderate (6-20RM). However, Chad Waterbury and Christian Thibaudeau seem to say the opposite, in that lifting the weight fast during the concentric phase recruits the fast-twitch fibers more so than lifting the weight slow provided that the weight is at least 60% of your 1RM. I have tried looking through the Tnation Forum as well as researching on other fitness websites for so many days and hours, but I haven’t been able to find any answers. I am very confused and I would very much appreciate, if I could get any clarification on all this. [/quote]
There was a huge thread some time ago on “the Size Principle” in which Tim Henriques and I had quite the detailed (and heated at times) discussion on the topic of HTMU recruitment. Both of us cited research articles as well as plenty of anecdotal evidence/living breathing examples of people who had built large amounts of muscle mass.
In a nut shell HTMU’s are recruited based on the internal tension within a muscle during a given repetition/set.
All available HTMU’s will be recruited when:
-Fatigue exhausts all smaller MU’s (fatigue actually lowers the firing threshold of HTMU’s)
-One attempts to lift a weight greater than or equal to 85% of 1RM
-One attempts to lift a submaximal weight with maximal velocity (this also lowers the HTMU firing threshold as well as requiring more force/tension to accomplish)
So, actually both CT/CW and those others that you mentioned are correct (also, I’m actually pretty sure that Zatsiorsky mentions all of those mechanisms in his writing). Like Prof X said though, you don’t have to lift super slow to get the benefits of fatigue. Bodybuilders have historically used things like super sets/giant sets/“breathing” squats/drop sets/rest pause and a bunch of other methods to increase the fatigue that their muscles are exposed to while still allowing them to use respectable weights.
Really the only guy who I can think of that was legitimately huge and used super slow repetitions on a regular basis was Trevor Smith. Unfortunately he’s no longer with us, so it’s impossible to find out if he actually got huge using this method or just switched to it after building his base with more “traditional” types of training. Even if he did use it exclusively though, he’s 1 out of thousands of successful well know BB’ers. So I wouldn’t necessarily be too quick to jump on that bandwagon if BB’ing is your goal.
[quote]twiceborn wrote:
@Houston - I took your comment the wrong way, I apologize. In that context, yep, you’re right. Time under tension still rules for hypertrophy.
[/quote]
No problem. FTR, I typically use the quote function or @whomever to make a direct point. Not being a smart ass, just clarifying.
[quote]Bull_Scientist wrote:
[/quote]
http://www.scsepf.org/doc/291208/Paper1.pdf
Try this link out to an open access article that should help you.
Don’t misinterpret what the author is trying to say; his primary premise is the misapplication of the size principle to justify simply lifting/prescribing a heavy load to maximize muscle fiber/motor unit recruitment.
What the author is trying to establish is the need to investigate HOW a load is lifted in order to maximize recruitment.
Lifting a light load to exhaustion will not facilitate recruitment of type II motor units. Type I units and their corresponding fibers are designed to perform at low intensities for long periods of time. The processes by which these units/fibers are fatigued negates the ability to then ‘switch on’ type II units.
Recruitment of type II motor units is more related to the extent of central drive required to the working muscles to facilitate task performance. The ‘task’ is where everyone on these boards argues about what works or does not, 531 - ramps - pyramids - explosive reps etc etc.
If you lift a heavy weight in a non-demanding way, such as a 10 rep max for sets of 3-5 reps with 3 min breaks between sets, you are likely to see a matching response from the nervous system in that the ‘brain’ realizes the task is relatively easy, the peripheral physiological demands (local fatigue metabolites) are not worsening, and therefore motor unit recruitment and firing rates can be decreased to match the task demand. This is called ‘muscle wisdom’, and is a well known physiological phenomenon associated with muscle fatigue.
What I think is that the best form of prescription would see you initially achieving maximal recruitment (an initial heavy failure set for example), but then be able to maintain this level of recruitment for as great a training volume as possible for the targeted muscle groups throughout a session (or part thereof).
I understand that I need to “spent time under time,” but I like to learn what is optimal and what is not optimal in training.
Also, it seems like everyone here agrees that fast movements recruit and/or fatigue more fast-twith units or fibers than slow memovements. However, what I still don’t get is that if that true, then why does Mr. Kurz say in one of his responses in one of his article columns, that one of the reasons why it is better to do Hindu squats at a lively pace:
“…You will develop neuromuscular coordination and endurance (both muscular and cardiovascular) useful for sports and martial arts. The pace of an exercise determines the result. Slow pace ?increases? the resistance by eliminating the momentum of the body or of the weight and thus develops hypertrophy. Fast pace ?reduces? the resistance because you are taking advantage of momentum. A fast pace also improves mobilization and synchronization of motor units (Pawluk 1985) and so develops the type of functional strength needed in martial arts and combat sports.”"
“…I suspect that your soreness is caused by doing squats too slow, forcing your muscles to work harder than if you moved fast. Because you are in terribly poor shape, the slow squats make you tense your thighs enough to damage your fast-twitch muscle fibers?hence your muscle soreness…”
[quote]Bull_Scientist wrote:
I don’t know if this question has been answered, but I am confused on how high threshold motor units (HTMUs) get recruited. According to Clarence Bass, Zatsiorsky, and Thomas Kurz, moving slowly in resistance training fatigues the fast-twitch fibers more so than moving fast in resistance training, even if the weight was moderate (6-20RM). However, Chad Waterbury and Christian Thibaudeau seem to say the opposite, in that lifting the weight fast during the concentric phase recruits the fast-twitch fibers more so than lifting the weight slow provided that the weight is at least 60% of your 1RM. I have tried looking through the Tnation Forum as well as researching on other fitness websites for so many days and hours, but I haven’t been able to find any answers. I am very confused and I would very much appreciate, if I could get any clarification on all this. [/quote]
I don’t believe this is a stupid post, because being able to recruit the fastest twitch fibers is directly correlated with strength, size, and muscle tone (muscle tone = amount of fibers contracted when the muscle is relaxed / what your commercial gym instructor tells you to work on with high reps [Jesus!])
To recruit the fibers with most potential for growth (IIb) you must train heavy, with low reps, and explosively. The smaller units are recruited first, and to tap into the most powerful motor units and fiber types you must train intensely (Lift close to your PR’s, train explosively, low reps).
Olympic lifting movements like the power clean is a good example of what you need to do to recruit these motor units.
So lifting weights will make muscles grow??