The Question Glute nearly asked...

Why is it that it is recomended to break the eccentric/concentric movement in squats and not in bench press durring training, when durring the actual competition movements there is no break during a squat but there is durring a bench?

It seems a little backwards…

I read in an article by Dave Tate where he recomended never pausing while benching… why is that?

Im breaking my silence for this one. It has been said many times over at elitefts. The stretch reflex does last for 4 seconds. So pausing on the box for a split second will not cause the stretch reflex to go away. Also the muscles are never really relaxed on the box. Only the hip flexors are relaxed. All other muscles are kept tight. There is no need to pause on speed bench because the stretch reflex remains anyway. Unless you want to pause for 4 seconds.

Why have you been silent anyway???

Good info…

B.

Because he’s the strong silent type. Heh heh heh

Hmmm yeah okay, I should have realized the 4 second thing that is mentioned everywhere…

Do you guys ever pause on max effort day of bench press?

We might have a slight pause on movements like board presses, pin presses, etc… On most full range movements it is usually touch and go.

do you ever lift starting at the bottom. (ie totally eliminating the Stretch reflex?)

Goldberg: flawed answer.

any milisecond you stay down diminshes the stretch reflex and dissipates the elastic energy stored in the tendons. Simple logic - the s.a.i.d principle says that if you lose some of the stretch reflex on bench competition because of the pause, lose some of it in training to maximize carryover.

thoughts anyone?

Whetu, all the time. Bottom position movements like GMs out of suspended chains, pin presses with pins set just above the chest, you name it.

My thoughts are that you are honestly overthinking things. What are you trying to accomplish with your current training? Judging by your other thread, you seem like you may want to continue box squatting, but are unsure of how to do so. Check out growordie.com, southsidegym.com, sithmenace.com for some training videos of people box squatting. This will give you an idea of how it should be done.

If you have a problem with box squatting for some reason, don’t do it. There are a couple Elite lifters at my gym that prefer to only box squat on max effort day (we train Westside). They prefer to free squat on speed day, much like you seem to be arguing for. Though I don’t agree with their rationale, it is what they prefer. Give both options a try for about six months and let us know which you prefer and why.

Flawed answer? haha. How was it flawed? there was a goddamn study that showed the stretch reflex remains for 4 seconds. Poliquin says it, Louie Simmons says it. should i go on?If you box squat correctly tension builds as you go down, and you will pop off the box. Im faster with bands than without bands. That should show you right there that the stretch reflex remains. If it didnt i would be slower coming up with the bands because of the greater tension. I even read the other day about how when doing depth jumps it may be beneficial to pause for a second before jumping back up. I dont remember where i read that because i read from so many differnt places but i do know that it was either Christian T or Mel Siff.

Goldie, Glute is right,He did not say there would be NO use of the stretch reflex all he meant was that it would be dulled. He said “any milisecond you stay down diminshes the stretch reflex and dissipates the elastic energy stored in the tendons.” This is shown in supertraining, i dont know which edition you have but it is on page 269 of mine.

Goldie stated
Flawed answer? haha. How was it flawed? there was a goddamn study that showed the stretch reflex remains for 4 seconds. Poliquin says it, Louie Simmons says it. should i go on?

###Yeah they all say it but, there is no question that the reflex at 3.9 seconds is SIGNIFCANTLY less then at 0.1 seconds. Infact the diagram shown in supertraining shows that the rate of decay is greatest at the begining!

Goldie stated
If you box squat correctly tension builds as you go down, and you will pop off the box. Im faster with bands than without bands. That should show you right there that the stretch reflex remains. If it didnt i would be slower coming up with the bands because of the greater tension.

###It doesnt really prove that much goldie, The stretch reflex is enhanced when you use bands. So if you pause for half a second on the box and now only have lets say only 50% (arbitrary number not the correct one but will do for the sake of an example) of the potential stretch reflex working. Now with bands it is still 50% of an enhanced stretch reflex. Now if the difference in weight at the BOTTOM is not as great as the difference in help provided by the stretch reflex ofcourse you will be faster with bands!!! Since no one has ever studied bands and stretch reflex we dont know if it will make the duration of stretch reflex last longer??? Maybe it will, maybe after a 0.5 second pause you are able to recruit 75% of the potential stretch reflex when using bands but only 50% when using straight weight. Might be true, who knows! Also the 4 second data is true for the bench press for the people in the study. Im not sure how true it is for other people on other exercises.

Also the what glute mentioned about the SAID principle makes sence. But it obviously isnt true for many people when it comes to real life. What im trying to assertain is why that is? Why train with a diminished stretch reflex on exercises where you need it and train using the most possible stretch reflex on exercises when you cant really use it?

How trainable is the stretch reflex anyway? If it is not very trainable and is relatively fixed then it makes sence. You would not want to train specifically for it in the squat if it can not be improved. In the bench you want to limit the pause because a rapid change of direction requires HUGE forces that will help with strength off the chest. (I was week off the chest in the past and since using the dynamic effort method for bench am no longer week off the chest, despite lifting RAW!!!)

Goldie stated
I even read the other day about how when doing depth jumps it may be beneficial to pause for a second before jumping back up. I dont remember where i read that because i read from so many differnt places but i do know that it was either Christian T or Mel Siff.

###Okay that is cool, I would be very interested in reading this. If you remember the source please post it.
Im trying to find out why. Maybe im posting on the wrong forum, maybe t-mag needs to set up a theoretical forum for nerds haha.

Ohhh and by the way this is the first time in over a year ive been able to log in without going having to drive to uni and having to use a different computer every time at uni because of those stupid cookies problems hhaah HOOOOORAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!

It was in CTs article at elitefts. He didnt say that it would be beneficial. He stated taht you would be able to pause for a second before you jumped and still get the same effect. But he emphasized that trying to get off the ground as fast as possible was the best. i did go and reread the section on coupling times in supertraining. Siff mentioned the 4 second study. Its on page 268. He also mentions other studies that contradict that study. Here is the point. Glute asked why pause on the box? Wont that dimish the SSC? I timed myself yesterday doing box squats. I studied 8 different videos of myself. Although not very scientific, and very susceptible to human error(i did it a bunch of times to try and eliminate some error)my time on the box was less than .5 seconds every single time. so it stands to reason that it was probably alot lower on most occasions. And maybe a little higher. This is very close to the times that Siff gives in Supertraining and well under the times that CT gives in his KEAT article.
I also watched the reactive method yesterday. Louie Simmons said that explosive strength is best built with static overcome by dynamic and relaxed overcome by dynamic. That is why you use the box.
You also will never know if you are at the proper depth with free squats. Having someone call depth wont work either because you wont be able to react fast enough and neither will they if you are going fast enough.

In the Special Strengths video, Louie says that they pause for 3-5 seconds on concentric only reps to make sure that the SSC is completely eliminated.

ChrisAUS-All of the points your brought up were correct. My arguement was specifically targeted towards squatting on a box. Thank you for bringing up this point. I learned a whole lot by researching it.

Thanks for the info. You really are champ! I’ll check out CT’s article.

Thanks

Chris

thanks everybody for the responses…