Have you ever seen a power-lifter doing endless sets of biceps curls or incline hammer curls ??...The answer would be a resounding NO..But these power-lifters also happen to be the strongest men walking the planet. If you read my earlier blog, I pointed out that even the great bodybuilders of the past were very strong because majority of them started out as power-lifters first and then jumped to body sculpting. The point is, in order to get strong, all of us need to train like power-lifters (mimic the techniques I mean...). before we get rolling let me give a quantitative idea of what STRENGTH is. Its quantified by something called "1RM". This simply means the amount of weight one can lift using a certain muscle group just once (not anymore) using decent form. This implies we have different 1RMs for our different muscle groups. When I say increase in STRENGTH, I mean increase in the 1RMs for all the muscle groups (or even a particular one if that is your favorite muscle group) in a 6-8 week period. Another thing that literally shits me out is when I see people doing bicep/triceps curls in like 10 different angles for endless sets. The logic they give is that it improves the so called "shape" of the muscle. Hell yeah it does...I agree..but that doesn't do anything to increase the core body STRENGTH. That is where compound exercises come in. These exercise are the ones that usually involve free weights and work maximum muscles possible at the same time. Examples are bench press, dead-lifts, squats, barbell rowing, chin ups, military presses etc. The Bench press for example not only works the chest muscles but also the triceps and shoulders (essentially act like stabilizers in this case). These exercises elicit the maximum hormonal output because it involves big muscle groups and includes stabilizers which has a neural component to it. With this info in mind lets see how one can go ahead and train for increase in STRENGTH. A typical workout can be:
1) Taking around 85% of your 1RM weight for any given exercise (preferably a compound exercise...unless you want to waste your time in the gym)
2) Doing 3-5 reps with this weight (You wont be able to do more than 6-7 reps with this weight usually..).
Corollary 2.1) When doing a rep with the weight above, always explosively lift the weight and try to accelerate it up (Remember Newton's law F = M A ??). While letting the weight down, take twice as much time you took to lift it up and do so in a totally controlled manner. (More on this in part 2)
3) Resting for 3-5 minutes (This is the most crucial part) and then doing 3-5 reps again.
4) Doing 6-7 cycles (or sets) like this.
5) Giving that muscle group at least 5 days of rest before working it out again.
7) Next time when working the same muscle, mandatory increase of weight by 5% or by 5 pounds (WHICHEVER IS LESS !). This is the concept of progressive overload (Remember the legendary Milo from my first post ??...)
8) Goes without saying, give any workout routine at least 8-12 weeks to see appreciable results and don't give up.
9) At the end of 8 weeks, one should be able to do 3-5 reps in a set with his previous 1RM weight.
To summarize, When you take a load around 85% of your current 1RM and do some program like the above, you essentially involve the type 2 fibers bypassing the recruitment of type 1 fibers. Since you are exploding and trying to accelerate the weight up, Your NERVOUS SYSTEM takes a real beating..and you need to rest for at least 3-5 minutes before resuming another set as your NERVOUS SYSTEM takes that amount of time to recuperate maximally so that you can train "it" again. Always remember...when doing heavy lifts like these, your muscles recover much much faster than your NERVOUS SYSTEM. By training and resting like the way I mentioned, you will essentially be training your NERVOUS SYSTEM to become more efficient at recruiting more type 2 fibers rep after rep..set after set...and thus making those fibers stronger. Make no mistake here, but you can have the largest amount of type 2 fibers in the whole world but still be weak because your NERVOUS SYSTEM might not be very efficient at recruiting them. So, why you waiting dudes..?? ...go ahead and blast yourself in the gym and have fun !! :)
Disclaimer : People on these kind of programs usually don't see a LOT of mass increase (at least not in 8 weeks or so). You need to be eating just slightly above your maintenance level with good amount of nutrients and don't go overboard with the calories. You shall definitely get stronger, denser, leaner and meaner. Size shall follow later. BTW... Bodybuilders have more muscle (that is what they call them...yeah..technically referred by scientists as "SARCOPLASMIC HYPERTROPHY") than power-lifters but never statistically can a bodybuilder challenge a power-lifter for a STRENGTH competition. So..you better get the point.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
The concept of Strength
Today I completely fucked up my training schedule owing to some academic pressure but anyways...as promised in my last post, today I shall reveal certain aspects of STRENGTH which you fellas will never find in any gym manual or coach's notebook. Do not worry guys...I aint gonna bore you with the usual stuff you have heard a zillion times from your gym buddies. So lets first look at the holy grail of STRENGTH training which you might not have realized.
STRENGTH IS MOSTLY NEURAL IN NATURE !!!
Yes your nervous system (not your muscles) is the key here. Now what the hell on earth does that imply ?? ... before coming to that, I want all you guys to know that all the great champions of the past like Arnold, Dorian Yates, Franco Colombu, John Grimek....all of them started out as "power-lifters" and not as bodybuilders. Being strong should always be considered a big deal in the iron game and any guy with male hormones running in his blood should address that first (size shall follow later). Now that your blood is boiling a bit, lets see what happens when you are churning out rep after rep..sweating it out...and thinking you are having an awesome workout :
Every muscle group has certain amount of "muscle fibers" called type 1 and type 2 that are responsible for force production. Type 1 are the muscle fibers that are not so strong...have less growth potential... but they resist fatigue for a long time (good for lighter weights and 12-15+ reps in a set). Type 2 on the other hand are the stronger,powerful and explosive ones...but they fatigue pretty soon...but these are also the fibers with the maximum growth potential. Now that you are aware of the muscle make up, lets see how they are recruited sequentially in a working set. suppose you pick up a weight that you can bench press for say 10 reps and not anymore. When you start doing your reps, the nervous system "orders" your muscle to recruit the type 1 fibers first...this process probably continues till say 6th or the 7th rep..and then do the type 2 fibers come into play after you have exhausted majority of type 1. But then you just are able to churn out 2-3 more reps before your nervous system craps out and you attain the infamous "failure" !! ..how many type 2 fibers did you recruit in those 2-3 reps?...I bet not a lot. The reason is because your nervous system isn't trained to handle such heavy loads and its actually your nervous system that fails momentarily even before your muscles fatigue !! ..
To summarize it naively, for pure STRENGTH, your target should be to fatigue as many type 2 muscle fibers as possible. Everyone of us is born with a given number of type 1 and type 2 fibers in any muscle group and this doesn't change in the lifetime (sorry dudes....we all have to live with it..)..When we start working out a muscle, the nervous system decides HOW MANY muscle fibers and WHICH TYPE are to be recruited and WHEN. But before we even fully realize our full potential of type 2 fibers during any set, our nervous system suddenly gives a "shutdown" order to the muscle fibers and we achieve failure and terminate the set and get satisfied with mediocre STRENGTH increases. Your muscle fibers is like an army (consisting of small time soldiers and also some great warriors)and the NERVOUS SYSTEM is like the supreme commander. During battle, even before the great warriors enter the war, the commander feels scared and calls of the battle.
Well now that you realize the "apparent" limitations, its obvious to take steps in order to overcome this. My next post shall deal with specific training techniques that train the nervous system and certainly your STRENGTH shall blast through the roof !!!...............
So, stay tuned...
STRENGTH IS MOSTLY NEURAL IN NATURE !!!
Yes your nervous system (not your muscles) is the key here. Now what the hell on earth does that imply ?? ... before coming to that, I want all you guys to know that all the great champions of the past like Arnold, Dorian Yates, Franco Colombu, John Grimek....all of them started out as "power-lifters" and not as bodybuilders. Being strong should always be considered a big deal in the iron game and any guy with male hormones running in his blood should address that first (size shall follow later). Now that your blood is boiling a bit, lets see what happens when you are churning out rep after rep..sweating it out...and thinking you are having an awesome workout :
Every muscle group has certain amount of "muscle fibers" called type 1 and type 2 that are responsible for force production. Type 1 are the muscle fibers that are not so strong...have less growth potential... but they resist fatigue for a long time (good for lighter weights and 12-15+ reps in a set). Type 2 on the other hand are the stronger,powerful and explosive ones...but they fatigue pretty soon...but these are also the fibers with the maximum growth potential. Now that you are aware of the muscle make up, lets see how they are recruited sequentially in a working set. suppose you pick up a weight that you can bench press for say 10 reps and not anymore. When you start doing your reps, the nervous system "orders" your muscle to recruit the type 1 fibers first...this process probably continues till say 6th or the 7th rep..and then do the type 2 fibers come into play after you have exhausted majority of type 1. But then you just are able to churn out 2-3 more reps before your nervous system craps out and you attain the infamous "failure" !! ..how many type 2 fibers did you recruit in those 2-3 reps?...I bet not a lot. The reason is because your nervous system isn't trained to handle such heavy loads and its actually your nervous system that fails momentarily even before your muscles fatigue !! ..
To summarize it naively, for pure STRENGTH, your target should be to fatigue as many type 2 muscle fibers as possible. Everyone of us is born with a given number of type 1 and type 2 fibers in any muscle group and this doesn't change in the lifetime (sorry dudes....we all have to live with it..)..When we start working out a muscle, the nervous system decides HOW MANY muscle fibers and WHICH TYPE are to be recruited and WHEN. But before we even fully realize our full potential of type 2 fibers during any set, our nervous system suddenly gives a "shutdown" order to the muscle fibers and we achieve failure and terminate the set and get satisfied with mediocre STRENGTH increases. Your muscle fibers is like an army (consisting of small time soldiers and also some great warriors)and the NERVOUS SYSTEM is like the supreme commander. During battle, even before the great warriors enter the war, the commander feels scared and calls of the battle.
Well now that you realize the "apparent" limitations, its obvious to take steps in order to overcome this. My next post shall deal with specific training techniques that train the nervous system and certainly your STRENGTH shall blast through the roof !!!...............
So, stay tuned...
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Creation of the super-athlete : an introduction
Understanding the way human body performs under physical stress is of great interest to me. Actually its my obsession and I have realized over a long time that this is one of the most interesting subjects under scientific investigation by leading sports scientists all over the world (that is the case because lot of money is also involved...more on that later). Science has been able to just scratch the tip of this giant iceberg owing to recent advancements in MRI studies and other techniques. Prior to that (that is many centuries ago...), understanding human sports performance was mostly a matter of trial and error. My main interest is towards weight training and nutrition. I believe there is lot of misinformation floating around in these areas and I hope to set things right by taking hints from the recent advances in understanding human response to different protocols of weight training and nutrition. I will discuss topics like :
1) Bulking up (this is the term used for gaining muscle mass while minimizing fat gains)
2) Cutting down (this is the term used for losing fat mass while preserving as much muscle you have)
3) Beefing up the body composition
4) Increasing strength (not necessarily size)
5 Increasing size (not necessarily strength....trust me...this has happened with me and it sucks..but anyways)
6) How to do both 4) and 5) at the same time
7) Different training protocols and their effects on human performance in different sports (sports I am aware of..)
8) Nutrition strategies to maximise performance
9) Supplement reviews
10) Much more cool stuff.......
And ladies, don't worry. The posts will be designed to cater to your needs too (btw...I am not a proponent of size zero figure and all that shit...) and also don't want girls to bulk up like a hulk (again...that wont happen with you gals because you don't have the necessary hormones to elicit a lot of muscle mass production) . So just chill and enjoy the ride ;) .
My next post will be on the understanding of STRENGTH and SIZE. Now you might feel they are one and the same thing i.e a guy who is more massive will be more stronger blah blah blah. Yes, that is true...but only at the surface level. Honestly speaking, STRENGTH is a completely different breed of animal altogether and my next post will shock you as I shall delve into the topic of how ( and how much !! ) STRENGTH can be produced by the human body.
If you still thinking I am bullshitting you, how about these incidents:
1) an old grandmother once lifted a car in order to save her grandchild...obviously she didn't have muscles like Arnold.
2) The ancient strongman named Milo who used to carry a bull on his shoulders and walk around.
3) Mr.Olympia Franco Colombu (height 5'4 and under 200 pounds) able to dead lifting a whopping 800 pounds. (Arnold who was like 250+ pounds and Franco's contemporary could never attempt it).
4) Last but not the least, I bench press a lot more weight than many bigger guys do in the gym ;) .
Were the above people (except me) superhuman ?? ..or were they para-normally gifted ?? ...Stay tuned for my next post as I shall reveal the dark secrets of these impressive specimens ;)
1) Bulking up (this is the term used for gaining muscle mass while minimizing fat gains)
2) Cutting down (this is the term used for losing fat mass while preserving as much muscle you have)
3) Beefing up the body composition
4) Increasing strength (not necessarily size)
5 Increasing size (not necessarily strength....trust me...this has happened with me and it sucks..but anyways)
6) How to do both 4) and 5) at the same time
7) Different training protocols and their effects on human performance in different sports (sports I am aware of..)
8) Nutrition strategies to maximise performance
9) Supplement reviews
10) Much more cool stuff.......
And ladies, don't worry. The posts will be designed to cater to your needs too (btw...I am not a proponent of size zero figure and all that shit...) and also don't want girls to bulk up like a hulk (again...that wont happen with you gals because you don't have the necessary hormones to elicit a lot of muscle mass production) . So just chill and enjoy the ride ;) .
My next post will be on the understanding of STRENGTH and SIZE. Now you might feel they are one and the same thing i.e a guy who is more massive will be more stronger blah blah blah. Yes, that is true...but only at the surface level. Honestly speaking, STRENGTH is a completely different breed of animal altogether and my next post will shock you as I shall delve into the topic of how ( and how much !! ) STRENGTH can be produced by the human body.
If you still thinking I am bullshitting you, how about these incidents:
1) an old grandmother once lifted a car in order to save her grandchild...obviously she didn't have muscles like Arnold.
2) The ancient strongman named Milo who used to carry a bull on his shoulders and walk around.
3) Mr.Olympia Franco Colombu (height 5'4 and under 200 pounds) able to dead lifting a whopping 800 pounds. (Arnold who was like 250+ pounds and Franco's contemporary could never attempt it).
4) Last but not the least, I bench press a lot more weight than many bigger guys do in the gym ;) .
Were the above people (except me) superhuman ?? ..or were they para-normally gifted ?? ...Stay tuned for my next post as I shall reveal the dark secrets of these impressive specimens ;)
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