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Bringing the Pendulum Back to Center

mikencharleston Posts: 1,585 Joined: 2002/01/09	2005/11/12, 09:08 PM That was a good article wrestler. I'd like to think that people will take the time to read it as there's some good info there. -------------- Mike in Pensacola Now.
wrestler125 Posts: 4,619 Joined: 2004/01/27	2005/11/12, 08:38 PM I know I posted part of this earlier, but it's too good to let it go to waist. Every now and then, especially on this site, we find an extremist that wants to change the way we do everything because of some fad. I think this article is more about using common sense with athletic training than it is actual training. How many of these have we already seen on ft??? Bringing the Pendulum Back to Center By Alwyn Cosgrove For www.EliteFTS.com It is often said by futurists (those who study the past to predict the future) that there is an over-reaction to most new concepts in the short term, yet an under-reaction in the long term. We can all come up with countless examples of it – the high carb trend of a few years ago – which has become the zero carb trend recently. However, never has this concept been more apparent than in the strength and conditioning industry particularly in recent years. This is part one of what I expect will become an ongoing series where I, or other writers, give their opinions as to the current attitudes towards different ideas in our world. 1) Aerobics Over-reaction Aerobic training has to be the single most over-reacted to, and thus overemphasized training modality in the history of our field. It started with Kenneth Cooper but I don’t think even he meant aerobic training to receive the almost religious type treatment it has. The only reason aerobic work even requires extra oxygen is because of demand from the muscular system. It doesn’t matter what activity you are involved in – aerobics or weight training – it is muscular demand that determines caloric burn. So you have to begin with that in mind. Let’s think about it logically (I know this is hard for the strength coaching field). For example, you can run a mile in ten minutes and can swim a mile in twenty minutes. After a year of swimming every day and not running – you can now swim a mile in 16 minutes. Without running – how much has your running improved? Very little. Why? We only have ONE cardiovascular system – so why doesn’t improving your swimming (and cardio system) automatically improve your running? Because the ONLY reason your cardio system was involved in the first place was because of demand from your muscular system. So you adapted to the SPECIFIC MUSCULAR demands of swimming which by default then involves the cardiovascular system – it’s not the other way around as most people think. The muscles don’t move because of cardiovascular demand – the cardio system is elevated because of muscular demand. We need to program the body based on the movements it’s going to perform – not based on the cardiovascular system. That’s an upside down method of programming. I think the over-reaction to aerobics peaked around 92. I can remember watching a weightlifter being interviewed at the 92 Barcelona Games (I’m sure most lifters can relate) – when after watching the athlete perform a few sets, the interviewer asked “What type of exercise do you do for your heart?” Under-reaction The under-reaction to aerobic training has been fairly recent. Perhaps I’m guilty of it also. The problem was that the emphasis on aerobic training had been so entrenched that in order to bring balance to the equation; coaches such as myself had to take a diametrically opposed position in order to even have a chance of being heard. The real message was that anaerobic interval training could provide all the benefits of aerobic training and then some. However, it has swung too far the other way. The message heard was that aerobic training is “the devil” – a fat storing injury promoting muscle catabolizing monster that has to be avoided at all costs. As a result athletes have avoided all energy system work. Back to center: Aerobic training is beneficial – it’s healthy and it burns up calories. It won’t eat up muscle tissue like Hannibal Lecter after making weight, and despite it not living up to its miracle fat burning claims – any calorie burning activity can help in a weight management program. I think some form of moderate cardiovascular activity can be helpful regardless of your personal goals. 2) Tempo Training Over-reaction The idea of paying attention to rep speed was largely new to the fitness industry when Ian King and Charles Poliquin introduced the concept. They suggested a three digit formula to help coaches communicate as to how reps were being performed by their athletes. It’s not hard to recognize that a bench press performed with a controlled eccentric, a definite pause and an explosive concentric was different than a drop, bounce, and wiggle. However, people went nuts. Websites ran articles with 30-0-30 tempos (that’s aerobics not strength training). I saw an article not too long ago that had different tempos within the set (i.e. rep one was 201, rep 2 was 515 – what the hell is that supposed to be doing?) Under-reaction A common argument is, “If I focus on maintaining a 301 speed then I can’t focus on just working hard”. The lack of good form in most people’s training programs makes that a moot point. For most clients - using anything to tighten up a rep will be better and lead to more results. There's no point in pushing "hard" if your form is garbage. But it’s the three digit formula that’s to blame here – not varying rep speed. Recent comments against tempo training have mentioned that counting “reduces neural drive”. Really? Counting your reps too? But that is perhaps a valid argument against a three digit formula – but again it’s not a valid argument against varying rep speed. Back to Center Tempo prescriptions allow coaches to have another way to measure progress. For instance, if a trainee completes a set of five reps with an additional 5lbs, it's tough to ascertain whether or not the trainee actually improved if they actually did the set in less time. But if the trainee did the 5 reps with the additional load at the same approximate speed as before then we know they improved. A rep is just pretty much a measure of time and distance (an object moved from point A to point B and back constitutes a rep). Most people only think of a rep in terms of distance. If I wanted you to do bench presses and you were only doing half reps – then you’re not doing what I wanted. I’m assuming that you use full range. Similarly I’m assuming that you do all your reps at the same speed. But what if you don’t? If I change your program from 6 reps to 12 reps I have effectively doubled your time under tension assuming your rep speed was constant. If your rep speed changes then I won’t get the training effect I’m looking for. For example, if you are doing 6 reps at 3 seconds a rep (18 total seconds), and then you progress to 8 reps with a 2 second rep speed (16 total seconds) – did you really improve? You are now being exposed to a shorter time-under-tension. Research by Greg Wilson in 1991 showed that it took 4 seconds to dissipate the stretch shortening cycle in the bench press. In other words – you were still using momentum if the pause was any less than 4 seconds. All this tells us is that for pure muscle work – pausing makes it harder. For strength and speed work, we should exploit the stretch shortening cycle and have no pause. And whether we realize it or not – telling our athletes to pause on the box, or to hold the top of a back extension for a two count is a form of tempo training. Even the most vocal critic of tempo would have to accept that doing back extensions with a 2 second pause at the top of each rep is an entirely different training effect than doing them without a pause. Wilson’s research is unequivocal: rep speed can be used as a source of training variety. This is where it all got screwed. 95% of all concentric movements should be done as fast as possible (the 5% being rehabilitative concerns). So tempo variation should only ever have been to lengthen the eccentric component or exploit or diminish the stretch shortening cycle in the midpoint of the rep (the pause), NEVER to slow down the concentric portion. This means that the only reasonable uses were: 1. Fast eccentric, no pause, fast as possible concentric 2. Controlled eccentric, no pause, fast as possible concentric 3. Controlled eccentric, definite pause, fast as possible concentric The overuse of the three digit formula and the mess that some coaches made of it has led to rep speed being ignored. I think this is a fallacy. How can you use rep speed in your training? There are a couple methods to test your needs. These ideas were taken from Bill Hartman P.T. Time your 1 RM (time includes both concentric and eccentric time) * If it takes 3 seconds or less, train with a pause to get stronger because SSC is well developed. * 5 seconds is average, you can use variety in regards to your tempo scheme. * If it took 7 seconds or more train with faster rep speeds as you need to work on using your SSC more. * Use 60% of 1 RM. If you can do 3 reps in 3 seconds, train with a pause for the same reasons as above. 3) Unstable Training Over-reaction I don’t even need to tell you when this happened. Every trainer in every gym around the country got his clients out of the squat rack and onto the stability ball. No one did a shoulder press anymore – they did a one leg one-arm eyes closed Body Blade wiggle-your-ass overhead reach. The very idea of unstable surface training was to condition the working muscles in three planes simultaneously and to work the stabilizer muscles (you can do more reps on a machine than you can with a bar than you can with DB’s at the same load – that’s your stabilizer muscles). How this came to mean “balancing acts” is a perfect example of over-reaction. Under-reaction Right now the stability ball and the balance boards have become the Antichrist. What’s interesting to me is that as we have slammed the unstable surface, unstable object training (kegs, sandbags) has become the hot new thing, for the same reasons as unstable surface training was hot in the first place. So unstable surface training is useless but unstable object training is cutting edge? Huh. Back to Center If free weights are better than machines, it’s because they are less stable. If DB’s offer more options than barbells – it’s because they are even less stable. The research is pretty clear that wobble boards and stability balls can be used to great effect in rehabilitation. I am of the opinion that working with athletes is a balancing act between performance enhancement and injury prevention, so the use of unstable surfaces in small doses as a “prehabilitation” (although I hate that term with a passion) has it’s place. Also recent EMG research showed that abdominal training on the stability ball was superior to flat surface training. You can’t ignore the benefits. And, if Louie Simmons does dumbbell pressing on a stability ball as a part of his program, that’s good enough for me. What’s next? Well as I said earlier unstable object training is hot – look for the backlash against it to begin circa 2007. Right now we are in the middle of a massive over-reaction to kettlebell training in the US also. I expect kettlebells (a very useful tool) will become the Swiss Balls of late 2006 and be ignored for a while. Interestingly I think we are entering into a phase of under-reaction to actual strength training. We have over-reacted to strength training in comparison to other conditioning methods in the past (hence the term ‘strength and conditioning’ as if to suggest that conditioning plays merely a supporting role) and have ignored mobility, flexibility etc. As of this writing, there has been a trend towards more movement prep work with athletes – not a bad thing, but we mustn’t ignore the benefits of more traditional strength work. Overall it’s easy to see the over-reaction and under-reaction in our industry. A good phrase to remember when evaluating or slamming any training method: “Methods are many, Principles are few, Methods may change, But principles never do” Understand the principles and you won’t go too far wrong. And if you want to ask questions or post comments about this article – make sure you’re speaking from a center position! Alwyn Cosgrove www.alwyncosgrove.com -------------- The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. ~~~Hunter S. Thompson If you smoke or don’t wear your seatbelt, please don’t tell me the deadlift is dangerous.
wrestler125 Posts: 4,619 Joined: 2004/01/27	2005/12/18, 05:09 PM Bringing the Pendulum Back to Center, Part II By Alwyn Cosgrove For www.EliteFTS.com It is often said by futurists (those who study the past to predict the future) that there is an over-reaction to most new concepts in the short term, yet an under-reaction in the long term. We can all come up with countless examples of it – the high carb trend of a few years ago – which has become the zero carb trend recently. However, never has this concept been more apparent than in the strength and conditioning industry, particularly in recent years. This is part two of what I expect will become an ongoing series where I, or other writers, give their opinions as to the current attitudes towards different ideas in our world. Stretching Over-reaction There was a time when even joggers stretched (warming up to warm up?). Athletes were told to stay away from weight training as it made you muscle bound and stretching was the most important thing you could do. I can remember performing a vigorous 20-30 min dynamic warm up in TKD class, sweating heavily and then sitting down to stretch for 15-20 mins. Did we get flexible? Yes. But did we lose a whole bunch of the benefits of our dynamic warm up – yes too. And there lies the real problem Under-reaction We learned that static stretching wasn't the best thing for power athletes, as it relaxed the stretched muscle. When you think about it – this is no real shock is it? The very reason you stretched at all was to relax an overly active muscle. The tool that we used to relax an overly-tight muscle was just misused – we were using it to develop flexibility in every muscle. Stretching an already lengthened muscle is not an optimal use of training time. If I give you a static stretch to do it's because a muscle is overactive. It's too strong in relation to the other muscles. I want it to relax. So of course it's immediately weaker — I just made it relax. That was my goal. It's not a detrimental side effect; it's the effect I was looking for. But here's the point: Once I've established that I need to reduce the tension in a muscle, why would I then want to directly maximally strengthen it? That's the exact opposite of my goal. I've already established that it has too much tension there. It's already overactive. If I spend time strengthening it I'm creating a bigger problem (besides beating my head against a wall). (Here’s my problem with the studies: If you think about it logically again (something most people seem unable to do), if I tested your 5RM in the squat and then a couple of minutes later tested your 6RM, do you think that your 6RM might be reduced because of what I just did? Of course. If you interpret this case literally, I just proved that strength training makes you weaker.) Now the smarter conditioning coaches out there studied the information, made an informed decision and decided to use static stretching sparingly and replaced it with dynamic mobility work. However, the majority of coaches just replaced it with nothing, which was never the message. So we now have kids doing NO mobility work. In my opinion flexibility work is necessary. Once you have a flexibility portion in your program we can debate about what "type" of flexibility training is best. The problem is the majority of programs don't address it at all. Now please don't misinterpret this. If I wanted maximal strength in the workout, then I don't use a static stretch. But if I use a static stretch I'm well aware that there's a short term strength deficit as a result, and I feel that's beneficial. Several coaches, Martin Rooney and Joe DeFranco spring to mind, do static stretching of the hip flexor prior to vertical jump testing to prevent the antagonistic contraction of the hip flexor from reducing vertical jump — with great results I might add. The static stretching inhibits the hip flexor contraction, which is exactly the goal in this case. Back to center Static stretching is a tool. I use it. There are times when I feel it's useful. In my experience (competitive martial arts) guys used to do hours of static stretching and they'd kick your head off. So much for making you weaker. I think there is enough anecdotal evidence that it helps athletes remain healthy over the long term. Whether or not you choose to use static stretching, you need to understand the effect it has on the tissues. And if you choose not to do static stretching – you still need to do some form of flexibility training regularly. All my athletes do flexibility work. That doesn't mean they stretch. It doesn't mean they do static stretching. It might mean they just do deep lunges, etc.But I should add that whenever a client has knee pain, stretching the surrounding musculature (quads, hamstrings and claves) ALWAYS, ALWAYS helps reduce the pain. Static stretching was never the problem. It was that people didn't understand how best to use it. Again, it comes back to knowing why you're using a certain technique instead of blindly following the masses. Overtraining Over-reaction We can directly blame Mike Mentzer and Stuart McRobert for this one. The birth of the hardgainer. The idea that the genetically inferior amongst us could only recover from 2-3 sets of an exercise done every ten to fourteen days is bullshit. I was getting emails for a while saying “I lift three days per week for about 40 mins. I’d like to ride my bike on Saturday with my kids – is this overtraining?” Come on. Everyone stopped training hard. Under-reaction Now someone quotes the Bulgarians who trained six times per day. I’m not arguing this data, but I just want to suggest that this was a “survival of the fittest” situation. The athletes (and remember – these were full time world class athletes) who could not recover or even survive this type of training were just dropped from the team. To model your training after the top 0.5% of World Class elite athletes is just freaking stupid. Recently I’ve seen suggestions of up to ten weight training sessions per week for the recreational lifter. This is unlikely to work for the average drug free trainee with a job or school and any semblance of a life. If you increase training, in order to increase results – you need to increase recovery. And with that kind of volume, regardless of what you think you are doing, your intensity is suboptimal. Back to Center You do not get better by training – you get better by recovering from training. Read that sentence again and let it sink in. Once you truly understand that idea, you understand that when we increase training, we have to increase recovery. If you can’t increase recovery then the increased training won’t have any effect. Training is not about how much or how hard or how long you can endure – it should be about the amount of training, when combined with the recovery available in your unique situation that will give you the best results. I think in general most individuals will have the most success training with weights three to four times over a week. If you add a full time job, or other sports training to this equation then the only logical solution is to cut back on your strength training. “Go heavy or go home” is an over-used phrase, but in general if you can’t improve then you need more recovery – not more training. More is not better. Better is better. If in doubt – train harder with less volume. Low Carb Dieting Over-reaction Atkins had it right. The obesity problem in this country can be linked almost directly to the intake of refined carbohydrate. However, I’d say that most people on the Atkins diet never read the good doctors’ book. They have used their own interpretation of the Atkins diet and think it means bacon grease and cheese. That is not what the Atkins diet is. Most junk food is in the form of carbs. Reducing this has always been good. All vegetables are carbs. Reducing this has never been good. Don’t confuse the issue. There is a restaurant near me that serves a low carb platter. The dish consists of a steak, cooked in butter and topped with a half pound of blue cheese. This is a diet food? The same restaurant serves Buffalo wings and low carb Buffalo wings. The difference? The low carb wings do not come with carrot sticks or celery. Somehow I don’t think the obesity problem is a result of too many carrot sticks and celery stalks in our diets. Under-reaction We have yet to truly enter the under-reaction phase but trust me – it’s coming. Supplement companies are busting their ass to produce protein bars with zero net carbs (which is a garbage term), and “recovery” drinks loaded with sugar. GNC still sells a weight gainer that has 400g of carbs per serving. We have to recognize that high blood sugar causes insulin release. Insulin is a storage hormone. Post workout it stores the glycogen in the muscles. At other times it increases your fat stores. Controlling insulin is still important. Back to Center As a very general diet guideline, I think we should reduce our carb intake. However I also think we should increase our fruits and vegetable intake. The key with a moderate carb diet is to reduce the junk that is made up of refined carbs. Carbohydrate is not the enemy. Refined, bleached junk sugar is. The fact that lower blood sugar levels are effective for fat loss does not mean however that a hypoglycemic state is optimal either. “Balance is key. Balance Good. Karate Good. Everything Good. Balance bad – better pack up and go home” -Mr. Miyagi. Alwyn Cosgrove www.alwyncosgrove.com Copyright© 2005 Elite Fitness Systems. All rights reserved. You may reproduce this article by including this copyright and, if reproducing it electronically, including a link to www.Elitefts.com. -------------- Pain is only temporary, it is in your mind. If you can still walk, then you can still run. ============ Quoting from 7707mutt: The squat cage is holy ground. ============