Jones idea was to put a cam on a machine so it got harder in the contracted position. I think that was a mistake. Later Nautilus shaped the cam so the range of motion felt even . There were cams long before Jones, they just didn’t make the movement feel even. His big contribution , in my opinion , was taking the hands out of the equation like on the early Omni machines , pullover, and hip and back type machines.
Scott
No cams, No Nautilus!
In reality, without the nautilus-shell-shaped-cams, the line of Nautilus machines would have been just another line of exercise equipment .
Duh
Scott
The post which starts this thread speculates that 30-10-30 works better than traditional HIT reps because the time under load is longer (90 seconds vs 48-72 seconds). Since HIT and 30-10-30 are largely discussed here in a bodybuilding context, and since Dr Darden advocates doing single sets, I was thinking a little more specifically … Assuming a single set is being done, is there an optimum TUT for bodybuilding purposes? If so, what is it?
== Scott==
Yes ATP, if it’s all so easy what is the ideal time for bodybuilding?
I would speculate timed 30 seconds TUT to be optimum. This is a much closer time to the anaerobic threshold of physical endeavors. However, occasionally a trainee should exceed ideal TUT if they are training hard. 200 meter sprinters are still very muscular while running 200m in less than 20 seconds. However, 800 m runs require endurance factors, thus alleviating unnecessary muscle mass. The best 800 m time are less than 2 minutes. Draw your own conclusions.
The more important thing to consider is what you do during this ideal TUT. Are you training the muscle in the stronger range of motion with adequate resistance? Weak range of motion resistance will seldom suffice to stimulate fibers in stronger range of movements.
Interesting… I was expecting you to lean toward the longer end of the time spectrum, based on some of your earlier posts.
That I agree with… what you are doing while under tension (type and number of contractions, level of muscle tension) matters a lot.
The big chaps all lift big! All the more reason to utilize variable resistance.
Never said it was more effective. Just speculating on how the change in stimulus (increased time under tension) may stimulate different muscle fibers. Especially on a group of people that may have spent years in the lowers tut ranges.
They all lift a lot more weight than I can. But some lift much bigger than others.
I just happen to have been reading some interviews, and watching some training videos by Jay Cutler. One of the things he says is that he avoided ego lifting. He says he never paid that much attention how much weight he was using. It just needed to be heavy enough that he could reach a decent level of fatigue in 8 to 12 reps. Seems like he trained for a certain feel in the muscle by the end of the set.
Just a thought…
The raised intensity of specialization routines, for example Darden’s “Quad killer” routine, involves about 3-5 minutes of TUT. These routines are definitely killers, but they do seem to produce both strength and volume better thsn regular routines (at least short term).
You who advocate shorter TUT intervals - please explain the above contradiction?
If I were to advise any newbie about the main variable governing hypertrophy, I would tell them - “it’s all about mechanical tension.” The next factor I would talk about is “progressive overload”. “Time under tension” and “rest intervals” would be further down the list.
As mentioned earlier, there does not appear to be a huge amount of science around TUT and what there is suggests there is no real difference in cadences using 0.5 - 8s.
That said, there are many ways to skin a cat and that is why we don’t get bored on these forums! One I often will chuck out, which is firmly grounded in science, is blood flow restriction (BFR) training. Using light loads and moderate TUT, BFR has been shown to cause hypertrophic adaptation via occlusion. Some training systems employ versions of this, e.g. myo-reps, with success and the TUT per round is minimal, e.g. 15s. While I have not fully employed 30/10/30 myself, there clearly is a strong element of occlusion gained by significant TUT - which explains why folks are reporting muscle gains using it.
The occlusion aspect is definitely an interesting one to consider. Not releasing the tension for 30s at a time is very similar to using the occlusion bands…
You do need to differentiate between TUT within a single rep or a single set of exercise, and the TUT accumulated over the course of the workout. They are not comparable. Once you introduce rest periods, however brief, then you introduce the opportunity for partial recovery from fatigue during the execution of the workout.
180 seconds of TUT delivered as 9 x 10/10 super slow reps, with no unloading of the muscles is a lot different than 6 sets of 10 reps done at a 1/2 cadence with 90 seconds rest between sets. I’m not able to say which is better, but the results are unlikely to be the same just because the total TUT was the same.
As to the contradiction: outside of HIT, lots of people believe volume matters, and that, to a point, more is better. Specialization routines are the HIT acknowledgement that sometimes more is better.
So once you decided that more is better, at least some of the time, what is the most relevant way to measure volume? There are a lot of options. Some people think the number of hard sets (close to failure) is what matters. Others like the idea of counting the number of effective reps (with 15-25 being the sweet spot). Going back further, you have measures like total tonnage and volume load. Total time under load is another measure of volume, one that seems to be falling out of favor at the moment. None of these has been found to correlate perfectly with outcomes.
Years ago, I remember Dr. McGuff saying something to that effect. He argued that the whole point of maintaining continuous tension on the muscles during a super slow set was to “choke out” slow twitch and low threshold fast twitch fibers, in order to get to the bigger fast twitch.
Great Al,
I like your division of terms. I was into the seconds of rest inbetween sets of importance. And yes, I believe pre-exhaustion is the HIT equivalent to HVT. Quite simply, variation and surprise are key elements, no matter how you put it.
Also interesting to compare occlusion with prolonged negatives. Having a hard time understanding it from a strict physiological standpoint, but there is something practically applicable with such reasoning, and Dr McGuff knows his stuff…
== Scott==
Yes and with the exception of a few they are all on multiple type growth inhibitors . You can go from one YouTube video to another with some giant guy doing a workout with 150lb dumbbells for 10 sets of incline presses etc etc. In an article on here Viator does dips with 250 pounds and Mentzer runs through all the Nautilus machines doing the full stack and then turns and lifts the building off its foundation , ha ha. It’s great to hear these stories but it has no bearing on what mere mortals like us can and should expect to do. What works for them has no relevance to us.
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Entsminger,
That was funny and made me laugh. Are you always this funny on fridays? LOL
McGuff was wrong about quite a few things
Slow concentric reps inhibit neural input!
Not good for SuperSlow aficionados!
Eccentric reps inhibit neural input also!
This is no doubt a protective built in mechanism, along with the Golgi bodies and muscle fiber spindles. This should make even aficionados of negative only exercise pause and think!
I’m no fan of super slow training , but one cannot make any assumptions from the result of one study.
Vague references such as slow, fast and heavy tell us little (what do the researchers consider fast , slow , or heavy).
From the link we know nothing about the training used, frequency, equipment, tools of measurement, participants, type of eccentric rep method , the calibre of the study and the integrity and potential bias of those conducting the study.
The conclusion of the study that slow "eccentric " reps are “inferior” flys in the face of what many here have experienced with protocols such as 30-10-30.
A fairer question would be to ask if slow eccentrics are superior ?
I have seen no real life evidence to even consider them “inferior” irrespective of what any "studies claim.
Mark
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