Cheating Works
One of the keys for hypertrophy and strength is intensity. That means at some point pushing the movement to failure or close to it.
Muscle Fatigue
As you near muscle fatigue, Technique falters and changes. That’s the downside.
The upside is that as you near fatigue, a greater number of muscle fiber are innervated, Muscle fiber that are worked grow in size and strength.
Dr Jake Wilson (formerly with the Human Performance Lab at the University of Tampa) stated that maximizing effort and getting the weight up at all cost is an effective at increasing muscle mass and strength.
Exercise Overload
For hypertrophy and strength, overloading the muscle in an exercise is necessary.
Ironically, only 30% of an exercise overloads the muscle in an exercise.
That means that approximately 70% of an exercise Underloads the muscle; thereby not engaging and working the majority of the muscle fiber. No work, no growth.
This brings us to…
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Exercise Strength Curves
Exercise fall into three different type of strength curves.
- Ascending Strength Curve: These exercise are hard at the bottom and easy at the top. Thus, they overload the bottom part of the movement but not the top.
Examples: Squats, All Pressing Exercises, Deadlifts, Leg Press, etc.
What works with these movement is “Accommodating Resistance Training”, band and/or chains.
Attaching chains and or bands ensures muscle overload is maintain through a greater range of the movement.
- Descending Strength Curve: These movement are easy at the beginning and hard at the end of the movement.
Exercise Examples: Primarily Compound Pulling Exercises such as Lat Pulldowns, Bent Over Rows, etc.
That mean to fully work the end of the range of let’s say a Bent Over Row, a lighter load must be used.
However, “Cheat The Weight Up” with momentum allows you to overload the end of the range of the Bent Over Row with much greater load and intensity.
An empirical example of the result produced by this type of “Cheating Method” is…
This method ensure the posterior chain (Lats, Traps, Rhomboids, Rear Delts, etc) are maximally overloaded.
- Bell Shaped Strength Curve: These movement are easy at the beginning and end of the range of the movement. They are hard in the middle range.
Examples: Primarily single joint exercise such as Triceps Pushdown and Curls.
“Cheating The Weight Up” allows you to overload the initial part of the movement and the end of the range, as well.
When Cheating Is Bad
Technique falls apart when muscle fatigue sets in. Continuing to push/pull the weight up at all cost ensure you develop poor technique.
Developing Technique
Technique is best developed under the following conditions.
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Performed when fresh, at the beginning of a training program.
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Preformed for 1 to 2 reps per set with loads of 80% plus of your 1 Repetition Max.
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Rest Period between Technique Sets need to be 3 minutes plus.
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Once muscle fatigue sets in, STOP.
Research has demonstrated two things…
a) Muscle Fatigue changes your technique. The focus is on getting the weight up any way you can at the cost of technique.
b) When your technique changes, the muscle firing sequence changes, as well. Different muscle are used.
Squat Example: With some Squatters, once their legs fatigue, lifters often end up performing a “Good Morning Squat”, falling forward and Good Morning up the weight.
Bench Press Example. When the muscle fatigue, some lifter have uneven extension when finishing the lift. One arm leads while the other arm fall behind.
A right handed lifter’s arm often falls back, while the left one lead in driving the weight up.
The misconception is the a right handed lifter has a weaker right arm, which is untrue.
The right arm is the dominate, stronger. By dropping back it decreases the load on the left arm. That means the right arm end up pushing more weight than the left to get the weight up.
Westside Powerlifting
This method allows you to increase strength and size while maintaining great technique.
- Auxiliary Exercises: Exercise similar in nature to the Squat, Bench Press and Deadlift are used to develop strength and size.
Auxiliary Exercise are “Disposable”. You push them to the limit during some part of your training cycle, getting the weight up at all cost.
Then the Auxiliary Exercise is disposed of and replace by another that is similar in nature.
Squat Example: Preform High Bar Squat, then Zercher Squats.
- Technique Training: Utilize the recommendation stated above.
Kenny Croxdale