Sid the demented kid next door would have cut the cams off it, ha ha!
I love Nautilus but from experience of having just about every machine but that one I know it would have made absolutely no difference in my bicep!
Scott
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Hi,
How much are you asking for the compound biceps machine ? Where are you located?
Thank you
Is your nautilus compound biceps machine still for sale? How much are you asking ?
Hey Mike, he was in Sarasota, asking 10k. Its on CL , listed as awaiting pickup
$10,000 for an old bicep machine! That is more like rare antique pricing, than surplus equipment pricing…
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That particular machine is one of the ones that is also a rare antique. Cant remember the last one i’ve seen come up.
10k sarasota fl
Thanks Matt. Thats out of my price range, lol
From an article I read.
- Maximal shortening of a muscle does not lead to a high force production.
Many experts refer to this as the position of full contraction, but it actually is the position of full shortening for an exercise. For example, this occurs at the top of a curl when the biceps begin to smash against your forearm, especially if you lift your elbows. This shortens the biceps over both the elbow and the shoulder blade.
Instead of acting as the best position, and trainees will often purposely squeeze for up to a few seconds here, it actually ranks the weakest position that creates the least tension. Tension is the main stimulus for more size and strength.
A poor exercise has the weight feel heavier in this position. Many machines modify the mechanics to make this position harder, making the movement worse.
Scott
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One reason I brought up the above article was the idea of squeezing the the muscle in the contracted position. Often times when I get to the contracted position of an exercise I pause a second and squeeze hard in that position to try and feel the muscle more. I’m wondering if maybe that’s not a good idea as that’s a weak position of the movement or maybe the muscle is more susceptible to injury in that position?
Scott
I guess some people like the feel they get from trying to contract a muscle in the fully shortened position. I’ve read things which suggest some people feel a sensation of cramping in that position, which they interpret as being something useful or productive. But the physiology seems pretty clear at this point: adaptations are triggered by high muscle tension, and you can produce the most tension in the muscle in the middle range of contraction. Note, however, the middle range of the contraction is not necessarily where you are strongest due to leverage considerations. That is just where the muscle is capable of producing the most tension.
In the case of the bicep curl with free weights, the middle range of the movement puts the arm at about a 90 degree angle. That is where the muscle can produce the most tension. However you are also at the position of maximum moment arm - the most unfavorable leverage. As you curl further up, the movement gets easier because more of the weight is supported by the bones of the forearm.
With a curl machine, where you apply force tangentially to the movement over the entire range of motion, that kind of transfer of force onto the skeleton doesn’t happen. But then you have to have a cam that produces a fall off in force, otherwise, you would have trouble completing the rest of the movement.
edit: The link below is to a paper where someone measured the strength curve for the bicep curl, and compared it to a 3rd generation Nautilus bicep machine. The nautilus cam was too flat - excessively heavily - at both ends of the movement (Figure 4).
Isn’t that what Dardens recommendation is with 30-10-30…pause and contract the muscle during the 10 reps???
Question and a comment. Which machine are they calling 3rd Gen? Would that maybe be Next Gen? And I’d much prefer a study using MedX as a measuring tool. It has been shown to be the most accurate. Cybex for a long time was the only one, it has been shown to not be very accurate. I want to try finding some of those cited articles, interesting stuff!
I thought that, for 30-10-30, he recommended a 1-2 cadence. That is pretty fast, and wouldn’t allow much time for deliberate pause.
The paper was published in 1999, so it would have been a model in circulation by the late 90’s. Maybe that would narrow it down?
I thought it was pretty well established that Jone’s early cams were too aggressive in the contracted position. I don’t know when they started to change that, or if Jones was even involved. But the data in that study is consistent with an aggressive cam in the finish position.
I do have a vague recollection that the nautilus bicep machine I used long ago (1980’s) felt too heavy in the starting position. I recall that if I straightened my elbows out flat and laid them on the pad, it was pretty hard to start the movement. In hindsight I understand why. The bicep is very weak at that point.
What I typically end up doing on most bicep machines is pull back the resistance arm as I slide my elbows into position, so that I can start the movement with 10 or 20 degrees of elbow bend. I think most of the macines that I have used are not really built to allow you to start the movement with a completely straight arm.
Moment arms and all that stuff aside and the fact that to many it feels good is it really to ones advantage to pause and tense the muscle at the shortened or contracted position or are we wasting our effort because it really doesn’t help at digging a deeper inroad ? I always want to pause in the contracted position thinking it’s really working that muscle much harder but is it? Maybe it’s effort wasted?
Scott
I really dont see how holding a contraction for a second can be harmful or detrimental. Helpful? Possibly, so i’ll keep doing it on some exercises
In the Compound Biceps article, Hutchins in describing the biceps curl with your back and butt against a pole using a bar to Pause and then hard, squeezed pauses commencing at rep 3, no sooner, known as the squeeze technique. I tried his technique with an EZ Curl bar, my biceps got really sore.
I didn’t use Super Slow rep speed. About 3/3 or 4/4.
I think it was a 1 second pause to squeeze the muscles at contraction