[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
merlin wrote:
Sentoguy wrote:
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Hmmm…while I understand where you’re coming from and what you’re trying to get across, the speed (or at least intention to move the bar at a fast or slow rate) is important in terms of hypertrophy.
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Stress is very important, but, suggesting that the speed at which one attempts to move a bar has no relevance to how much hypertrophy (and also what fibers are recruited) is stimulated isn’t accurate.
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Your example of standing up out of a chair is also a little misleading. Muscle fibers are constantly being damaged, but why then don’t we see people with great glute,hamstring and quad development who only stand up out of chairs?
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The reason is that standing up out of chairs doesn’t place enough stress on the larger more growth responsive fibers. Those are the fibers that need to be stressed and there are several ways to go about stressing them.
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One is heavy lifting, one is lifting to failure, and the last one is lifting fast. If you’re not doing one of those methods and providing your muscles with an overload (more work than they are accustomed to), you’re not going to build the maximal amount of muscle.
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Explosive, or ballistic, contractions have been shown to lower MU recruitment thresholds (just as fatigue does in a RE set), thus causing larger HTMU’s to be recruited at lower percentages of 1RM.
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So, in other words the muscle fibers that are recruited may not care how fast or slow one is attempting to lift a weight, but the nervous system does. And the nervous system decides which fibers to recruit based on the intended speed of the lift. Therefore intentionally lifting slow will stress different muscle fibers than intentionally lifting fast.
Good training,
Sentoguy
Replys:
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Again …lifting speed is a seperate entity & doesn’t factor into the hypertrophy process. Breaking down the contractile proteins does, this does not require a SPEED when training.
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Nobody ever mentioned a thing about fiber recruitment. But, I think that’s where you want to take the idea of a hypertrophy response. Well then, fiber recruitment will have nothing to do with the hypertrophy process, in the sense that it has to be certain fibers or speeds.
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Answer: Real easy …STRESS. If there isn’t a great enough of a stressor placed on the muscle, then the overcompensation will be very little. Still, nothing involving lifting speeds has been of use so far with the exception of fiber recruitment, which is a seperate argument from this one.
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No! The answer is… standing up out of a chair doesn’t involve enough stress, not unless it had some accumulation to it that was done over time and provoked an accumulation of volume response. No response is needed on ANY muscular fiber; rather it be slow or fast twitch, which is all growth responsive. You seem to miss the point that most of your muscles are made up of about half of each type of fibers.
I like the CW ass kissing going on here, but then again …his theorys don’t have much to show for hypertrophy when compared to real world results of historicly proven methods …as opposed to theorys. Even his theorys are proven wrong with real world results, but they make a nice billboard I guess.
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Hmmmm… First TRUE thing you have really typed in the post. I’ll AGREE!
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You seem to want to argue RECRUITMENT, rather then lifting speed & its response to hypertrophy. Recruitment does me no good unless I break the contractile proteins down. I can recruit every strand of every muscle in my body in 1 rep, if the contractile proteins are not broken down and forced to overcompensate …then so much for recruitment. On the other hand, I can recruit barely any fiber at all, but if I cause enough of it to break down …then I create the hypertrophy response.
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Mostly true …although the thought process actually controls recruitment more than most think, regardless of the lifting speed or the load. But yeah, in a general sense that is correct. Trying to move the resiistance slower will involve a different recruitment pattern …less the thought process that already went through the nervous system. Example: If I grab a weight and think beforehand that I’m going to curl it 50 timesl even though I may only be able to do it 25, the thought process helps stimulate which fibers will be needed to complete the task before a weight is even touched. Topic for another thread.
SIDE NOTE As long as you can seperate your ideas of fiber recruitment resulting in more or less hypertrophy, then you’ll be more in tune here. The stress factor you are pretty much overlooking, the guy that stresses his muscle more will overcompensate better than you because he understood the rebuilding process. The recruitment process doesn’t translate to an automatic overcompensation process. Recruitment translates to recruitment, that’s it.
Lifting a weight slowly can or cannot have a hypertrophy response. Lifting a weight fastly can or cannot have a hypertrophy response. More or less hypertrophy in any lift(with regards to speed of the lift) is circumstancial and individual. The problem with CW’s theorys are that they are too generalized, this makes things sound good in theory. In reality it takes more than a theory to actualize a result.
CONCLUSION: You have a good point(recruitment) but it is useless here. Trying to conform to others ideas really just limits your own. Not only that, it falsifies things that you already know as true. Perception of speed, and perception by neurological responses to those speeds & fiber recruitment also come into play here. Hypertrophy is a seperate entity. Don’t mix oil & water …it just creates a big mess.
merlin
Okay, first of all I agreed with you about stress. Stress is important for hypertrophy, never said it wasn’t. We seem to be getting mixed up in semantics. I agree that speed has no bearing on the actual hypertrophy process. But, it can/does have a bearing on the actual muscle size.
I also agree that actual bar speed isn’t as important as the attempt to move the bar with maximal speed. During a 1RM or isometric contraction all muscle fibers/motor units are recruited, and yes actual bar speed is slow. But, honestly ask any competitive powerlifting if they’re actually trying to move a true 1RM slowly, or if they are actually trying to lift it quickly. The reason that it actually appears to be moving slowly is because it requires maximal effort to simply lift it. If one can choose to lift it slowly, then it’s not a true 1RM.
And just for the record I’m not kissing anyone’s ass, I’m simply quoting scientific studies that have been conducted concerning lifting speed and fiber recruitment. And while simply recruiting fibers doesn’t necessarily mean that they will hypertrophy, one must still recruit them if they do want them to hypertrophy.
Why do you think that “more time tested” methods like the repeated effort (failure) method, or maximal effort method cause hypertrophy? And honestly, which would you honestly say places more stress on the fibers? Lifting 400 lbs once, or lifting 200 lbs 15 times to failure? Yet, both methods recruit maximal fibers via different physiological processes. And even though lifting 400 lbs places more stress on the fibers in the short term, the accumulated stress of performing sets of 15 reps with 200 lbs will create more accumulated stress and is a lot less taxing on the CNS (probably why most people choose to use that method for building muscle).
So, accumulated stress can be more important than acute stress for building muscle.
Lifting with speed does recruit maximal fibers, and it’s honestly not rocket science to realize that one could simply use multiple sets to also accumulate a large amount of stress and fatigue to the fibers and thus cause hypertrophy. So, I’d disagree that lifting speed (or at least the attempt to lift a weight fast) has no bearing on maximal hypertrophy/muscle size (although it’s not the only factor).
And if you’re arguing that fiber recruitment isn’t important for maximal hypertrophy/muscle size then, well I’m not sure what to say to that. 
I also never once stated that “more time tested” methods don’t also produce results. Zatsiorsky’s book mentions three methods of maximal fiber recruitment, Westside makes use of all three methods, bodybuilders and strength athletes have been making use of all three methods for decades.
So, in conclusion, fatigue/stress is essential for hypertrophy, but one must still recruit the FT fibers if one seeks maximal hypertrophy/size. Lifting fast is one method of recruiting the largest fibers/MU’s, but like you said, you must also fatigue/stress those fibers if you want them to grow.
Good training,
Sentoguy[/quote]I think I can agree to that entire post, but I did read it rather fast. Yes, semantics seem to get in everyone’s way.
I like CW’s idea of targeting FTMU and trying to cheat fatigue to hit them more(but this is where he makes his mistake, by doing this you cheat the hypertrophy response… think of a sprinter or a hockey player that that does the high stress on his legs in short bursts with fatigue, then takes a quick rest and does it again…this creates the ZONE for hypertrophy, Chad is still in a Strength dominate Zone), I just don’t think he knows the best way to accomplish hypertrophy. He is a strength coach and a neuro-physiologist I believe, he’ll get you strong and possibly you’ll gain some functional strength. But hypertrophy is really not his strongpoint, most of his ideas are well versed in theory and lousy in results or the practicle.
merlin
