Not Getting This Strength Concept

Training Powerlifting
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Been reading Power to the People by Pavel, and am gonna try a cycle or two of the program.

The basic component thats different than anything else ive done, is the concept of dynamic tension, or feed-forward tension, which is basically like a maximal isometric but through a range of motion. These techniques are supposed to overide various neural inhibitions, which will allow for greater strength.

Pavel recomends using this technique with weights, so that every rep generates maximal force.

Hers a picture to try to illustrate:

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So thats a pretty bad picture, and i cant make it bigger, but basically in the first picture, its a max rep with 100 lbs, and thus the bicep muscle must contract greater than 100lbs.

The second picture, is a submax weight with the dynamic tension method. The weight is 75lbs, and the tricep muscle exerts about 25lbs of force, so the bicep muscle still must exert greater than 100lbs of force.

In theory this concept sounds great, because regardless of the weight your using, your always getting maximal motor unit recruitement.

Next i was wondering how the speed of a rep affects MU recruitement.

Pavel says to make your submax loads like there max loads, and thus since maxing might take 3-5 seconds to lockout, a submax rep should take 3-5 seconds.

Can you create maximal tension, or maximal MU recruitement in say 2 seconds, or is this not usually possible?

Im wondering this, because if you do reps to fast, you may not be getting maximal tension and maximal MU recruitement, while if you take to long for a rep, you may start to fatigue, and force will drop off. The program is sets of 5, performed with a short rest in between reps. But still if your contracting maximally, thats very similar to trying to max five times in a row.

Also, is this concept widely used in the strenght community? I didn’t see anything about it on the westside site.

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I don’t know pavels theories or if he means what you are saying, but the theory you just posted is mighty flawed.

This whole maximum recuitment shit seems to have T-Nation in a huge bind.

The best way to get maximum recruitment is to pump yourself full of adrenaline and lift weights while somebody has a gun to your head. When they tell you to lift the weight I’m sure you will pick it up a whole lot faster then 2 seconds. So any theory that says the only way you can get maximum recruitment is with over 2 seconds is false.

Being that the rest of the theories seemed based on similar falacies to RJ’s thread you should check out the thread ‘Discussing CW’s methods’.

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Pavel was talking about de-inhibition of the golgi tendon organs, which will shut down the neural feed to a muscle if they sense a weight is too heavy in order to avoid injury. However, for whatever reason, the GTO’s don’t fire during self-resisted efforts - such as when you tense your arm to the greatest degree possible a.k.a “flexing.”

His theory may be flawed. I haven’t read any contradicting studies, but some authors on the T-Nation site say it doesn’t work that way.

So he’s combining flexing and lifting weight with the muscle you want to train to immediately dis-inhibit it and also to condition it to accept more weight in future sessions.

However, heavy partial movements accomplish the same thing without having to concentrate so much or burn the extra energy in my opinion.

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Thanks for clearing that up. That is quite different from dankids explanation. I wasn’t saying what Pavel said was flawed just the theories the way dankid explained it.

Pavel’s theory still doesn’t make sense to me but it’s a bit more difficult to disprove since he is using the excitation of the golgi tendon as the foundation. I haven’t seen any medical information stating how the golgi tendon reacts to static contration. So I can’t see how Pavel would know this but to each his own.

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I think Pavel’s main idea is simply about keeping tight (as it has affected my training). Simply keeping the abs braced, squeezing my buttcheeks (seriously) and gripping the bar tight helps me to stay tight when I lift, which helps me to lift more (I am still terribly weak though)

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[quote]ah_dut wrote:
I think Pavel’s main idea is simply about keeping tight (as it has affected my training). Simply keeping the abs braced, squeezing my buttcheeks (seriously) and gripping the bar tight helps me to stay tight when I lift, which helps me to lift more (I am still terribly weak though)[/quote]

That’s the idea of irradiation - that by contracting more muscle than is acutally being used to lift the weight the nerve impulse to the target muscle is increased - faster rate coding, more strength. My experience seems to prove that concept. Seems to work when I’m using my CoC grippers…

Even if I’m not squeezing them with my butt.

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we used to use dynamic tension back when i was in martial arts…and its very much different than just squeezing glutes on a set of deadlifts or something

for what we did, was slow-moderate speeds, but we’d tense every muscle in our body the entire time and Forcefully breath out through pursed lips

-our club wasnt as tough as his by any means, but my old teacher used to do this and they would smash them with staffs and stuff over top of all their body parts at random, so they’d have to keep everything tight, ie-they wouldnt know where or when, and then bam, another hit (just to give the idea of how tense you were supposed to be forcing everything, not just flexing certain parts)

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i just finished power to the people and beyond bodybuilding not to long ago. i believe the analogy he gives is " you wouldnt get a ferrari to tow your vehicle out of the ditch, youd get a tow truck. what makes a powerlifter is the presense of a slow gear"(and i believe he says mark henry said this)…I think these are meant to teach you grinding style reps like you grind in a max.

Also i believe Poliquin talks something a bout developing strength in bost fast tempos and slow tempos for maximum strength gains in the Poliquin principles. Anyway i gave it a try and was fairly impressed with the results after 4 weeks

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Thanks guys, im understanding the concepts more now, and did some research and strength training.

Im not a powerlifter, and wont be maxing much, so i think im gonna build slow grinding strength as well as faster accelerative strength.

Im doing the PTP program, with a wave cycle, and every time it waves down, im gonna use the dynamic tension method, and when the weight is heavy, im gonna use a supra-maximal hold prior to the lift.

Other than that, im gonna practice my form for deadlifts using dynamic tension and no weight, other than a broom handle, just to learn more how to stay tight, and grind.