[quote]tom63 wrote:
The lesssons you learn by lifting and being around strong people are lessons that cannot be debated. they simply work.
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I agree. Now if you’d only said that instead of telling the strong people who started the discussion to “think less.”
I don’t think we disagree on much at all. It’s just your post to train more and think less was a bad way to get your point across and, as another poster above said, it wasn’t needed for those involved in this discussion.
[quote]Chris Shugart wrote:
tom63 wrote:
The lesssons you learn by lifting and being around strong people are lessons that cannot be debated. they simply work.
I agree. Now if you’d only said that instead of telling the strong people who started the discussion to “think less.”
I don’t think we disagree on much at all. It’s just your post to train more and think less was a bad way to get your point across and, as another poster above said, it wasn’t needed for those involved in this discussion.
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Cool! That’s the Shugs I was expecting!
Thanks Chris, for coming through for me.
What set me off was the 98% recruitment level of my quads or whatever. None of the the men I know who squat over 1000 lbs have any idea what their recruitment level of a certain muscle is. It’s majoring in minor things.
While these strength coaches might know what they are talking about, they do not see this person. They do not know his form. his history of injury. Hell, he didn’t mention bodyweight.
As for how long to take to add 100 pounds to a raw. lift. It depends on to many variables. I’ve done it clean coming back form injuries in app. 3 months. Some was regaining lost strenght, some was new strength.
I’ll use Dan Wowack as an example. He started off squatting 165 lbs on the safety squat bar about 5 years ago. A few weeks ago he did 565. He also gained bodyqweight by about 90 lbs in that time. He went from 6’2" and 170 to 360 at the same height. Dan is closing in on an 800 pound squat.
We concentrate on our techique and psuhing up the weights with app. 4 days a wek of traing. We try things and see if it works. We attempt to stay ehalthy. This is where book knowledge is helpful.
I see to many people who worry about the minutia when it is not necessary. We all don’t know how the internal combustion works, but drive cars. Most don’t know the mechanism of various drugs, but they take them. Knowing isn’t doing.
As for increasing relative stength, it’s easy power train and watch what you eat. Look at your weight and height and initial strenght levels. If you can enter a power meet and total class two in your first meet, you can worry about relative strength. If you are not at that level, you need to gain weight. Class two is about intermediate okay, but not very good. Class one is starting to raise notice. Master’s is very good and elite is app. national level to world class level. There aren’t many guys that are drug free that are elite. There are some out there, but that level is about top 10-20 in the nation.
If you want to get stronger, the first thing you need to do is stay healthy. The second thing you need to do is get around a group of guys that can help you correct your form. No disrespect to the men posting here, but I trust Dan Wowack and his expertise more than them. Why? The lessons learned by going from a sub 200 squat to almsot 800 in the time he did it is like getting a PhD in that time. I don’t think any of the coaches are doing what he is doing or has.
And he is actually here with me, watching what I do, not a guy answering a question on the net.
[quote]David Barr wrote:
I’m curious as to how powerlifters get stronger without changing bodyweight.
Before you jump in and say “neural adaptations” consider the following:
-having trained for only 7 years, I had 98% motor unit recruitment in my quads (VL). I have a hard time believing that an elite powerlifter is going to add recruitment for strength
-stimulation frequency is a non-issue once you reach 50Hz
-increased myofibrillar density must come at the expense of some other mass
-increased coordination only goes so far
Looking forward to the replies![/quote]
Regarding raw lifts.
Form (about 10%).
Stabilizing strength and techniques (about 10%)
Reflexive adaptations (decreased inhibition signaling, decreased antagonistic action, dectreased sensitivity to inhibition) about 10%
Just to clarify here. My bench has gone from 285 to 365 over a time, and I have added very little if any muscle during that time period. I have worked on powerlifting style of form. If I went back to my old slight arch, medium grip bench today, I could still knock out 325-335, so actually, about half of my increase has come from form, but also the strength to hold that form. When I fail at a weight for a single, it’s because the weight reaches a point where it causes a form shift.
The other 40 pounds or so has come from tendon, neurological adaptations I suppose, but it doesn’t matter because even if that went up 50 pounds more, I wouldn’t be able to hold form with that weight right now.
Tom,
Thanks for the decent reply. Looks to me to be something in the ballpark of 100 lbs a year, if you aren’t able to recoup previously held muscle and you aren’t approaching your limit. So, as expected, many years of effort will be involved for me to get where I’m going.
Plenty of time to think about something… whether it’s politics, women, sports, nutrition, physics, physiology, or whatnot. Not everyone who lifts is dumb, you have to keep the mind occupied somehow.
Anyway, you will routinely see people here bitching about people that let minutia in the way of their progress, even regular forumites like myself. This is especially true when beginners are trying to find some “magic” method of getting progress.
They get told the basics. Get to the gym, lift, eat, sleep, repeat.
I guess as was said recently, you aren’t wrong, but at the same time, the thread in question is a great place to do some thinking. Other threads are devoted to helping trainees work towards their goals… and that might be a better place to aim the remark, if the thread went off into minutia.
Now, today isn’t a gym day, so where has that “ass worship” thread with all the pics of hot women gotten to…
[quote]Eric Cressey wrote:
4. Motor learning is just the tip of the iceberg; patterns ingraining is a whole other ballgame. Check out this study I posted the other night:
Bennett S, Davids K. The manipulation of vision during the powerlift squat: exploring the boundaries of the specificity of learning hypothesis. Res Q Exerc Sport. 1995 Sep;66(3):210-8.
The available information for controlling a multidegree-of-freedom sport action was manipulated in 2 experiments. In the first, 10 intermediate lifters were participants; for the second, 8 skilled and 8 less skilled lifters were observed. Three single repetitions of a powerlift squat were performed under 3 vision conditions (i.e., full, ambient, no vision). The less skilled and intermediate lifters’ technical performance decreased significantly with the removal of visual information. There was no detrimental effect in the skilled group. Despite the differing information constraints, skilled lifters exhibited a high level of positioning accuracy and timing consistency across conditions. These data fail to support the theoretical predictions of the specificity of learning hypothesis.[/quote]
A thought came to mind when I read this: Maybe these data does support the theoretical predictions of the specificity of learning hypothesis if the reason for the experienced lifters performance was due to acurate memory. i.e. The mind doesn’t really know the difference between reality and imagination or even memory. If the memory of previous lifting was detailed and accurate enough, and used as a visualization during the blind lift, it could replace the visual cues. Just a thought, but it may be wise to account for this possibility.
Rolo.
[quote] The differences between the task constraints in this study and those in manual aiming investigations may represent a boundary to the current propositions of the specificity of learning hypothesis.
Technical mastery is huge.
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