But thats assuming progression for the sake of progression.
Assuming I can go from 90+ band being hard, to 100+ band being easy.
Might aswell assume I can go from 100raw no band being hard, to 110 raw no band bein easy. That would also probably improve my 1RM.
Its possible that that approach could work.
But the guys who have spent 20+ years using bands don’t use that approach.
The idea isn’t to get a heavier press against bands, it’s to get a faster rate of force production. Louie says to use light weights, 50%, and keep the bar weight the same. Use the light weight to get the benefit of light weight, but put the accomodating resistance on there to get more benefits.
If you did a heavy bench + light bands to test your strength, then sometime latter did a heavier bench + light bands to see if you got stronger, that could be useful.
But people often turn up on this forum talking about how weeks of heavy benches + heavy bands made their benches worse.
In my opinion, you are unnecessarily dealing with “insignificant” facts in the training plan. I like the fact that you are discussing, but you just need to select Prilepin’s table as a training template and you will have several trails solved. Then just learn the basic characteristics of block or wave periodization and you have almost perfect training. I think it’s good to think about the training plan in a broader context, but you don’t need a lot of new training trends.
If you want to have bands at any price in the training plan, use them only rarely. It’s wrong if you think they will help you in raw strength.
This is a large part of it, also the fact that your will naturally decelerate the bar in the upper portion of the lift but accommodating resistance will cause you to avoid that. With bands there is also a thing called overspeed eccentric, which is the idea that the bar will descend faster than with straight weight (or chains) due to the fact that the bands are applying another sort of tension in addition to gravity. Apparently this has an effect on the stretch reflex as well. Another thing is that it provides an overload to the top of the lift, you get used to handling heavier weight. Reverse bands give more of a psychological effect since you can put more than your max on the bar, but the physical effects are similar.
Some other reasons for accommodating resistance - if you have a tendency to tip forward on squats this will teach you not to do it, you very quickly learn that the lift will be harder if you tip forward. It’s like getting a kick in the ass every time you fuck up. If you deadlift with a rounded back and fail heavy lifts because you can’t extend your back then accommodating resistance will help with that without having to perform maximal lifts. Some raw bencher do fail in the upper portion or at lockout, look at Julius Maddox, James Strickland, or Jeremy Hoornstra. Even if you don’t, close grip bench with bands is a good way to target your triceps and still get a full ROM rather than board presses and such.
Mike Tuchscherer recently said in a video that he is doing some shirted benching to improve his raw bench. I have heard of several guys increasing their bench by doing shirted work and/or heavy slingshot work. There are neural factors involved, and there is also the fact that the triceps become more involved in the bench press the closer you are to your 1rm.
In my opinion, you are failing to see the entire picture!
We’re not talking about bands and heavier lock-outs. We’re talking about how to get more force!
If you’re not supposed to develop different strengths and qualities, why would you even divide your training into blocks?!
Tell me about this increased Tricep activation. That seems interesting. What causes that? How should we use this in training?
It won’t hurt, and getting used to handling weights in excess of your 1rm can have some positive effects as well.
It’s usually easier to progress on variations that on the competition lifts. If you can do nothing but the comp lifts and make progress then that’s great but it doesn’t usually work like that.
A couple other things to consider (not just for you but everyone reading this): Accommodating resistance and overload work need to be used sparingly, too much will burn you out faster than lifting with straight weight. You also need to do the lifts with straight weight or you will begin to fail at the bottom (if you don’t already). Also, the coaches I see programming accommodating resistance for raw lifters aren’t using a ton like the do at Westside were the band tension often exceed bar weight. 15-25% of bar weight is an appropriate amount for raw lifters.
Greg Nuckols posted something on facebook a while back about this, there was a study that found tricep EMG activity to increase as %1rm increased. Just train your triceps, that’s all you have to do. A couple years ago I got caught up in the idea that you don’t need top end strength as a raw lifter and I already had relatively big triceps so I was focusing all my efforts on building strength off the chest, I didn’t get far like that and when I started doing more tricep-focused work my bench got moving again. You need to work on the bottom and the top.
Because the block distribution of strength training has many scientific confirmations and is used across many sports…Of course, if you are a bodybuilder, you will train differently.
And eventually, I’m sorry, I’m not a native English speaker, so it takes a little longer to I understand the English-written text.
It’s also possible to set things up in such a way that makes your technique worse. Slack at the bottom and too much tension at the top distorts technique. I jammed up my back 2-3 months ago Deadlifting from rack this way.
Too much tension is bad on joints. Look at poor Dave Tate and his hip/shoulder replacements.
But correct Accommodation is good. Check out Dave Tate, and his extensive use of chains when he squats.
Multi-ply lifting, overuse injuries, and random stupid shit. He said in one video that he once showed up late to a squat session at Westside and they already had 4 plates on the bar. He wanted to warm up but Louie was like “if you can’t walk in here and squat 4 plates then you should even be training with us!”, so he squatted it and didn’t feel so great after.
Exactly as Chris writes, I think Tate has good advices only for multi EQ lifting.
Tate has many well know stories about how Not to train. The tale of chain suspended SSB Goodmornings comes immediately to mind.
But the dude KNOWS how to structure a training session. Check out the TNation article “The Periodization Bible, Part 2.” If you’re not into Westside Vodoo, simply disregard every part of the article that mentions big barbell lifts, and do everything else. It’s legit.
Tate also has great advice about coming back from injuries. Great advice about changing your mind-set and methods when your goals change. Great insight about what he would have done different, and how you can avoid his mistakes. Also a great attitude about spreading info from experts.
Lately dude has been a little internet personality hard-core, but everyone could learn a ton from Tate’s TNation articles and his site.
But anyway, back on track.
It all goes back to what Lee Haney said. Stimulate, don’t Annihilate.
We want to train tendons and muscles, not rip them off. Improve technique, not grind it away. Gain muscle vs not gain muscle?
Instead of killing Progressive Overload, only on top weights, how can we get stimulated by less heavy weights. And how can we stack the heavy and light together, to make double progress? Or triple progress?
My understanding is that everything revolves around “size principle” of motor unit recruitment in that motor units are recruited in order of size, smallest to largest but as size of motor unit increases so too does it fatiguability. However, a motor unit that is recruited but not fatigued is not trained. Heavy training recruits the largest motor units but these fatigue quickly leaving smaller units not fatigued. Using lighter days with higher reps will fatigue some of these smaller units and cause them to grow along with the larger units recruited on heavy days.
There are other factors involved as well but as far as I can see that’s as good a reason as any to alter training parameters much as heavy and light days to promote more adaptation.
You can also do lighter high rep stuff after your heavy lifts.
Yes, science stuff is confusing. After reading a little, it looks like the lab coats don’t fully understand muscle contraction yet, either.
But if some training Works, and science can vaguely explain it, that’s good enough for me.
Interesting about the size priciple. Heavy lifting, Most recruitment, but countered by quick fatigue.
Golgi tendon reflex, muscle stretching inhibits contraction. Countered by the Stretch Shortening Cycle, where lengething the muscle Increases activation.
Faster lowering and reversing increases force production.
But slow lowering and slower amortization allows for more time for energy to be absorbed and reversed.
Everything has an opposite. Like Ike Newtons 3rd maybe possibly good idea of motion.
The Stretch Reflex
Posted by Louie Simmons
"Dave Yarnell wrote a great tribute to the Culver City Westside Barbell club and its connections with the Columbus, Ohio, Westside club. There is, of course, a lot about box squatting. We feel there is only one method to box squat, but many have these less effective methods. On the subject of the stretch reflex, however, someone said that the stretch reflex does not last four seconds as a study by Wilson (1990) states.
I wrote a study with the use of a tendo unit on both eccentric and concentric phases. With all top ten lifters including two world-record holders. Two groups, one for speed strength where the velocity is about 0.8 m/s and near-maximal where the bar velocity was 0.4-0.5 m/s. I stated that I could sit on the box for eight seconds and concentrically rise at close to the speed of the eccentric phase. Dave Tate could do the same for five seconds.
A Pete said the stretch reflex lasts only 0.025 seconds and I was incorrect due to the study by Siff and Verkhoshansky (1998).
First, I believe Pete is referring to an amortization phase for a plyometric action. The box squat is not an example of a plyometric action. The length of the amortization phase when lowering very heavy weights will not be immediate as in a plyometric action, where the delay can be as short as 0.15 seconds between the eccentric and a subsequent concentric contraction. A study by Wilson (1990) concluded that while bench pressing, the stretch would last up to four seconds. At that point all started elastic energy is lost.
Other studies by Chapman and Caldwell (1985) found it to be the same as Pete—0.25 seconds and the plyometric action is lost. But, in 1982 Bosco found how both could be correct. He found that those with a very high rate of fast-twitch fiber would lose the rebound. This would explain why Tate could only hold the position for five seconds while I held it for eight seconds. A second factor could be joint mobility and the maximum delays for each joint action.
While Chapman and Caldwell tested the forearm, the box squat done the Westside way is a multi-joint activity, where there is stored elastic energy in all three simultaneously. As you can imagine, the mass of knees, hips, and back would hold many times the amount of forearm action.
I don’t know whose forearm was tested, but our study was with several world record holders. The age of our participants was 22 to 50 years. The author was 50 at the time of the study and had the second highest squat on the top 10. This means the group was very talented, not merely students or novices. This could explain the results.
When depth jumps are performed, the reversible muscular action is limited to the feet.
But, when box squatting, according to physical principles, the amount of stored energy is proportional to the applied force and the induced deformation. Deformation is the stretch shortening cycle during the support phase while running.
The same stretch-shortening cycle happens during the support while sitting on the box. There are many reasons to box squat, but think about why Westside releases the hip muscles after coming into contact. Let’s compare the mass of your foot while running, then the mass of your body sitting on a box. Wait, there is no comparison.
We know that the stiffness of a tendon is constant, but the stiffness of a muscle can vary depending on the forces exerted. Elite athletes like the ones in the Westside study, have found ways to use this stored elastic energy for overcoming a large load while sitting on the box.
Most of our training is a combination of bar weight plus elastic bands, which sometimes are greater than the amount of weight on the barbell. The bands are pulling the barbell down at a faster rate than lowering just barbell weight. This produces a greater stretch reflex due to causing a faster eccentric phase.
Now let’s look at elasticity and Hooke’s law. Hooke’s law states that the amount of deformation produced by a force is proportional to the amount of force. Now, clear your mind and think about Hooke’s law and box squatting concerning deformation.
If the amount of deformation produced by a force is proportional to the amount of force, what if you have a very strong man producing great force downward on a basketball causing great deformation, caused by the flattening on the bottom of the ball. Then suddenly, sliding his hands off the ball, it would rebound upward due to its elasticity properties.
A similar action happens when one slowly releases muscle while sitting on the box. Both will switch from an eccentric or lowering to concentric rising. The box squat uses a combination of the two greatest methods of strength training: Relaxed overcome by a dynamic action and static overcome by a dynamic action. While the muscles are relaxing, the tendons are maximally loaded. This is a skill and it must be learned correctly.
This is also why Westside achieves great results by sitting on a box. Just like box squatting, but when rocking back, pick the feet up and slam them down while rocking forward during the jump phase while box jumping.
I hope this explains how one can sit on a box for a long time period and concentrically raise at the same rate of speed as touching and going method.
There is much information in super-training about reversible strength. On page 219 there is a training device that lets a barbell fall. The athlete must first stop it from falling and immediately throw it upward. The idea is that the muscular force developed at the instant of going from eccentric to concentric work will be greater for a shorter amortization phase and a shorter braking time.
But if you constantly add weight to the falling bar, the amortization phase will be longer and longer. To build kinetic energy in the body it is best to add velocity, not mass. But one truly amazing method is the static overcome by dynamic method. Westside had developed a training device that’s purpose is to build maximal muscle tension on a non-moveable bar.
The bar can be loaded to any weight but for explosive strength use 30 to 40 percent of a 1RM at any position from the bottom to near the top. To perform a rep, pull or push on the bar while it is locked in place for two to six seconds as powerfully as possible. Now by releasing a brake, the light load will explode upwardly at high velocity. It can be held for a longer period if breath is not held. There is no eccentric phase to this method, yet one can overcome the load on the barbell at great velocity.
When box squatting, the eccentric concentric phase is broken. This can explain why even after sitting on the box for sometime, a rapid concentric action is possible.
I hope the examples I have shown will explain how we could maintain the same concentric speed after a long pause up to eight seconds compared to a one second pause."
The problem that I see here is that the Westside guys only box squat anyway so perhaps their stretch reflexes are not developed in the same way as someone who uses regular squats or does no box squats at all. They need a control group of non-westsiders. I don’t think this is correct at all because if it were then you should be able to pause squat just as much as you squat without a pause (and no box) and we all know that it is not so.
Personally, I think Simmons is really overestimating efficiency of the box squat.
Their effectiveness is only suitable for American football players, strongmen or Olympic athletes.