I just would like to know why the body gets stronger and how it does it. Why do low reps do the trick? i get the gist of how but i dont really know why? Adam M. explained it to me but i guess i want to know more. does anyone has the answer?
OK, I don't really know what I'm talking about but my limited (and possibly wrong) understanding is this: When you work out with weights, you destroy muscle tissue. The body makes it grow back using protein as a kind of "fuel", and when the muscle fibres have grown back they will be larger and stronger than before. This basically answers your question of how we get stronger. However, there are two types of muscle fibre: "fast twitch" and "slow twitch". Weightlifting helps to develop each of them but different kinds of workout vary the emphasis on fast/slow twitch. With a heavy weight, you need to exert a more forceful push to shove it in its intended direction. This means you use the "fast twitch" muscle fibres for that quick exertion of force. If you do light weights with high reps, you use mainly "slow twitch" muscle fibres, so you improve endurance in your muscles by wearing them out in your workouts rather than improving their pushing power. P.S. I only know this because Adam M explained it to me too
Yeah I'm not into weight lifting or body building so this post is just from common knowledge that I'm assuming is right. After a good workout session the next morning you theoreticaly should be sore as sin. That's the destroyed tissues telling ya that they're buggered. Having lots of protein helps grown them back quicker, bigger and stronger. I think it's a similair principle with bone tissue aswell...replacing protien with calcium. That's how the theory on shin contidioning works...etc.
The thing is, its not about doing 'low reps' its about using enough weight so that you can only do low reps. If you can do a high number (20+) then the weight isnt heavy enough to provide you with the level of resistance you need to cause hypertrophy (increase in muscle size). So basically, you can either do low reps with a high weight (increasing strength or explosive power if u lift them quickly), or low weights with high reps, which improves your muscular endurance and slow twitch muscle fibres. Both have positive effects, so when you go into weight training, have an idea of what you need, and thus how best to acheive it, not just 'i wanna get stronger,' cos u'll get nowhere
A more recent concept than the tearing down and rebuilding of muscles is stimulation. This holds that, while damage is inevitably caused along the Z-lines etc, what causes the muscle to grow is just the loading. The muscle responds to heavy use by hypertrophy, and doesn't necessarily have to be torn to shreds before it will grow. Another issue is the nervous system- a lot of the responses to your training, at least initially, will be due to your nervous system adapting to the load and NOT your muscles.
Correct - this is responsible for the rapid gains made when people first start to lift weights. They simply get better at lifting weights rather than actually getting that much stronger. When the rate of progress slows down, then the real gains are to be made. Sadly this is where most people give up.
The body adapts plain and simple. The heavier the weights you lift, the more the muscles will grow to adapt.
When you do heavy stuff, your body has to work hard. It uses what it has available to do the work. If there are clumps of muscles in various parts of your body that are already strong, the body uses those already strong areas to do the hard work. What this can do is cause a person to build themselves up in a crooked way. If they are crooked, then lift weights, they become strong but in a crooked way. With Tai Chi or low reps, there is a different idea going on. The body has area's where it is strong and weak. Tai Chi etc, in my opinion, is designed to strengthen these weak areas. After all, they need it. Why do the strong areas need to be stronger? You want your body to be a balanced strong all over. You want to be straight. Tai Chi and soft stuff or low weights "teases" these weak areas into becoming strong. The effort is so low that these weak areas can be included in the exercise. If strength hits this weak areas, they give up and the strong areas of the body take over. You can look at your body sort of like a head of hair. If you brush your hair, the top of your hair looks nice and neat. But underneath it might be messy. If you comb your hair, the comb is more stiff so it goes all the way down to the scalp and gets all of the hair to go in the right way. Heavy stuff is like using a brush on only the top layers, the easy to reach layers. Easy stuff is like reaching way underneath with a comb to get those messy hairs to go the right way. That is why internal martial arts take 3 years to get strong. You are reaching way down inside of yourself and gathering all the weak muscles. Basically you spend 3 years finding out where all of your muscles etc are, then you begin to build strength. External guys take the obvious muscles they already have control over and make those very very strong.
While I appreciate the analogy, the thinking is off. I also am not sure why you brought in the Tai Chi examples so extensively, this had nothing to do with IMA. Particulary this thread had nothing to do with IMA vs EMA and their effectiveness at CNS and muscle recruitment. Soft weights or light weights will not tease the body into becoming strong, only tease the lifter into thinking that they may become strong. The exception being in explosive or ballistic movements. If you want to use low weights, then use them in context with a program that involves maximal lifting also. Off the top of my head, there are a number of effective programs that have one day maximal and one day endurance. Heavy lifting will not neglect the weaker areas but will work the entire body much more than light lifting. With respect to strength indiscrepencies through various muscle groups, accessory lifts take the place to clear this up. But even saying that if my training focuses around cleans, squats, push presses, benching, rows, deads, chins, and dips then I'm not going to have to many weak points to worry about. Power lifters focus on three exercises:squats, bench, and deads and will employ various supplemental movements to bring up their delts, triceps, and posterior chain if it should be lacking. Lifting heavy=getting strong (I'm attempting to swing this thread back) and that's why it's a lot more beneficial to lift heavy than light.
No, woodrow, tai chi isn't a strength workout by any stretch of the imagination. At best, it's good cardio. Utter rubbish. The 'weak muscles' as you put it are used perfectly well in compound movements.
What I wanted to say ^^^ It's a combination of all the aforementioned effects. Low reps simply gives a high enough load to stimulate both neural and the right kind of growth for maximal strength, rather than lots of submaximal efforts like 8-12 reps for bodybuilders, who tend to work more towards failure for maximum protein breakdown and therefore more growth than strength.
is that really all there is to it? I thought it was much more complicated, what with how many differant variations people are making now.
People like "complicated" - they like "This month's new super workout" when in reality what they NEED is to get their ass in the gym and lift big weights.
Right on. Im surprised that mens health, muscle and fitness and all those types of magzines for Tshirt bodybuilders can still sell after all these year. Lift big and get strong and dont worry about blasting your abs, building sexy shoulders, getting the ultimate back, getting big guns. Stop reading that stuff and start doing it...FOR REAL AND NOT JUST PRETENDING LIKE YOU USUALLY DO. (*please note that there are good points to these mags, its just that (IME) most people who buy them are Tshirt bodybuilders who go into gyms and the first thing they do is biceps curls...then start doing static stretches n their legsto "warm up".....GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR)
Yup, a lot of people have what Thib calls the "mirror complex"; that is, training just what you see in the mirror. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see Muscle and Fitness actually covering an article on how to bench big and they prescribed something along the lines of 12X2 and 10X3. This was a far cry from their usual regurgetated workouts and left me with hope that the article will actually lead people to scratch their head in wonder about these parameters and seek out information that will lead them to getting strong. I'm sure they'll be back to their old antics next month.
That reminds me of what one of my new favorite strength coaches, Dan John, summarized in his 10 commandments of weight-training: "Put the bar on the floor, then pick it up a bunch of different ways." It's not rocket surgery or brain science, folks. Or, as I've said before, 'It's only as complicated as it needs to be.' Beginners (and at least 75% of people currently lifting, no matter their experience) don't need much in the way of fancy technique or program tricks. Solid, honest work will do wonders. Only after a certain point of progress do we need to start considering things like intraset tempo variation, long-term periodized mesocycles, and learning the standing swiss ball front squat with double sandbags.
