RB34
March 28, 2010, 9:22pm
15
Here is what charlie said (from T-nation):
Red muscle fiber is much more energy efficient. Now, I don’t presume to speak for bodybuilders since appearance is all that matters in that arena. But in sport, you’d be better served to reconvert those fibers toward a natural state rather than trying to train them as white fiber. What are we talking about here? High reps! These reps can be done daily as well, because when you do low intensity work you don’t have the 48 hour limitation that you would have on high intensity work.
My athletes don’t do hundreds of repetitions, they do thousands! We try to hit all of the muscles. This brings up another issue. In high performance sport the hip rotates toward the center line, meaning that there are rotational forces involved in the support structures as well. This requires all of the muscles in the abdominal complex to work.
Now, if you were doing high power (low-rep) work with the abdominals, then you could only work them straight ahead, as you would in conventional crunch-type movements or some variation thereof. This means that a large number of the muscles (obliques) would only be exercised through the crossover effect, meaning they wouldn’t be worked directly. They’d only receive some indirect benefits from the work of the muscles in the front.
If, however, you try to use power to develop these other muscles involved in rotational support you’d surely be injured.
Obviously, it’s a complex issue, and the type of training you do varies from sport to sport
I know Dan Pfaff has success with a Weighted Russian Twist series. I think the athlete would have more success including both methods weighted/unweighted instead of 2000 reps of crunches.