What are you talking about? Your information is slightly correct. Golgi tendon organs are receptors within the tendons that inhibit, not relax, the agonist muscle. They monitor the tension placed on the tendon, and when that tension becomes too much, they inhibit the firing of additional muscle fibers to prevent injury. The muscle still contracts, but to a lesser extent. I’m not sure if I understood the statment:
“Now even if you reduce the weight substantially you just can’t lift it because the muscles refuse to contract!”
Are you saying that the muscle stays inactive even after the weight is removed and you replace it with another weight?
This “resetting” of the GTO’s is caused because the tendons are strengthened and can withstand greater tension. Due to this, the GTO is stimulated at a higher loading and the muscle now has less of a risk to experience injury.
“The question is do you really need to?” You said that you even use them in your regime, so you know that they are a great tool to increase work capacity. The GTO is a protective mechanism, but like I stated previously, as the body’s capacities increase the risk of injury decreases. The GTO is not resetting because of the eccentric training, they reset because the tendon is stronger and can handle greater tension. The body has the incredible ability to adapt to stress to prevent injury. In essence, this is the basis of all training. Any exercise can be dangerous without proper instruction and technique.
But will heavy eccentric work improve peak velocity sprint speed? What is more important, limit strength, reactive strength, or explosive strength?(For sprinting 100m.) Also, if it takes someone 2 years to add 30 kilos to their bench from 180 to 210kg, then this is no more impressive than results that have been obtained by more traditional methods by some people. Also, despite the high recruitment of fast twitch from eccentric contraction, numerous studies have suggested LOSS of type 2b and conversion to slower type fibre/s from intense eccentric training.
No arguments here. A sprinter would definitely want to avoid heavy eccentric training during the SPP phase. They would, however, fit great into the absolute strength phase of the macrocycle.
This all depends on the tempo of the action. A slow high load eccentric will recruit a majority of the muscle fibers, especially the fast twitch due to the high load. Prolonged stimulation of these fibers will cause adaptation towards slow contractile properties. Quicker tempo eccentrics will not cause as much adaptation, but rather will increase the amortization capabilities of the given muscle (or the ability of the muscle structures to absorb force).
Deffinately agreed and Westside barbell crew are particularly fond of their faster eccentric contraction with bands /lighter weight (0.52 sec av) than without (often 3 seconds, and without deliberately trying for a long eccentric action.)
I disagree with this somewhat! How much possible fiber conversion takes place with just 1-4 total eccentric loading days in a 12 week SPP? Answer: NOT MANY! You would only do the Eccentrics in week 3 of a 4 week mesocyle and you would only do the lift on the Friday so you could give yourself 3 days to recover before the Monday session and Mondays session would be a regeneration week with intensity between 80-85%! You could in week 3 also do eccentric loading on MON and FRI but that would mean cutting out one sprint session on the WED. In any case you would only do the eccentrics on 2 out of the 12 week SPP, you would not do them in the competition phases which is another 3 weeks, or in the recovery week, or in the short GPP before SPP II! So doing eccentrics 2 weeks out of a total possible of 25 weeks in GPP I/SPP I/COMP I/GPP II will not change your FT fibers into ST!!! Especially since your are doing plyo’s and explosive medicine ball work in the CFTS!
Also look at the post below, I have always stressed this, that athletes should not be doing eccentric loading in gym exercises if that have not stagnated yet! They could get injured bc their tendons/ligaments have not adapted to regular ecc-con strength lifting! However, I am against the opinion of using loads of 100-180% of 1RM I the literature I have read it appears that this figure should be 100-140% for eccentric loading! Also if your are an elite athlete that has stagnated, why would you want to do 140%? Start with 105% and slowly add 5% to subsequent eccentric sessions when you eventually hit 140%. If you are making gains with 105% why risk injury at heavier loads? Also, why rob yourself of a stimulus of 140% 1RM when instead you can let your body adapt slowly and eventually to 140% of your 1RM and avoid stagnation in the following years!
If your constantly making gains in your strength program don’t try and change things, “If ain’t broke then don’t fix it!”
I have adapted the CFTS and CF’s vertical integration chart into my own template. I personally only have two scheduled Ecc loading weeks throughout the entire yearly template, as I reach stagnation this will change into possibly 4 weeks (maybe more) throughout the year. When considering eccentrics to getover plateus, you should also consider changing exercises such as the bench press to weighted pushups or dumbell bench press. There are many ways to avoid stagnation and this is clearly outlined in Mel Siffs “Supertraining”!
man christ i thought i would be plateuing but im not i keep getting stronger. a few days ago i PB’d again at 285 for 3 reps on the squat, and it was’nt testing for max it felt easy and not so hard. Man i can probably get to 315lbs no problem. Geez if this keeps up i will be a long ways from my 185lbs back in august, and if i incorporate this it would further help on my adventures of sprinting.
Basically, it can helps reset your gorgi tendon organ (GTO) reflex. I simple terms the GTOs are receptors that send a message to your muscles to relax.
Ok, I should be more specific but notice the use of the words “basically” and “in simple terms”.
“Now even if you reduce the weight substantially you just can’t lift it because the muscles refuse to contract!”
Ok, again a bit simplified. The muscles contract but will not reach anywhere near maximum tension. You probably won’t notice this so much unless you start your exercises from the bottom of all your lifts. E.g. pressing off of pins. It can be very pronounced in the chest press. The deadlift also - which I chose because I assume most people here don’t train with machines and may have noticed this phenominum occasionally with the DL but never thought about it.
With some people you can strip the weight 10-25% and 30s later they still can’t lift it. Come back 30 min later and they can manage (the lower weight) no problem. Sure some of it could be fatigue but I have never inroads of more than about 12% from one isometric contraction under lab conditions even with very fast twitch subjects.
The GTO is not resetting because of the eccentric training, they reset because the tendon is stronger and can handle greater tension
Noted but in my expererience once you run into this road block the easiest way to overcome this problem is some kind of eccentric training or a static hold - because that is the only way to expose the body to a weight it cannot lift concentrically (and hence allow it to adapt) without triggering the GTO + it is nicer for the athlete because they don’t feel like they are failing over and over again.
How would you go about overcoming this problem? Perhaps I can improve my methods?
As for saftey, its just that I am always conservative with regard to that one factor because i have seen bad things happen even under supervision.
Is this delay seen as the time it takes for the brain to signal the muscle, or the time it takes for the muscle to reach a threshold before contraction?
And numerous studies have also shown loss of type IIB with NORMAL strength training methods, so its not really a limiting factor. The key is management of the training modality. Its should be used for short periods of time just like max strength no longer than 7 weeks. The muscle fibres will return to type IIB with an overshoot in transitional muscle also. Remember the changes in fibre characteristics are NOT permanent. Also CSA of fast fibre will increase with this type of training. Another point to take into consideration is the fact that alot of these studies are done on relatively untrained athletes, PE students and budding sport scientists not trained athletes. The excerpt I posted above is more relevant since its practical coaching methods being applied in the field. Remember, in their experience, explosive strength improved more with this modality than conventional strength training. Those with more years of training benefited more from this type of training.
The lifter who improved from 180KG to 210KG is A WOMAN not a man. Also she had been at the top of her sport for some time, not to be dismissed lightly. I dare say most sprinters would struggle to do 180KG with strict power lifters form leave alone weight lifters form. Her name is Beate Amdahl she LIFTED IN THE 60 KG CLASS thats 3.5x bw at 210 KG. VERY VERY IMPRESSIVE. If thats what eccentric strength training did for her than I want some of that!
With all due respect read the excerpt again in detail.
From Supertraining:
Some researchers characterise the phase to include the lengthening of the SEC of the muscle complex, but the name electromechanical was coined to mean to start of the electrical signal.
Komi and Jollenbeck have completed a lot of research in this area.
I did read the details and I considered the following; Heavy eccentrics are not producing greater levals of power/powerlifters than fast eccentrics with bands (have a chat with louie simmons.) Also, heavy eccentrics will NOT improve relaxation speed which is of great importance to sprinters. Furthermore I’m not overly impressed with the greater explosiveness supposedly gained from heavy eccentrics becuase there are so many differant ways to measure explosiveness/explosive strength.
However, I do realise that heavy eccentrics will undoubtebly develope stiffer tendons which is advantagous when it comes to quadracep and achilles tendons. No disrespect at all and I will admit that I wasn’t keen on the severe soreness in my muscles the day after a bout of heavy eccentrics 6 weaks ago. I also realise that in follow up sessions there is less and less soreness as the body adapts. This adds a tangent; “recovary from proteolasis” OF WHICH NOT EVERY ONE has the same recovary levals from that with various muscles. My question is; when someone has severe soreness in the muscle(e.g hamstrings) should they do any/ even light exercise/blood work when the muscle is in that state?
