exercise stimulus

Expert Discussion Strength Training
1

Hi

This is my first post here and I thought I’d start off by asking what you think about the following article. I think the author raises some good points but I am sure some of you will disagree…

the article…

I wanna say somethin about the #1 thing 95% of trainers are doing all wrong, and probably most of you, too.

In physiology they now tell us that motor recruitment is key, and we have to do the most effective exercises over and over and over again to get the most gains out of them.

Does anybody wonder why the average NBA vertical is slightly higher than the average high school kid’s vertical? I’m talking about the non-athletes.

VARIATION my friends.

You’re probably yawning, wishing Penny thought of a new subject… like instant inches.

My biggest breakthroughs in my life involve principles of VARIATION. This is what defines your genetic limit… not… ugh… the genetics.

What happened the first time you hit the gym and trained? You gained like a mother f**ker didnt you… because it was NEW.

What would happen if you did something new every workout. You’d keep gaining? YES.

In my system, we don’t repeat any exercise even once, in 30 months of training. This is why the guys in the 5th month with their head at the rim are gaining at the same rate (sometimes even faster) than the beginners.

THIS IS WHY:

If you look at any curve of development (meaning the rate of improved athletic ability per day, etc.) for any kind of training, you’ll notice a few things:

  1. No matter what, the newer the stimulus is, the faster you gain.

  2. The first workout for any method ALWAYS yields the most gains.

This means that for OPTIMAL growth, we should always do exercises for the first time as much as possible.

Is it possible to make EVERY set you do, a brand new set?

Yes.

EASILY.

IDEAS TO PUT TO USE

These are just that… ideas. Think up your own variations. Any one method can blast you through your plateaus.

For any given moment you train with, look below and figure out which combos can be used. There’s probably a total of more than 50 variations for each movement.

  1. Stance - narrow stance (feet together), wide, widest, feet forward, feet back more, one foot ahead slightly more, etc.

  2. Grip - narrow, conventional, wide, underhand, hammer grip

  3. Equipment - DB, Barbell, cables (high, low, mid), rope, varying bars, cuffs, free weights, varying height benches, plates, bands, chains, air, vehicles, immovable objects, etc etc etc

  4. Variations - standing, seated, single limb, new resistance, reverse motion, twist body 45 degrees, more stability, etc etc etc

Changing the above options, along with tempo, resistance, and rest intervals, will provide unlimited combinations, more than you could ever use.

Meaning you never need to do a certain exercise more than once.

Penny

2

Does anybody wonder why the average NBA vertical is slightly higher than the average high school kid’s vertical?

I’ll take a shot in the dark: because they are tremendous athletes?

3

Welcome to the forum culz4444. The article you posted was interesting, and had a couple good points, but I have a few issues with it. I agree that variety is important, however some of the things the author says are highly dubious. For example the gains that a beginning lifter makes are not a result of variety, but rather a result of the fact that beginners are so neurally inefficient when it comes to lifting, and are starting from such a low level that virtually anything will make them improve. Another thing is that if you make drastic changes to your program on a regular basis as a sprinter, in order to vary the stimulus you will end up very sore after your workouts, and may have to miss training time as a result. And the point about the NBAer’s vertical vs. the high schoolers vertical is bewilderingly ignorant. The reason an NBAer has a higher vertical than a high schooler is a)TALENT!!! b) Physical maturity c)Training age.

4

The author was actually saying that the average nba vertical IS NOT significantly higher than the average high school player! I think the author is trying to make the point that nba players don’t improve their vertical jump much from their highschool days as they do the same type of training over and again.

You made a good point when you said "gains that a beginning lifter makes are not a result of variety, but rather a result of the fact that beginners are so neurally inefficient when it comes to lifting, and are starting from such a low level that virtually anything will make them improve. " However, I would of thought that a significant proportion of these gains made are also due to being exposed to a new stimulus…

5

Welcome to the board.

Yes, the rapid gains in performance are gained by a new stimulus, but not solely because it is a new stimulus alone. Individuals who start a training program experience their massive gains due to the motor learning accomplished at the muscular level, and at the motor program level (McGill, 2004). Individuals who have been training for awhile and change their training stimulus(exercise, strength variables, etc) do not need to go through drastic changes at those two levels mentioned previously, thus the gains are not that impressive when comparing an individual who has just started a training program to say in Penny’s example, a NBA player who is assumed to have a more mature training age.