Motor control

Expert Discussion Strength Training
1

Complex training (i.e. pairing of limit strength and power exercises) can course ‘overrecruitment’ of muscle units. I have 3 questions:

  1. Is complex training more useful (and effective) for intermediate standard athletes who have not developed the ability to overcome neural inhibtion?

  2. Do athletes who use complex training develop the ability to recruit units without prior stimulation?

  3. Is 2 singles at 90% sufficient? Would greater benefits result from priming loads closer to maximum? (I think not)

2

I’d like to see that. Unfortuneatlely I cannot be the one who starts the discussion since I do not have knowledge of the subject, which is of course the reason I am interested in reopening the thread.

3

One more question: how long does the stimulation from near-maximal limit lifts last. Is it minutes, hours or days?

4

Ive read that the “afterburn” effect of raising your metabolism(repairing muscle?) lasts up to 24 hours fallowing a maximal lift session.

5

Possibly, and this is just an hypothesis, I don’t know what work’s been done on this, over 90% might lead to over-recruitment of the antogonists, as well as too much neural load.

What I mean is this: when an athlete attempts a lift(or any exercise probably) at 100%, he has a tendency to “tighten up”: over-stimulate the muscles and nervous system. Adding (or multiplying?) this “straining” to the already-stress-inducing max effort may lead to what we do see quite often: the athlete is cooked after the max, when 90% probably would have left him in fine shape for more work.

So, IMHO, over 90% is probably to be avoided in this situation.

6

David,what do You mean by “overrecruitment” ?
Thanks in advance!

7

Burp…oops I mean bump.

8

The weight doesn’t have to be heavy, just heavier than other paired exercise.

ie speed squats paired with jumpsquats with just the bar.
or speed bench paired with plyo pushups

the reverse also works as well, a full squat jump preceding a speed squat set or a heavy sets of squats will cause either to have a faster concentric speed.

9

perhaps someone could give me a quick summary of why complex training is ever used?
Having used this method before I became ‘educated’ in strength training, I found it increased my conditioning more than my power and strength. I think it has its place in variety rather than the core of a program.

10

It it important to note that ‘complex’ training is not limited to supersetting one power and one strength exercise. In fact,the original complex methods (Russian and Bulgarian) used a succession of exercises that were NOT supersetted.

You would do one set of each exercise, but with 2-3 minutes between each. The Russian complex method would use 2 exercises and the Bulgarian complex method four.

Here’s a small portion of my upcoming book, dealing with complex training:

"Russian complex training

A Russian complex involves a continuous alternating between exercises of heavy and light loads in the same session; or more specifically alternating between a slow-speed strength exercise and a high-speed strength exercise. In most cases a complex is made up of two exercises. For example:

Lower body Russian complex

Exercise 1. Back squat
3-5 repetitions with a load of 85-95% of 1RM
Rest 3-4 minutes

Exercise 2. Jump squat
10 repetitions with a load of 15-20% of the back squat 1RM
Rest 3-4 minutes

The complex would be repeated anywhere from 2 to 5 times in a workout.

A variant of this form of training would be a Russian supersetted complex. Ironically it was not used in the former Soviet Union, but rather it’s an adaptation of the Russian complex by western sport-scientists. The basic technique would be the same, except that there is no rest between both exercises of a complex. For example:

  1. Lower body Russian supersetted complex (strength-speed emphasis)

Exercise 1. Back squat
3-5 repetitions with a load of 85-95% of 1RM
No rest

Exercise 2. Jump squat
10 repetitions with a load of 15-20% of the back squat 1RM
Rest 3-4 minutes

The complex would be repeated anywhere from 2 to 5 times in a workout.

  1. Lower body Russian supersetted complex (speed-strength emphasis)

Exercise 1. Jump squat
10 repetitions with a load of 15-20% of the back squat 1RM
No rest

Exercise 2. Back squat
3-5 repetitions with a load of 85-95% of 1RM
Rest 3-4 minutes

The complex would be repeated anywhere from 2 to 5 times in a workout.

I am not a big fan of the supersetted version as it prevents one from producing a high quality effort on both exercises. I think that it became popular mostly because it’s a good way to save time and since it’s more tiring, athlete believe that they are working harder.

Bulgarian complex training

The Bulgarian complex is basically an extended version of the Russian complex: instead of doing a complex of 2 exercises, you use a complex of 4-5 exercises; going from the heaviest one to the lightest one. For example:

Lower body Bulgarian complex

Exercise 1. Back squat
3-5 repetitions with a load of 85-95% of 1RM
Rest 3-4 minutes

Exercise 2. Power snatch or power clean
2-3 repetitions with a load of 85-95% of 1RM
Rest 3-4 minutes

Exercise 3. Jump squats
10 repetitions with a load of 15-20% of the back squat 1RM
Rest 3-4 minutes

Exercise 4. Depth jumps
10 repetitions from 0.5m
Rest 3-4 minutes

Exercise 5. Vertical jumps
As many jumps as possible in 15 seconds
Rest 3-4 minutes

Because of the high number of exercises, only 1-3 complexes would be completed in one workout."

11

Chris,

Can you elaborate on where Russian / Bulgarian Complex Training, Ascending / Desending Training, etc. would fit in to an annual plan
for a sprinter, jumper, basketball, any lower-body dominant athlete?

For example, popular questions that come up are:
How do I increase my vertical jump?
or How do I cut .5 sec off my 100m time?

Where would the above modalities fit in to help someone to incrementally progress to their desired goal?

Am also curious because I am continuing to tinker with timing and dosage of eccentric specific work to acheive the answer to the same questions above.

Looking forward to your book.

Dave K.

12

It will be interesting to see how this fits into a sprinters workout considering they perform so much RFD/Power work on the track through sprinting and plyos. I dont know how much explosiveness you would have left after a full accel/block/plyo workout followed by complex training. You would have to carefully adjust and implement a complex program into your workouts I would think

13

Complex training (Russian or Bulgarian complex as well as the Canadian Ascending-Descending method; which is a modification of the Bulgarian complex) is a very good early preparation tool for most athletes as it develops the entire spectrum of strength qualities required by power/speed athletes.

One could use complex training year long,

Using…

  • the Bulgarian complex during the general physical preparation period
  • the Canadian Ascending-Descending complex during the specific physical preparation period
  • the Russian complex during the competition period

The Russian complex is of a lower volume and has a lower impact on the CNS than the other two methods, thus it is a good option during the competition period to maintain strength and power without draining the CNS. The Bulgarian complex is the most CNS draining, but arguably has the greatest impact on limit-strength and strength-speed, while the CADT has a slightly more important impact on speed-strength and reactive strength.

14

Chris, when using a complex training program, plyo work should not be done on the track. One should obviously balance track work and strength work. I find that with two weekly Russian complex workouts lastly around 30 minutes each an athlete can easily maintain (and even increase) strength and power during the competition phase.

With the other two methods, four workouts are best (two upper body, two lower body) but since these are performed in the prep period, it should not pose a problem. If recovery is an issue, you can cut down to 3 weekly sessions:

Day 1: Upper body
Day 2: OFF
Day 3: Lower body
Day 4: OFF
Day 5: Upper body
Day 6: OFF
Day 7: OFF
Day 8: Lower body
Day 9: OFF
Day 10: Upper body
Day 11: OFF
Day 12: Lower body
Day 13: OFF
Day 14: OFF

Or use two larger whole body sessions per week.

15

Christian, could you just explain the CAD complex and regarding jump squats should legs be bent to parallel or 1/4 squat and I presume performed continuously?

Thanks

16

A conversation I had a fewyears back with Marcus Adam, (1990 Commonwealth 200m champion, now a bobsledder) lead to him telling me that after his bar squats he does a set of knee tuck jumps. He swears it made his running more explosive.

17

I used to do those all the time. They were great. Just watch your hip flexors and lower abs though :slight_smile:

18

This is basically a spin-off from the Bulgarian complex. It also includes 4-5 exercises of various loading. The difference with the Bulgarian complex is that you have two workouts for each group of muscles/movements (either a lower body/upper body split or push/pull/lower body split). The first workout is an ascending workout (starting with the quickest but lightest exercise) and the second workout is a descending workout (starting with the slowest but heaviest exercise). So basically the first workout is a reverse Bulgarian complex while the second workout is a regular Bulgarian complex.

There is another slight difference with the Bulgarian complex: in the Bulgarian complex you perform one set of each exercise of the complex then start a new complex (vertical loading). However in the Canadian Ascending-Descending method you perform all the sets of an exercise before moving on to the next exercise in the complex (horizontal loading).

I find this system to be the best of all complex training methods as it allows one to give an equal focus to each of the type of strength in the strength spectrum, while in the Bulgarian complex you would always perform speed-strength and reactive strength exercises in a fatigued state

19

Here’s something from my first book…

"2. Post-tetanic potentiation

The tetanus refers to a state of muscular activation that occurs either during a long muscular contraction (so brought on by muscular fatigue) or a very intense contraction (so brought on by a maximum contraction). The tetanus can be explained as the summation of all the available motor-units.

It has been found that the force of the twitch of a muscle fiber is more important after than before the brief tetanus. This effect is present even 5 minutes after the tetanus (O’Leary et al. 1997). In fact, during a 7 second tetanus, the capacity to apply force decreases by 15% while this capacity is increased by 28% after 1 minute, 33% after 2 minutes and 25% after 5 minutes (O’Leary et al. 1997). So it appears that the capacity to produce force is greater 2-3 minutes after the cessation of the tetanic effort.

This increase in the capacity to produce force after a certain stimulation is called post-tetanic potentiation (PTP). The most effective way to promote a large PTP is to place an intense stimulation on a muscle via a maximal effort/maximal tension contraction for a length of 5-10 seconds (Brown and von Euler, 1938, Vandervoort et al. 1983).

PTP can increase contraction strength, especially in fast-twitch fibers (Bowman et al. 1969, Standeart, 1964). PTP also improves the rate of force development (Abbate et al, 2000).

PTP works by increasing the phosphorylation of the myosin light chains, which makes the actin-myosin more sensitive to calcium in the subsequent twitch (Grange et al. 1993, Palmer and Moore 1989, O’Leary et al. 1997). This is not chiefly important, but, if you wish, you can grab a physiology textbook and review the sliding filament theory of muscular contraction to see how this would increase the capacity to produce force."

20

Christian,
It is so awesome to have you posting on this board once again. Thank you so much for all the awesome replies.