First off, I am quoting part of some ones post from another thread (low bar squat thread) and the context of it.
“…intermuscular coordination gains, the rate coding gains, and the decreased neural inhibition…” ( were the factors where the squat is most likely able to help sprinting.)
So It is time for me to update my knowladge.
Can we have a discussion on these factors, what they are, how to ilicit them and utilise them for gain.
Mainly, what is rate coding? (the speed your nervous system sends messages?)
Also, my legs are very sore the day after some drop lunges and simmilar types of movements I’ve been doing. Plus after lots of light fast squatting.
I read somewhere that if your muscles are sore, it can sometimes be a sighn that you have performed an un-natural movement. (then again, just becuase it might have been “un-natural”, doesn’t mean it might not help sprinting which is un-natural?)
I know there are several tangents in this post, but any comments would be appreciated. I kind of had a dozen questions but threw them in the same post.
Comments?
Muscle soreness is an indication of neurological inefficiency relative to the stimuli,regardless of the nature of the stimuli .
No stimulus your organism can cope with efficiently will leave any muscle soreness.
Sprinting “un-natural”???
High speed running seems to me a resource not only humans but all…mammals used quite efficiently as a mean of…survival through evolution.
Is survival “un-natural” to you???
Rate coding is the number of impulses sent to a particular muscle fiber(s). There seems to be an optimal level and a point of diminishing returns after that. I forget the exact numbers, but just as an example of what I mean by a diminishing rate of return, ten impulses a second might be the most a muscle can use. More than that and there is still a slight increase in force, but not nearly as much of an increase as there was in getting ten impulses per second. Not that it hurts you in any way but there will be little to no increases in performance.
Generally, and their are exceptions to this rule, motor unit recruitment is the first mechanism of increased force, and once this has hit the maximum allowable level by the body, then rate coding is the main determinant in increasing force.
Again their are exceptions to this rule such as eccentrics, which although they actually recruit less muscle fibers that a concentric at a given weight, seem to allow a higher amount of rate coding. Not sure why that is, hopefully someone else can help you out there. Plyometric actions also seem to have this effect due to the recruitment of the stretch reflex. Also, higher rate coding does seem to coincide with recruitment of type II motor units.
interemuscular coordination: the method by which the body controls its various muscles to produce effecient biomechanical movement. control includes when a a muscle in the sequence is activated, how long its activated for and at what postion.
rate coding: the FREQUENCy at which a nerve impulses are conducted along a given axon. measureded in hertz. there is often an optimal level of coding but higher levels may be helpful in the training of the biological systems. ie increaseins mitocondrial density. also recruitment patterns are directly tied to frequency rate. the higher the frequency the more powerful the fiber type.
neural inhibition is a complexsubject. it deals with concepts it neuroscience. a better question is about interneurons and the effect they can have on impulse transsmission.
I used to think sprinting was natural. But then I read Asafa Powell’s coach calls sprinting Un-natural.
I’m quite happy to go back to thinking it’s natural.
I should have said that to someone 6 years ago, when they said “running is un-natural.”
(they didn’t like that I had a passion for running, and they used to sit down all day. Their basis for their theory was that we didn’t run every day in evolution. I tried to point out that we had the “ability” to run for whenever we would need it, hence it being a natural ability. He wasn’t having any of it ofcourse.
3 or 4 years later he saw a documentary on the television which showed the behaviour of a certain tribe in Africa. Their was a lot of running involved, though mainly slow jogging. That for some reason changed his mind and then he said to me that his original opinion was wrong.)
I would say running with the posture and significant posterior pelvic as displayed by some top sprinters is not natural (postures advocated by people like Ralph Mann). That’s why coaches and biomechanists are paid $$ to eliminate technical ‘flaws’ such as the backside mechanics issue that is so prevalent in the majority of sprinters.
i believe he meant biomechanically we arent very effecient runners. if we were our lower legs would most lkly be twice as long as our thigh we would have excremly long achilles and our knees whould probably bend the other way. i guess it all depends on the context. there is a natural way to run but humans running isnt natural lol.
There’s a guy in australia who is missing the lower legs. He utilises osteopothics/ orthotics or whatever it’s called. Instead of lower legs he uses some flexi- device that are used as lower legs. He competes in the “special” events.
Only thing is, he is running so well that he is able to compete against the best 400m runners in Australia and is thinking of doing so. There is some controversy over it.
How would you say humans implemented their flight mechanism preferentially when survival was still truly a fight or flight issue? Did they unfold their wings possibly?
I meant:humans never had wings to rely on when survival implied rapid escaping from a threatening danger,quite notoriously.
But humans did have legs already,and used them to run away…FAST!
good points for both sides. I think sprinting 100% with bare feet is natural. But that is not very fast compared to sprinting with spikes running 9,77.
Well, in evolution it’s all relative!
There were two lawyers on a camping trip and a bear started rampaging through their campsite. The first lawyer started tying up his sneakers. The second lawyer asked him :“What for? You can’t outrun a bear!” The first replied: “I don’t have to outrun the BEAR!”