Rate coding, inhibition, inter-coordination.

there is no best method. methods which produce high levels of rate coding include plyometric actions, altitude landings, EMS, and even extreme isos. ive already explained inhibtiion pretty well acctually in this thread or another (perhaps low bar squats).

We also walk upright and hence our movements comes from our hind limbs. You can’t compare apples and oranges. To say humans aren’t meant to run is dumb.

i think he meant biomechanically, but all in all its pretty natural. Its just confusion between the new ability we have to standupright (back problems) being that bipedalism is a new evolution phenomena. We are not truly accustomed to upright standing. Well thats my view on it causei always try to remember any other animal having back pains like dogs or cats and i cant think of an incidence unless they got hurt directly by something to their backs. Even as they age although obviously slower in everything i see them being biomechanically sound in movement.

Senri, I know for a fact that dogs can develop hip and back problems too. Humans aren’t the only ones who experience aches and pains, we just live much longer than most animals in the wild so they have more time to accumulate. Our inactive lifestyle isn’t exactly helping things either.

In advance, I’ve been studying NSCA and ACSM for getting certified this summer as a personal trainer. I’m 17, and I’ve been powerlifting for 4 years reading over an hour or two every day on lifting, biology, etc, so take what I have to say seriously but if I make a mistake (someone please point it out) I’m sorry!

Rate coding is how fast your nerves can send messages to the muscles to contract, basically. Motor recruitment is how many fibers are activated at each contraction. According to my NSCA book, smaller muscle groups require more rate coding where as larger muscle groups require more motor recruitment, which makes sense if you think about it because there’s more availability. Basically when you train a muscle group with weights, your training the muscle to fire with less fibers but still lift the same ammount of weight. So lets say for example sake you started with 10 fibers, after training for a few weeks you may only use 7 to lif tthe same ammount of weight (ratios way off). If you could recruit MORE muscle fibers though, you could lift even MORE weight and reduce it from 13, to 10. etc etc. So I think rate coding is more an issue in smaller muscles and stabilizers where there isnt that many fibers to recruit in the first place (in comparison to the quads/hams/etc)

Now to increase both motor recruitment and rate coding imo through reading all these years I’d say it’s a matter of progressive overload and always forcing your muscles and CNS to adapt to new loads. If your doing 175 3x8 on bench, and find that you can do 173 3x10 one week, its time to up it to 185 3x8 (if you miss 3x8, then keep repeating each workout until you hit it). I don’t think there’s any “special” approach, it’s just progressive overload. Plyometrics? Overloading. Sprinting fast? Overloading. etc etc. KISS method I suppose…

Oh and I forgot to add, just because your “sore” doesn’t mean the movement was “unnatural” (wtf? who wrote that?). As far as I know squatting one day with no DOMS or pain and then squatting the next with DOMS doesn’t make it suddenly unnatural lol. Your muscles are sore from being overloaded. So long as your recovering properly I’d say it’s fine, though you might want to take it at a slower pace. Your body adjusts to what it’s doing on a daily/weekly basis. Remember it doesn’t know that you want to sprint fast, it just says “asshole wants my resources again in the legs. Fine.” It adapts to providing resources that fast and your muscles adapt to moving in a specific way. If I was to go do high jump, of COURSE i’d be sore the next day because my body would not understand and would have to adapt to the new enviornment. Like Charlie says, your body is an organism.

As RJ said, plenty of animals have back pain and the like. Most people sit for 8-10 hours a day and sleep another 6-9 hours, so I am not sure exactly where they can get activity to stay healthy in the first place. Any argument about humans not being accustomed to stand upright is just… not well thought out to say the least. How do you even know what is biomechanically sound for a dog?

I read somewhere, the man who can relax the most in upright position at speed, is the fastest runner.

i never said that humans arent meant to run i even said everything is relative in the quote that that you posted of mine…

That’s like saying ostriches or essentially any bipedal animal is not efficient or biomechanically correct because being quadruped produces the fastest animals.

NO ITS NOT LOL. first off i never said anything about bipedalism and it is true from a biomechancial stand point their are more effecient animals. i dont see how you could find error with that statement. your taking offense like im saying my species is faster that yours lol. this is common sense stuff.

I am not taking offense, I just think it is a dumb statement since humans ARE designed for running. Keep in mind models for top speed/speed endurance (ie gazelle w/ little muscle and long lower limb) are different from animals that need great acceleration (ie cheetah w/ decent muscle in the thighs).

here is why you are wrong, designed to run would emply that among other things designed the creation would be the most effecient, or among the most effecient, at running ie the fastest. so when you consider if humans are designed to run you must relate them to all lifeforms whom run. biomechancially (biomechancis applies to all relevant lifeforms) speaking we are not well “designed” for running in both cases of effecientcy and speed.

I am amazed that you guys are taking a thread that could have been worthwhile and having this dumbass argument. I have to ask, why do you guys get sucked into the crap James spews?

A basic overview on inhibition (simplistic, but sometimes that’s not a bad thing) –
http://www.explosivelyfit.com/Physiological.htm

There are some interesting bits in this if you want to get through the dry style. –

http://www.coachesinfo.com/category/strength_and_conditioning/242/

good to see you again too juggler.

Now I understand what you mean.
Humans being “not well designed for running efficiency and speed” does NOT make sprinting UN-NATURAL for humans themselves.
It puts them at competitive disadvantage among other species,and makes their “inefficient design” the starting point to…evolve!

…and humans are the best at developing new skills, of all the animmals in the world.

A rock climber climbed under a 45 degree rock ledge. He was underneath it climbing with bare hands, though he had boots on. No pick axe or anything.
Even a monkey would have a hard time trying to accomplish that.

there is no need to compare humans to other life forms. All life forms evolve independently as an adjustment to the stresses put on them. Man learned to run in order to get away from his greatest enemy…other men. He didn’t run to hunt, or catch a mate, but to run from a neanderthal. Homo sapien sapien has longer legs, and a more effecient body for running, than did neander, and that was all the evolving that needed to take place in that regard. Once most humans could outrun a neander, then that stress no longer required, or forced, further evolution.

There is actually quite a bit of evidence that homonids (who walked bipedally) were hunted and the prey of larger animals well before homo sapiens or neanderthals.
EDIT: the point being they had to run at some point, but this is way off-topic for the thread.

i was with the thinking that being in a pack (nomads, clans etc, communication, first stages of society) if a predator breached the hominids territory the last line of defense being the flight or fight mechanism, the best alternative for survival from a powerful predator would then be to run from it, so running from the predator they run from it with the pack and the slowest person out of the sprinting pack is the most likely the picked target, the faster runner up ahead has a greater chance for survival.

Then again if your split up and sprinting alone and still being the locked on target then tough cigars for that cats legacy.

I base this off of seeing cheetahs or lions catching the slowest zebra, or the slowest gazelle in the herd. There was a few instances where a few dozen are split from the herd to evade the predator while its still gaining speed trying to catch the slowest out of the pack.