Strength Training Studies

[speedcoach]

all systems work, but for how long and at what risk? Sure, people can get great results using HIT, but it has also been shown to drastically increase injuries. Unstable surface training can be an interesting adjunct to the overall training process, just not good as the sole methodology. Problem is often that people want to seem cutting edge and try to reinvent training to be more sport specific and functional. It’s like Ian King said in his book Barbells and Bullshit, "There is a time and a place for everything. The exercise or training method can be used with an intent to create functional strength, hoever an exercise or training method is not in itself “functional”, nor is it by that definition “non-functional”. Too many people try to compartmentalize everything into schools and systems. I think that is where so much misinformation lies. I am always wary of people who speak in absolutes.

[Highlander]

@hemann

do you do all your lifting on a swiss ball? sounds like something i’d read out of men’s health magazine or a kinesiology textbook. how about you give credit where credit is due.

besides, coaching professional athletes is a just a little bit different that coaching 16 year old kids don’t u think??

Swiss ball? Where did that come from?
Ok so what credit am I supposed to give and to who? If any credit I do give it to univ of pitt staff, univ of Iowa staff, univ of wake forest staff. Is that what your talking about? I honestly cant give credit to HIT system schools cause the injury rate is very high.
Just like my man speedcoach said all systems work but at what risk?

[100m001]

@Goose232

Don’t forget that some of the strongest people ever, had some very simple routines.

Isaac Nesser would do barbell curls 8 to 10 days in a row, with over 300 Ibs, and then take 3 days of from that exercise. He benched pressed over 800 Ibs. He had a very simple routine. He just lifts a lot of weghts, a lot. He, like many others, include strong man training, such as walkin whilst carrying a truck engine. Atlas stones and log press etc… is excellent training for strength, because there are less sticking points in strong man exercizes than with barbells. That would be the way to go, if one was really interested in strength. And because there are less sticking points in some exercises than others, it totally changes the apropriate frequancy of work-outs with certain exercises etc. All I’m saying is that a lot of the conventional wisdom gets turned on its head, by various athletes who have thought outside the box, and trained that way, with results.
You can’t be too anal about it, unless you want to make a career as a certified strength coach for a pro sports team or something.
A lot of routines are only designed to what facilities are available, and there is no gym in the world that has everything. I doubt ‘golds’ gym’ even comes close, and I don’t care if it has 5 floors and the size of a football pitch.
Frankly, the best strength training is strong man, by far. Tractor tire flips, atlas stones, truck or car pulling, conans’ wheel, super yoke, etc… And what gym has that?
Bruce Bursford built up 33 inch thighs, by riding a custom designed stationary bike with a front cog about 30 inches in diameter.

I could go on, but I couldn’t give a crap for conventional gym parameters, because all of them have been far surpassed, by the truly strong athletes.
There is no way of knowing how strong Westside powerlifters are. What is there leverage and build compared to yours? There technique? Their power shirts and their juice?

I don’t mean to be negative, about you wanting to readlots of books, but those strength books are only so that you can understand jargon and theory, and pass exams. If that is what you need,then absolutely reaed a load of books, if it helps you on your way to the spacific career that you want.
Just never forget, down the road, that some of the strongest monsters who ever lived, had very unusuall routines. Vasiley Alexeyev got in to arguments often with the national coaches. He would do a thousand jumps a day, and one thousand knee lifts in the corner of the swimming pool, for his morning work out.

I agree, some of the strongest men I have studied had simple routines, ate a lot of food, and designed their own training and training devices such as Vasiley Alexeyev.

About the food, Vasiley Alexeyev for example would eat a 36 egg omelet for breakfast!

As far as books, my top pics are:

Supertraining

WestSide Book of Methods

Championship Bodybuilding

[100m001]

@RB34

Sorry you feel that way. Work great for myself and my teammates but then again Texas has better athletes.

Texas has a better gene pool to pull from compared to other states. Texas also has favorable weather conditions that is conducive to year around training.

[major]

@gymrob

Hi all,

I have recently begun to try to read studies on strength, biomechanics and surrounding areas. I have seen a few quoted on this site so maybe some people can help out. I was wondering if anyone could provide their favourite researchers and studies to read and to avoid. Also there are a lot of absolute rubbish one’s out there…so avoiding these is critical.

A few researchers I have read up on are: Kraemer, Fleck, Zatsiorsky, Garhammer, Hauptmann, Hakkinen, Stone, Bosco, Baker, Chiu, Fry, Hartmann, Tunnemann, Enoka, Schmidtbleicher.

It would be great to have some suggestions/opinions on certain researchers and suggestions on others. Also, some advice on which studies to avoid etc would be great aswell as some favourite studies.

Sorry if this seems a boring subject.

All the best

I would highly recommend some of the old translated soviet weightlifting texts. They are written by coaches who have produced multiple world and olympic champions.
PM me for more info.

[ollie]

@lylemcd

Any of the non-Americans should be good.

Kraemer and Fleck’s stuff is trash, Stone’s is a bit better, I don’t recall original stuff by Garhammer.

Should we separate Kraemer’s strength training/ program design work from his neuro-endocrine response/hormonal work?

Charles P. just put Bill Kraemer at the top of his list.

[hemann]

@Highlander

Swiss ball? Where did that come from?
Ok so what credit am I supposed to give and to who? If any credit I do give it to univ of pitt staff, univ of Iowa staff, univ of wake forest staff. Is that what your talking about? I honestly cant give credit to HIT system schools cause the injury rate is very high.
Just like my man speedcoach said all systems work but at what risk?

It depends on what the goal for the athlete is. If you want a 16-20 year old to have a high bench press, squat, power clean, 40 yard dash and vertical jump, then BFS is the best system out there.

If you’re goal is to create the best 400m runner, then i have no idea what you should do. But you saying BFS is a garbage program is just not the case. And they claim to have a very low injury rate. The program is designed for 2,3 and 4 sport high school athletes. The idea is: when are those athletes supposed to be improving? Some coaches preach in-season maintenance, but the athlete would never progress because there isn’t enough off season. If you have a 1 sport athlete, perhaps there are better systems. But what about a team of 50 guys who may play 2 or 3 sports?

And you can’t clump all HIT programs into one. Lots of bodybuilders use it, but so do many healthy athletes in several different forms.

[Highlander]

Again I have to respectfully disagree with you. BFS is I think 30 years old. I had this conversation with a family ( I should say dad and son). Dad says son was doin well aka lifting, his hoop and baseball performance until he started the bfs system his high school does. Then he was always sore, always tired and his performance declined. He stopped doing the program and did something else (not sure what program) he went back to his usual performance. (He’s getting offers from D1 schools)

[Highlander]

Granted Ill admit you cant clump all HIT programs into 1. But a bad program is a bad program no matter what kind of dressing you put on it.

[no23]

@ollie

Should we separate Kraemer’s strength training/ program design work from his neuro-endocrine response/hormonal work?

It’s sad when you have to consider doing that for a researcher. Think about it.
It’s like saying I go to a Doctor for his personality not his medical skills.

You’re either a good researcher or not.

@ollie

Charles P. just put Bill Kraemer at the top of his list.

And what conclusion would you draw from that?

[hemann]

when i was in high school, our coach “followed the BFS” system.

But he really didn’t. We did bench press 3 times every week, only squatted once and never did the running or stretching or agility or plyos. He didn’t really care what the program looked like, just wanted everyone to come in.

The program really calls for a layout like this:

Monday
Squat variation (box, front, hip sled)
Bench variation (towel bench preferred)
Auxiliary lifts like SLDL and glute ham
Agility/Dot drill
1-2-3-4 flexibility

Tuesday
10 sprints 30-50 yards
Plyos- boxes, vertical jumps, broad jumps… about 50 jumps total
Flexibility

Wednesday
Hex Bar Deadlift
Power cleans
Auxilary
Flexibility

Thursday
same as Tuesday

Friday
Parallel squat
Bench Press
Flexibility
Agility

Saturday
Flexibility

Remember, the goals are directed to increase the bench press, the squat, power clean, 40 and vertical jump. They also claim that towel bench and box squat don’t hurt the CNS enough to reduce performance- even the next day. In their mind, if you squat 400 pounds, bench 300 and power clean 250… you’ll be running a 4.6 40 and have a 30+ vertical --even a 6’4 250 pound football player… giving you, as a high school athlete the tools to succeed.