Front leg flexion and extension training
Muscle Net Tips: Discussion on the evolution theory of the extended rep method, suitable for professional bodybuilding enthusiasts to study and master.
The human body is an extremely efficient machine. It can adapt to changing environments by heating and cooling itself, it can fight off disease with a strong immune system, and it can grow or shrink in response to external demands. How awesome! As a bodybuilder you work hard to increase the amount of stress you put on your muscles, forcing them to grow beyond their normal size (get bigger). This can be a difficult process because the more stress you put on your body, the more it has to adjust and work harder to maintain its original size. The forces of nature see no need for these extra muscles unless they are necessary for survival. The biggest barrier to muscle growth she posits is your nervous system.
Therefore, your training program should include both specific movements for each body part, as well as basic core movements - it is your nervous system, not your muscles, that will reach failure every time you use these movements. It's holding you back. You can avoid or overcome this obstacle by training set after set, but in each set, your nervous system will be the first to force you to stop, and there are still many muscle fibers that are not fully stimulated at this time. Not used. The extended-rep training method you're about to learn is one way to avoid this obstacle. It allows you to skip nervous system failure, dramatically increases the anabolic stimulus of each set, and allows you to grow muscles at an incredible rate. However, in order for extended-rep training to be as effective as possible, you must use it on the most effective exercises for each body part.
The "ultimate" training movements that will be discussed in the following chapters are all first-rate. They mimic the body's natural movement patterns so you get the most muscle fiber recruitment and the greatest muscle hypertrophy response. Remember, the muscles are all intertwined—hamstrings and calves, triangles and pecs, etc., which means that most functions must be completed in cooperation with surrounding muscles. That's why you can use certain muscles that need to work togetherThe reason why your moves work so amazingly: No muscle works in isolation.
To elaborate, if you want to get big quadriceps, do squats. The squat is a natural movement of the body that uses muscle synergy to move a load. On the contrary, leg extensions cannot build large muscle mass like squats. Of course, you have to squat in a way that allows your quadriceps to act as prime movers. If you have an injury or anatomy that shifts too much load onto your glutes and lower back muscles, you'll have to find a squat form that focuses more on your quadriceps to accommodate. Your special body structure. In other words, bell squats may not be suitable for everyone (more on this later).
But using the best muscle-building exercises is only part of an anabolic program. Remember, every set you do, even as hard as you push, will lack muscle hypertrophy stimulation due to nervous system failure. This is exactly why bodybuilders do set after set but only see minimal muscle growth. This has to do with the so-called size principle of motor neuron calling. In a standard set, type 1 slow-twitch fibers will be called first, and type 2 fibers, which are easiest to grow, will be called last. This is why many bodybuilding practitioners feel that the last few times of each set are the most important. Usually, though, your nervous system shuts down before those growth-prone fast-twitch muscle fibers receive an anabolic stimulus.
The solution is the extended-rep method, which allows you to skip neurological failure and make each set two to five times more effective at stimulating those highly anabolic fast-twitch muscle fibers than a regular set. This is because the extended rep method prolongs the stress on those key muscle fibers that are in the best position of the exercise at the end of each set, triggering a rapid increase in anabolic effects - fast-twitch muscle fibers continue to burn.
The extended-rep method is basically just doing short pulses in the sweet spot of a workout—doing them at the end of each set when your nervous system is screaming surrender. For example, when you can no longer complete the next rep in a squat, you can lower one-third of the way down and do 3-6 inches of half-range movements in this position to extend the stress on the fast-twitch quadriceps fibers. Strength Time - These pulse moves can also drastically reduce your time in the gym, providing the best muscle growth you've ever experienced in your life.
The evolution of the extended degree method
In "Size Surge 2", we apply a static expansion technique to the peak contraction position of contraction movements such as leg flexion and extension. We have students hold still in the peak lock position rather than using a half-stroke. Now we find that is a bit inefficient. The extended times method canEffectively applicable to any movement, you'll find that using extended reps on multi-joint mid-range movements such as squats can produce greater force output as the muscles lengthen. It produces a greater growth stimulus than the peak contraction position of isolated movements such as leg extensions. In fact, many researchers say that the peak contraction position is the worst position for muscle fibers to produce maximum force. The following passage is quoted from "Designing Resistance Training Programs" (How to Design a Weight-Bearing Training Program) edited by Stephen Fleck and William Klema, which clearly illustrates this issue:
"There is an optimal position for a muscle fiber to produce maximum force. The total force exerted by a muscle is determined by the total number of myosin cross-bridges that interact with the active site of actin. At this optimal length has the potential to generate maximum cross-bridge interaction and thus maximum force. If it is less than the optimal length, less tension will be generated during activation because when the muscle fiber is too short, the actin filaments overlap each other. , so that the ability of actin filaments to connect with myosin cross-bridges will interfere with each other. The reduction in the number of cross-bridges interconnected with the active site of actin will lead to a reduction in the potential to generate tension. ”
In other words, at the peak contraction position, the muscle fibers are so tightly packed that they cannot produce the same amount of tension as they would in the extended state. Since tension is an important hypertrophy trigger, this means that extended-rep training produces the best results when the muscle is slightly stretched, such as midway through a squat. The following conclusions can support this view:
1) Many practitioners have problems when exercising their calf muscles. Observation shows that most people rarely use the full range of motion, usually bouncing near the top rather than letting their heels drop below the pedal. Is their calf problem related to not using full-stretch exercises? (Another issue is that they are only using isolation exercises instead of the best calf-building exercises, but we’ll get to that later.)< /p>
Larry Scott, the first Mr. Olympia, once talked about changing gyms and using a different piece of equipment to do calf raises—a move in which you bend over and place your forearms. On a high stool or table, have someone sit on your hips while you do calf raises on the blocks. The circumference of his calves began to decrease, and it was later discovered that the cause was the position of his upper body on the new equipment. The angle between his upper body and legs is more than 90 degrees—his waist isn’t bent enough—which reduces the stretch in his calf muscles. When the angle between his upper body and his legs returns to 90 degrees and he begins to perform the full range of motion, his hamstrings pull his calf muscles to a more stretched position, and his calf muscles grow again.
2) Zai QuIn the early stages of development of the extension method, Steve found that practitioners were training using extension movements of various parts - incline curls for biceps, overhead arm extensions for triceps, and straight extensions for hamstrings. Leg deadlifts, etc. - your muscle mass can grow by leaps and bounds. Is the increased rate of growth because the target muscle group is working closer to full extension? The answer is probably yes, which is why the donkey calf raise is considered the best calf training exercise - because the practitioner The upper body and legs are at 90 degrees. This action can put the gastrocnemius in a stretched state, thereby producing huge tension on the calf muscles.
3) Arthur Jones, the founder of Nautilus Equipment, proposed that to achieve the best results using single-set failure training, the practitioner should practice to failure on one movement, and then lift the weight upward if possible Push or pull as high as you can and hold for a few seconds - that is, perform an isometric contraction where your muscles are slightly stretched during the stroke. For example, when doing leg curls, the isometric contraction occurs at the sticking point one-third of the way up from the bottom, where the hamstrings are slightly stretched. Most practitioners have never done an isometric contraction. That's bad, because it may be a key to making high-intensity training more effective. (We believe that using half-range pulse movements, or the extended rep method, instead of pausing in this position for a period of time, can greatly improve the muscle growth efficiency of any training movement.)
In fact, many scientists believe that the main muscle hypertrophy stimulus of any movement lies in the reversal of the movement, where the target muscle is slightly stretched. This is where the greatest force occurs, and therefore where the greatest stimulation of growth occurs. For example, the position near the bottom of movements such as incline curls, leg extensions, leg curls, squats, and bench presses, or the position near the top of movements such as pull-downs and machine pull-ups. Does this mean that the contracted position, like the top of the leg extension, is worthless? Of course not. Training in three flexion and extension positions throughout the muscle's travel helps develop as many muscle fibers as possible. Each position provides a unique pressure on the muscles and different fibers, and each position creates a different activation pattern. Still quoting Fleck and Clema:
"The order in which the muscle fibers are called upon in the quadriceps is different during knee flexion and extension than in the squat. This difference in call order may be one of the factors that determines the strength-building characteristics of a particular exercise. The difference in call order can be seen in To a certain extent, it has been proven that if you want to fully develop a muscle, you must use different movements or methods to train it. ”
However, you can make significant gains by using only your best joint or mid-range exercises and using extension reps at the end of each set when the target muscle is slightly stretched to recruit additional fast-twitch muscle fibers. . This is what the first few chapters of this book are about. By using various parts of the bodyBy using extreme training exercises and adding extended reps, you can achieve significant gains in muscle size and strength. From the first day of training, you will feel that your muscles are full of new growth momentum. Over time, you may want to take it a step further and train each muscle through three flexion and extension positions, applying extended reps to the exact location of each movement to create the greatest hypertrophy stimulus. Even then, your training time is relatively short, but it can provide growth that will surprise you.
So why has expansion technology evolved from the original static stagnation to the current dynamic pulse? A passage from Dr. Philip Gardner of the University of Manitoba quoted by researcher Robert Thorburn can explain this: "The nervous system adapts to perform various tasks, not just force production, so it's easier to use all muscles if something is moving."
Half-strokes can provide much greater gains than statically supported weights, especially after a set of dynamic full-stroke contractions. Because of the movement, they can recruit more fast-twitch muscle fibers. Skipping nervous system failure, the common reason for terminating a training set, is a better approach—it’s the nervous system that gets knocked out first, not the muscles. The extended-rep method forces the nervous system to continuously fire muscle fibers at their greatest growth potential at the most critical points of a training movement, so you get three to five times more anabolic stimulation than a regular set. This is efficiency!
So why not just use the extended rep method and forget about the previous regular lifts? The extended rep method is most effective only at the end of a regular set, but not as a half-range exercise set alone. This is because the muscles Caused by the way fibers are activated. This is related to the size principle of muscle fiber recruitment mentioned earlier - it is like a domino effect, the low-threshold motor units fire first, then the medium, and finally the high-threshold motor units - so in order to get the maximum Muscle size should you develop? Possibly as many muscle fiber types. The fastest muscle growth depends on maximizing the development of all muscle fiber types! This is why for most people, a single max lift will not produce much size gain - it can only train one or two type of muscle fiber. To maximize muscle growth, you must train and develop all muscle fiber types. (Many researchers believe that there are five or more types of fast-twitch muscle fibers alone, and that in order to gain the greatest muscle mass, you should develop every type of muscle fiber possible. Even the growth of slow-twitch muscle fibers can increase your overall muscle circumference )
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