Barbell Double bodyweight deadlift

[Squashnut]

when I am practicing a musical instrument, I am always looking for any tension and trying to release it

Yehudi Menuhin was a world class violinist and founder of a famous school. He would give 5 year-olds a block of wood and just have them hold it like a violin- for weeks or months. The idea is to get them to hold it delicately but without tension. (He made the potential prodigy's parents learn basic technique as well.) When Jimi Hendrix played, his body was incredibly loose and fluid, but the strain of the concentration obviously showed through facial expressions.

The track commentators always point out how important being relaxed is for someone like Usain bolt even in the 100. Interesting that heavy lifting requires just the opposite. I do recall, though, from the early days of the World's Strongest Man that the guy who would win the body-weight hold for time was always the one who could best relax his face and breathing...

 

[guardian7]

Yehudi Menuhin was a world class violinist and founder of a famous school. He would give 5 year-olds a block of wood and just have them hold it like a violin- for weeks or months. The idea is to get them to hold it delicately but without tension. (He made the potential prodigy's parents learn basic technique as well.) When Jimi Hendrix played, his body was incredibly loose and fluid, but the strain of the concentration obviously showed through facial expressions.

The track commentators always point out how important being relaxed is for someone like Usain bolt even in the 100. Interesting that heavy lifting requires just the opposite. I do recall, though, from the early days of the World's Strongest Man that the guy who would win the body-weight hold for time was always the one who could best relax his face and breathing...

It is a very interesting topic and varies a lot across skills. In striking whether MMA or traditional martial arts, the key is initial tension to "launch" the strike followed by complete relaxation to generate power and "whip" then maximal tension at the point of impact. Dr. Stuart McGil who measured Pavel also measured Georges St. Pierre and other top MMA strikers and found that professional strikers had mastered the tense-relax-tense cycle while beginners tended to tense up throughout the strike resulting in "pushing" the punch.

On the other hand, I wonder about strength-endurance. If you do short sets of ten for max power of SF swings for example, and your goal is power and burning calories, then SF full tension is good, but if your goal is endurance with high reps, then too much tension produces early fatigue. I had a chance to try out GS style swings and snatches last summer and I could see the value of turning down the tension if the goal was endurance. I think managing tension depends on the goals. I think it has to do with number of reps in one set rather than total reps.