Other/Mixed New training block, Isometrics as primary resistance training

[Griswold]

Hello Miller,

I had some questions for you on youtube a while back, figured I'd post after messing around with overcoming isos for a few months. Took me about a month to figure out what I wanted to do.

I was doing horse stance (weighted and unweighted) a couple times a week and noticed a lot of good strength and mobility benefits. I stumbled onto your youtube channel with the overcomings isos demo because I was looking to see if I could do more things like horse stance. Then I decided to go all out with both and combine them.

I read that isometric book by dragondoor, they say the general scheme is this.

6 seconds x 6 sets = strength
40 fast pulses = approximately equal to the 6s x 6 sets
20 to 45 seconds x 3 sets = hypertrophy
Over 45 seconds up to minutes = localised muscular endurance

I have not tried your rep/set pulse technique yet but I imagine that it would greatly stimulate the muscles ability to fire at 100% very quickly.

Currently I am doing something like this.

Day 1 overcoming iso, hypertrophy 3 to 5 sets
Bench
Curl
Wrist curl
Deadlift

Day 2 yielding iso, 3 to 5 set holds to failure
Pushup hold at the bottom
Pullup hold at near bottom of rep
Horse stance
Crush gripper holds
Crush gripper holds with just the thumb
If I still have gas in the tank, delt raise hold for time with speargun tubing

Day 3 overcoming iso, hypertrophy 3 to 5 sets
Overhead press
Row
Zercher squat
Usually pretty smoked after squat. In the future I will probably add more

Day 4, repeat day 2

Day 5, grab bag day
sandbag carries for time, long hikes in the woods, strandpulling, etc.

Rest a day or two then do it again.

I'm a maintenance mechanic by trade, so I am focusing on hands and wrist strength and I notice that the overcoming isos are very helpful for breaking rusted bolts and just in general getting things to move that don't want to move. The stronger you are, the less tools you require.

The yielding iso holds help with enduring awkward positions for extended periods of time. This comes in handy when I have to take apart things in confined spaces. Also seems to help with general mobility, especially the horse stance. Going up ladders, stairs, kneeling, crawling into confined spaces, the holds are helping. Crush grip endurance is also very useful to keep tools and parts steady.

Probably the strangest training block I have ever done. The strength gains feel different to me than they do with isotonics and my joints feel good. The muscle becomes very dense with this style of training and the strength does indeed carry over better to general use than isotonics.

 

[North Coast Miller]

Hello Miller,

I had some questions for you on youtube a while back, figured I'd post after messing around with overcoming isos for a few months. Took me about a month to figure out what I wanted to do.

I was doing horse stance (weighted and unweighted) a couple times a week and noticed a lot of good strength and mobility benefits. I stumbled onto your youtube channel with the overcomings isos demo because I was looking to see if I could do more things like horse stance. Then I decided to go all out with both and combine them.

I read that isometric book by dragondoor, they say the general scheme is this.

6 seconds x 6 sets = strength
40 fast pulses = approximately equal to the 6s x 6 sets
20 to 45 seconds x 3 sets = hypertrophy
Over 45 seconds up to minutes = localised muscular endurance

I have not tried your rep/set pulse technique yet but I imagine that it would greatly stimulate the muscles ability to fire at 100% very quickly.

Currently I am doing something like this.

Day 1 overcoming iso, hypertrophy 3 to 5 sets
Bench
Curl
Wrist curl
Deadlift

Day 2 yielding iso, 3 to 5 set holds to failure
Pushup hold at the bottom
Pullup hold at near bottom of rep
Horse stance
Crush gripper holds
Crush gripper holds with just the thumb
If I still have gas in the tank, delt raise hold for time with speargun tubing

Day 3 overcoming iso, hypertrophy 3 to 5 sets
Overhead press
Row
Zercher squat
Usually pretty smoked after squat. In the future I will probably add more

Day 4, repeat day 2

Day 5, grab bag day
sandbag carries for time, long hikes in the woods, strandpulling, etc.

Rest a day or two then do it again.

How long have you been running this block?

I'm a maintenance mechanic by trade, so I am focusing on hands and wrist strength and I notice that the overcoming isos are very helpful for breaking rusted bolts and just in general getting things to move that don't want to move. The stronger you are, the less tools you require.

The yielding iso holds help with enduring awkward positions for extended periods of time. This comes in handy when I have to take apart things in confined spaces. Also seems to help with general mobility, especially the horse stance. Going up ladders, stairs, kneeling, crawling into confined spaces, the holds are helping. Crush grip endurance is also very useful to keep tools and parts steady.

Probably the strangest training block I have ever done. The strength gains feel different to me than they do with isotonics and my joints feel good. The muscle becomes very dense with this style of training and the strength does indeed carry over better to general use than isotonics.

I'm also a maint tech, this type of training seems to be a perfect match for the sort of awkward, unscripted strength challenges we see all the time. Hand valves, squeezing into pipe racks, wrenching hydraulic fittings etc etc. Am still not incorporating the long duration isos, I should experiment with adding some of those.

I can say after doing these for a few months straight, traditional resistance work feels just as strange as the isos did originally.

Anecdotally, in the past I've detrained right after a block of iso and visually I could see no change in my build/aesthetic for two months.

Great to hear its working for you, esp the joint health!

 

[Griswold]

How long have you been running this block?

This block in particular, only about four weeks. Doing one day of yielding iso and one day of overcoming iso, I have done for a little over 2 months. Still trying out the right "volume" of both.

I would like to figure out macrocycles, for example, six week blocks of hypertrophy isometrics and six week blocks of pure strength, then repeat. I think that would mix it up enough to prevent staleness.

At the moment I am focusing on hypertrophy isometrics. Clothes are fitting better so it is working. I'll do a bf% and weight measurement in a few weeks to know for sure.

I'm also a maint tech, this type of training seems to be a perfect match for the sort of awkward, unscripted strength challenges we see all the time. Hand valves, squeezing into pipe racks, wrenching hydraulic fittings etc etc. Am still not incorporating the long duration isos, I should experiment with adding some of those.

I can say after doing these for a few months straight, traditional resistance work feels just as strange as the isos did originally.

Anecdotally, in the past I've detrained right after a block of iso and visually I could see no change in my build/aesthetic for two months.

Great to hear its working for you, esp the joint health!

It really is. Yesterday I was tearing apart one of our soil slurry grinders, involved getting underneath it and breaking free a ton of somewhat rusted bolts with small hand tools as there is not space to swing a breaker bar. The overcoming isos made the tool work far easier and the yielding isos made it easier for me to move around.

In my barbell days, something like that would have been a real chore because I never focused on muscular endurance and the bigger lifts like squats and deadlifts would leave me constantly fried with little room left for conditioning.

Last couple of years for me has been resistance band and strandpulling heavy, while I saw strength gains they never seemed to translate to "real world" strength, couldn't figure out why.

On your isometric video, something clicked when you said that having the iso at the position of greatest stretch makes the strength carry over to the rest of the movement, which is essentially the opposite of what resistance band movements do, which then led me down the rabbit hole again.

 

[North Coast Miller]

This block in particular, only about four weeks. Doing one day of yielding iso and one day of overcoming iso, I have done for a little over 2 months. Still trying out the right "volume" of both.

I would like to figure out macrocycles, for example, six week blocks of hypertrophy isometrics and six week blocks of pure strength, then repeat. I think that would mix it up enough to prevent staleness.

At the moment I am focusing on hypertrophy isometrics. Clothes are fitting better so it is working. I'll do a bf% and weight measurement in a few weeks to know for sure.



It really is. Yesterday I was tearing apart one of our soil slurry grinders, involved getting underneath it and breaking free a ton of somewhat rusted bolts with small hand tools as there is not space to swing a breaker bar. The overcoming isos made the tool work far easier and the yielding isos made it easier for me to move around.

In my barbell days, something like that would have been a real chore because I never focused on muscular endurance and the bigger lifts like squats and deadlifts would leave me constantly fried with little room left for conditioning.

Last couple of years for me has been resistance band and strandpulling heavy, while I saw strength gains they never seemed to translate to "real world" strength, couldn't figure out why.

On your isometric video, something clicked when you said that having the iso at the position of greatest stretch makes the strength carry over to the rest of the movement, which is essentially the opposite of what resistance band movements do, which then led me down the rabbit hole again.

For probably the last 7 years I've been really looking for the best blue collar carryover. Have found a couple that worked well enough, but nothing comes close to overcoming isometrics, esp for joints and mobility.


I typically use 8 breath mvc holds followed by a rotating variety of either overload pulses, sandbag analogs, or dynamic tension. I break these out for a week or two each, although usually use the overload pulses about twice as often as the other approaches.

 

[North Coast Miller]

Interesting things to be learned by using the crane scale. It reads rapidly enough to be used for power production and post ballistic tension levels. It also demonstrates the relationship between force levels and fatigue, force levels and mindful intent, sustained force levels relative to rate of force production.

Am going to have a difficult time benchmarking with traditional lifts, any angular deviation from straight up and down really throws the values off relative to a gravity resisted load.

It IS validating some of what I've been working on, "filling in" with tension right behind a ballistic effort. The idea being to not have a drop off in force from the inital jolt, at least not for a few seconds.

I'm seeing about a 25% difference in max tension output at 5-8 seconds between a slower ramp up to max, and filling in behind a ballistic, in favor of the latter. I did not expect to see this, although I have noticed the ends of my plywood deck do not flatten back out as readily as they used to. I still expected a spirited ramp up to generate more tension.

Also seeing that fatigue draws down force levels but that mindful intent to "work harder" can counteract this for more repeats than I had supposed.

 

[onlyisometrics]

Interesting things to be learned by using the crane scale. It reads rapidly enough to be used for power production and post ballistic tension levels. It also demonstrates the relationship between force levels and fatigue, force levels and mindful intent, sustained force levels relative to rate of force production.

Am going to have a difficult time benchmarking with traditional lifts, any angular deviation from straight up and down really throws the values off relative to a gravity resisted load.

It IS validating some of what I've been working on, "filling in" with tension right behind a ballistic effort. The idea being to not have a drop off in force from the inital jolt, at least not for a few seconds.

I'm seeing about a 25% difference in max tension output at 5-8 seconds between a slower ramp up to max, and filling in behind a ballistic, in favor of the latter. I did not expect to see this, although I have noticed the ends of my plywood deck do not flatten back out as readily as they used to. I still expected a spirited ramp up to generate more tension.

Also seeing that fatigue draws down force levels but that mindful intent to "work harder" can counteract this for more repeats than I had supposed.

really great info thank you for sharing. I wouldn’t have expected the max tension output to sustain higher after the initial ballistic jolt vs ramping up either.

How are you setting up with the crane scales?

I have one but I couldn’t work out a set up where I could attach crane scale and keep enough resistance strap to be able to get into a deadlift for example… the crane scale + hooks is about the length I tighten the resistance strap to on its own.

I was going to try to make a ply board setup with a hole in the middle for the crane scale to sit in and the resistant straps attach to it underneath.

For reference, I’ve been alternating between 10 and 20 second hold sessions (5 sets each exercise for 10 and 3 sets each exercise for 20) with a 2/2 tempo… breath out for 2 seconds and ramp tension, breath in for 2 keep tension repeat for the 10 or 20 duration.

Has been ‘working’ well in keeping me feeling good and feeling strong for climbing, life etc.

Thanks again for sharing

 

[North Coast Miller]

really great info thank you for sharing. I wouldn’t have expected the max tension output to sustain higher after the initial ballistic jolt vs ramping up either.

How are you setting up with the crane scales?

I have one but I couldn’t work out a set up where I could attach crane scale and keep enough resistance strap to be able to get into a deadlift for example… the crane scale + hooks is about the length I tighten the resistance strap to on its own.

I was going to try to make a ply board setup with a hole in the middle for the crane scale to sit in and the resistant straps attach to it underneath.

For reference, I’ve been alternating between 10 and 20 second hold sessions (5 sets each exercise for 10 and 3 sets each exercise for 20) with a 2/2 tempo… breath out for 2 seconds and ramp tension, breath in for 2 keep tension repeat for the 10 or 20 duration.

Has been ‘working’ well in keeping me feeling good and feeling strong for climbing, life etc.

Thanks again for sharing

I can't use it for some holds, and others give readings I wouldn't have expected (260lb quad extensions?!).

For hinge I use the strap fore and aft between my feet, tight to the deck, one hand over the other. So its reading lateral force as I tug on the strap.

It has as much or more value as a relative measure, and to give me a real time gauge of output - "Honest Effort"

 

[chronos33]

Hello everyone!

I just discovered this thread and I wanted to share with you the results of my 1 year (+ 1 month) of overcoming isometrics only training plan. At the beginning I was trying to powerbuild (ie try to gain both strength and muscle hypertrophy at the same time) but it slowly became more and more hypertrophy oriented as time went on. During this time, I went from 162 lbs in february last year to about 177 lbs now in March this year. I also cutted twice during the year (about 4-5 months total idk) to try and make sure that the bodyweight comparison was fair and the fat mass was similar. I am pretty confident a big percentage of my 15 lbs weight gain was muscle mass. Here is a before and after

For my training plan I based it mainly on my own conclusions of two meta analyses made by Lum et al. and by Oranchuk et al. . Those 2 studies combined the results of (51 + 26 = 77) studies in total (although there is probably some overlap between those so the total is probably less than 77 studies). Reading these I came up with 3 main conclusions. (btw sorry if my explanations that follows are bad or the way the sentences are structured is hard to follow, just let me know if something makes no sense)

1. Training at long muscle lengths seems to be better for both hypertrophy and strength. For strength in particular it is interesting because the improvements in strength at a specific angle happens on a larger range of angles than shorter muscle length. That means that instead of only getting stronger at about +/- 10 degrees in both directions from the angle you trained at, if you were to train at long muscle length the range in which you get stronger cover a lot more angles and you could get stronger in the range of 60 degrees for example.
2. More time under tension seems to be better for hypertrophy. That means that either increasing the number of contractions you do or the duration of each contraction is the way to go for hypertrophy.
3. Lifting with ballistic intent seems to be better for strength and rate of force development. Lifting with ballistic intent means that you try to reach maximal force as soon as possible.

By the way if anyone wants to access the full studies just hit me up and I can give you the pdfs or tell you how to get them.

One thing that I find really cool about the discussions in this thread here is that I managed to independently come up with the same conclusions than you guys did, which is a good sign. I even ended up with a similar setup than Miller showed here with the straps and handles. For example I decided to opt for 15-45 secs holds for hypertrophy just like some of you did.

The plan
My plan was pretty simple and each workout would last about 30-45 mins total including the warmup. I had some weeks where I was doing 4-5 times a week but I wasn't as consistent as I would've liked, for the most part it would be 2-3 sessions. On average for the whole year I was probably around 3 sessions a week. Each workout would focus on 4-5 different exercises (1 per different muscle group if possible) for 3 "sets" in total. Each "set" would simply be a 15-45 s iso contraction at long muscle length followed by 30 seconds of rest. The duration of the iso depended on how hard the exercise is (ex squats would be 15 s and lateral raises would be 45 s).

The training was similar to circuit training style where I would do each exercise from #1 to #4 like that: 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4. I would rest 30 seconds in between iso contraction. During each contraction I would try my absolute hardest from the beginning to the end of the timer. The reason is that without a tensiometer or a way to measure how much force I'm applying, its pretty much impossible for me to make sure that I am working hard enough and continually progressing as the weeks go by.

Also I experimented a little bit with yielding isometrics but I did not really enjoy them so I tried to only stick to overcoming if possible.

Results
I am very happy and surprised by the results, I did not expect much at the beginning and thought after a few weeks I would stop. But the results I got were really really good and I just kept going to see what would happen. Keep in my mind that I was pretty much untrained at the beginning so my gains were obviously much bigger than if I were a more seasoned lift. But still, I consider it a pretty big success. In total like mentioned earlier I am pretty confident that I gained near 15 lbs of muscles (I actually feel like I am less fat now but this is subjective so it is hard to know for sure).

On the strength side some of the results were kinda dissapointing. Unfortunately I didn't have a lot of benchmarks to compare to and the only equipment I could use were 2 dumbells of 20 lbs each. I actually got worse at push ups (from 25 to 15 reps max) even though my triceps and chest both got significantly bigger. My max pull ups increased from 1 to 7. My maximal lateral raises went from not being any close to do 1 rep at 20 lbs to now being able to complete 2 reps. Finally I could curl my 20 lbs dumbell 32 reps max at the beginning and the result did not change at the end. If strength was my main goal those would be pretty bad results and I would definitely have to change my training plan (probably go for shorter iso and rest between "reps").

Also I did a lot of non optimal things so someone else could probably get much better results:

1. I wasn't as consistent as I would've liked
2. My protein intake is pretty bad (not enough of it and a lot of it coming from plant-based sources)
3. I kept endurance training the whole time so I did not always have the most energy/motivation for resistance training

Anyways, just wanted to share my results with you and add my own experience to this thread. Iso training can definitely work.

 

[Steve Freides]

@chronos33, welcome to the StrongFirst forum.

-S-

 

[North Coast Miller]

@chronos33

Well planned and well done!

Re strength I've noticed the top end comes back from longer term iso after a few weeks to a month of returning to traditional work. Some lifts drop back in faster than others, some hardly seem effected, am not clear on why.

A drop in strength can also mean the specific iso hold can maybe be improved upon in terms of how it is mechanically staged.

Welcome to SF!

 

[chronos33]

Thank you! I am glad to be here

Re strength I've noticed the top end comes back from longer term iso after a few weeks to a month of returning to traditional work.

What exactly do you mean by top end? Do you mean the higher reps "strength endurance"-like movements? Or do you mean max strength closer to 1 rep max like a max squat for example? Or maybe something else?

A drop in strength can also mean the specific iso hold can maybe be improved upon in terms of how it is mechanically staged.

Yeah I agree, I should probably try to work at different angles instead of only focusing at long muscle length, so for example right now for a curl overcoming iso I would only work at the complete bottom position where my arm is pretty much parallel and where the biceps and other muscles are the most stretched. If I wanted to focus on strength more I should def try something different. Also like I remember seeing mentioned somewhere in this thread, shorter contractions duration would probably good idea instead of the long 30-45 s overcoming isos.

 

[chronos33]

Oh and I just forgot to mention but for me at least it was more the higher reps movements that did not improve or get worse. Like the push ups where I went from 25 to about 15.

 

[North Coast Miller]

Thank you! I am glad to be here


What exactly do you mean by top end? Do you mean the higher reps "strength endurance"-like movements? Or do you mean max strength closer to 1 rep max like a max squat for example? Or maybe something else?


Yeah I agree, I should probably try to work at different angles instead of only focusing at long muscle length, so for example right now for a curl overcoming iso I would only work at the complete bottom position where my arm is pretty much parallel and where the biceps and other muscles are the most stretched. If I wanted to focus on strength more I should def try something different. Also like I remember seeing mentioned somewhere in this thread, shorter contractions duration would probably good idea instead of the long 30-45 s overcoming isos.

By top end I mean your one to three rep max loading. Long term use of only iso degrades typical lifting movement patterns. You become like a strong nubie. Your ability to execute a heavy unfamiliar lift compared to results from traditional training would likely demonstrate more improvement.

Personally I don't see much value in training the muscle at shorter lengths. With very few exceptions I have always gotten better results at long length or even slightly stretched. If possible to force the muscle into a longer length under a max tension, even better.

The exception to this is upper back. The movement of the scapula relative to the upper arm is pretty complex, and only training with the scapula abducted, will mostly just effect the lats. The contraction stroke on a lot of those muscles is so short to begin with I'm not sure it makes a lot of difference if they aren't at longest possible length.

Shorter contractions initiated explosively and held for a single breath seem to not only generate more force, but continue to do so for the entire breath. A rapid relax on inhale and repeat allows some blood turnover. Fatigue is higher as well. Much more than 8 or 10 of these can bring about contraction failure.

I stopped counting for time and only count inhale/exhale - one "rep".

 

[chronos33]

Interesting, we are definitely both on the same wavelength for pretty much everything. Particularly the long muscle length training and the lifting explosively (what I called lifting with ballistic intent which is the exact same thing).

One difference I can see is regarding the reps close to one rep max where honestly I don't have enough experience to have a good opinion on it. So far my experience has been that the closer to 1 RM the exercise is, the better my results. Might just be the result of me being pretty completely untrained and unfamiliar with any movement whatsoever.

For the upper back, because I would have to hang from a bar anyways, I just decided to do pull ups directly instead of doing isos. I still do some bent over row isos tho where I try to get as much stretch as possible and I also do reverse flys isos to target the rear delts and other shoulder muscles.

Concerning the contraction duration lasting one breath it is definitely an interesting way to think about it. Especially the shorter duration contraction. The reason I went with sustained long duration contraction was because I was trying to occlude the muscle and stop new blood from coming in and out. That way there would be more metabolic stress and metabolites accumulation, which I hoped would improve hypertrophy.

But honestly now I am not quite sure if I still believe that metabolic stress is good for hypertrophy. I tried to learn a lot more about resistance training since I started last year and my understanding of resistance training in general has improved a lot. For example there was a good talk by menno henselman that was on this subject and even though the talk is starting to get "old" (from like 7 years ago) I feel like there was a lot of great info on the subject. Do you have any thoughts about that, particularly for hypertrophy? I am pretty confident that for strength it is probably not worth pursuing.

By the way thank you for the great insights, you seem very knowledgeable. Are there good sources of information that you would recommend for someone curious like me? I can definitely recommend Stronger By Science (both the website and podcast), MASS review (and their podcast too), Menno Henselmans' youtube channel, and any podcast featuring Brad schoenfeld is always full of great information. I am sure there are a more that I forgot but those are some of the best sources of information for resistance training out there for sure.

 

[North Coast Miller]

@chronos33

Relative to hypertrophy, I am 100% convinced of the need for a metabolic component for hypertrophy. My earliest iso experiments used intervals with iso. I gained about 3lbs lean per month for 4 months, comparable to (spirited) traditional resistance work. I switched to alternating days and the effect tapered off. I came back around to this after over a year and with no other change to my iso routine I began to gain muscle mass again.

The 'tension is all' approach leaves too many unanswered questions.

I have many ideas (theories) re metabolic process and how they play into hypertrophy, but bottom line at the minimum breathe throughout - this is important. Also, I don't believe isometric occlusion and BFR are similar dynamic.

 

[Training for Life]

@North Coast Miller what is your current take on programming the metabolic component? What would be a good minimum dose? Also, is it always after the iso part, not before or in separate same day session?

 

[North Coast Miller]

@North Coast Miller what is your current take on programming the metabolic component? What would be a good minimum dose? Also, is it always after the iso part, not before or in separate same day session?

My experience is that it should be used with - at the same time as it were. Initially I was using sprint in place after every exercise eg. three sets of squats, 30 seconds sprint or 20 seconds jumprope (max effort) rest, on to the next.

When I switched to alternating days or intermittent (2 or 3 days of iso, one day of HIIT) the hypertrophic effect began to diminish.

I picked it back up using 8-10 breath static, 8-10 single breath pulses, 20 seconds max effort jumprope. Two of these per exercise. The inclusion of a metabolic stress component increases (reliably) the hypertrophic response to iso. I have sussed this out several times now with and without. Is tough to reconcile with the "tension only" theory how a zero or low tension metabolic component that isn't even load-bearing is having a notable effect on hypertrophy.

Am 4 weeks in to a 12 week minimum block combining iso and external resistance, the iso provides the tension, sandbag provides the metabolic stress and eccentric loading. Currently using 10-12 second static hold, immediately followed (DropSet) by a sandbag analog using a moderate load - 8-20 reps depending. These loads if used fresh are all >20 reps. Rest, repeat using 10-12 pulse efforts followed by sandbag.

Play around with it, but including a metabolic component should generate a notable effect, something as simple as max effort sprint in place (get those knees up!).

Edit to add: in my theory, tension "unlocks" the process for metabolic signalling and should occur just prior to or at the same time. In the absence of tension or some other physical effect on the muscle, metabolic stress by itself has almost no effect on hypertrophy. I refer back to the research where hypertrophy in mice was produced using a mild toxin applied to the muscle, followed by systemic lactate. The mice didn't even exercise.

 

[chronos33]

Is tough to reconcile with the "tension only" theory how a zero or low tension metabolic component that isn't even load-bearing is having a notable effect on hypertrophy.

Oh yeah like I said I still dont really know what my opinion is on this yet. Menno's take on this is one of many and is really not unanimous from what I can tell, it is probably a bit too simple. Also that metabolic stress discussion piqued my interest so I looked into it a bit more, you might find this open access narrative review interesting (more than 150 studies discussed , that is a lot of reading for those authors!). According to it there definitely seems to be something to metabolic stress, although this is still speculative.

By the way just tell me if I am annoying with the questions but here goes another one . When you speak about your sprints to raise metabolic stress you are trying to focus on the same muscles groups worked or does it not matter? Like for example if you were to resistance train upper body would you still do sprints even though its lower body? Are you just trying to raise systemic fatigue with that?

Thanks

 

[North Coast Miller]

Oh yeah like I said I still dont really know what my opinion is on this yet. Menno's take on this is one of many and is really not unanimous from what I can tell, it is probably a bit too simple. Also that metabolic stress discussion piqued my interest so I looked into it a bit more, you might find this open access narrative review interesting (more than 150 studies discussed , that is a lot of reading for those authors!). According to it there definitely seems to be something to metabolic stress, although this is still speculative.

By the way just tell me if I am annoying with the questions but here goes another one . When you speak about your sprints to raise metabolic stress you are trying to focus on the same muscles groups worked or does it not matter? Like for example if you were to resistance train upper body would you still do sprints even though its lower body? Are you just trying to raise systemic fatigue with that?

Thanks

For starters, keep the questions and dialogue going, this is how everyone benefits including me.

Initially I had a thought that targeted rapid movements would work best, but over time I realized that sprint in place or jumping rope used everything, so mission accomplished without having to get too creative. It doesn't matter. It might if you were using a sprint bike but even then IDK.

My thinking is you raise systemic lactate and circulatory system will carry it to where the muscles have been exposed to high levels of tension. There will def be some local use of lactate and ROS production, but we know it is not as high as traditional resistance work. Overall aerobic usage is reduced, this approach addresses that somewhat.

As a side bonus, this can produce some HIIT-esque aerobic benefits in the same session.

 

[GreenSoup]

For starters, keep the questions and dialogue going, this is how everyone benefits including me.

Initially I had a thought that targeted rapid movements would work best, but over time I realized that sprint in place or jumping rope used everything, so mission accomplished without having to get too creative. It doesn't matter. It might if you were using a sprint bike but even then IDK.

My thinking is you raise systemic lactate and circulatory system will carry it to where the muscles have been exposed to high levels of tension. There will def be some local use of lactate and ROS production, but we know it is not as high as traditional resistance work. Overall aerobic usage is reduced, this approach addresses that somewhat.

As a side bonus, this can produce some HIIT-esque aerobic benefits in the same session.

This sounds a lot like Pavel's idea about the Swing Sandwich

The Kettlebell Swing Sandwich: Build Muscle, Lose Fat, Save Time | StrongFirst

Soviet science and real-life experience both point to the muscle and strength gains to be earned through using a swing sandwich type of program.

www.strongfirst.com

Edit: The idea of deliberately mixing strength work with cardio is similar, not that it is in any way the same program! It could give a similar purpose and benefit though.