Planet Muscle

Jeff,

Your series by Dr. Paul Ward on training science, has been outstanding. But, his last installment left me befuddled. I am training my 14-year old boy to become a pro in football. I always read what the world’s strongest bodybuilders do. I always assist him through his weak points of his squats, at the bottom, forcing his reps there because if I help his reps where he is weakest, he can use a lot more weight, moving more weight through the rest of the motion. Is Dr. Paul saying I should not be assisting, or forcing all his reps, at the weak point?

Befuddled? Well we can’t have that!

First, the vast majority of the world’s ‘strongest’ bodybuilders train with the recovery assistance of steroids. Presumably you do not have your 14 year old on steroids? For the record, over 40 years I have never seen any natural training bodybuilder actually gaining any muscle, using forced reps. Frankly, it’s usually the skinniest guys in the gym, all over-training with forced reps. Dorian Yates they ain’t, although the spotter keeps getting bigger. So, the answer is yes, that’s exactly what Paul is saying. Your body has evolved to exert force, velocity and acceleration, proportional at any point in the joint range of motion, to the changing variable moment arms, the insertional muscle attachment moment arm and the length of the external resistance arm. This is one reason why using free weights is better for athletes, than are machines, due to the nature of the variable resistance arm and the ability to accelerate or decelerate the limb(s) with the weight, exactly where the body is able to do so. While you may be able to load more weight in other areas of the range, this may not be advised, since the muscle is not generating higher tension in those areas, it merely is operating “stronger” because of better bone leverarm leverage.

In other words, for athletes, one should not load the body where it is not capable of generating proportional muscle tensile contractile force. As an example, what happens if a shotputter who throws the 12-pound shot, does the whole glide with the 16-pound shot for some time, and comes back to the 12-pound? Does he throw farther? Usually, in fact, less. Shot putters may use a heavier shot in the plant position as a training exercise, but not much in the whole glide because athletic motion is synergist and specific. It might be all right for a pro, steroid-enhanced bodybuilder, to do some careful forced reps, as they are not trying to acquire power, skill or speed. Likewise, an experienced powerlifter may use chains to experiment with his bench press and squat, (knowing what they are doing) and again, many use steroids. Developing 14 year olds, should not be doing forced (or even assisted reps), certainly where leverage is poorest. They should be doing all their reps to positive failure with the bar not being touched and they should accelerate and decelerate through the range as their body and developing structure so allows them to! Non-steroid users, doing forced reps, negative reps, etc. are one of the reasons so many of them get over-trained and quit. That is the gist of what Paul is saying. But, as well, technically, forced reps are where a lifter gets all his reps, (say 7 on a heavy set of benches), and then the spotters lift the bar through the range of motion with enough effect that said lifter forces out another 2-4 reps.

There are very few builders who can do this and not get over-trained, even if they are on steroids. At the end of a set your muscles fail for good purposes. They no longer can offload oxygen from the hemoglobin/myoglobin molecule, pH is too low and energy substrates are used up and the muscle can no longer clear and convert lactate back to glucose, and no longer can synthesize enough ATP fast enough from ADP and free phosphate. So, the muscle is telling you rest now and recover. If you start overloading and forcing reps then, this really taxes the nervous system and overall recovery. Forcing reps is quite a bit different than touching the bar slightly, to get the last rep out. Squats may be particularly onerous, if you get him through the poorest leverage point, just so he can use much more weight where his leverage is better, especially at 14. Keep in mind your muscles are always strongest at the sticking point, precisely because that’s where the external resistance arm is the longest and where more force is required.

Don’t ask for injury ….. or you’ll get it!