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hard2handle
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Well this will be a tough read, but those of you who are body builders by definition, or power lifters will find this info paramount.
Americans have a curious obsession with excess, everywhere except excercise it seems. (present company excluded). But along with our over eating, sweet rides, suped up computers, and executive jobs comes a huge sacrifice. "What's this sacrifice?", you may ask, well it's poor posture, over worked (or wrongly worked) muscle groups, and what we professionals call pattern over-load. Please allow me to ellaborate.
There are many of these pattern over-load syndromes, but for times sake I will only focus on one, that is the legs as title suggests.
We Americans tend to sit alot, in the car, at work, on the pc checkin out ef etc... This leads to Tightned and shortened psoas, (that is hip flexor) also lengthened and lazy glutes. Add on top of that Altered Reciprocal Inhibition (that's a big one) which is the concept that a tight agonist (prime mover) will decrease neural drive to its antagonist(opposing muscle). Now when I say neural drive I mean your brain communicating with the muscle, this absolutely effects relative strength.
Remember the first time you found your pecs and could make them bounce, I was about 16 and gaining alot of muscle on the swim team. Well did I start bouncing my pecs cause I finally had the strength? No, that was evidence of the neuro-muscular continuum. By training those muscles everyday I was making my brain communicate with those muscles, they became good friends so now when my brain tells them to fire, they do immediately.
Back to topic. We call this concept neoro-muscular efficiency, that is your brains ability to recruit and fire 'the correct' or in some cases 'the most' muscle fibers. In the psoas- glute example, we have tight psoas, long glute, then on top of that the psoas is telling the glute to let go! So we have this long, stretched out, lazy glute that isn't doing much of anything. What do you think happens next?
Enter synergistic dominance, this is where the neighbor muscles are recruited to help a muscle do it's job. In the case of your glutes the synergists are your lower back and more importantly for this thread the hamstrings. So the ham strings are doing all this extra work, cause the glutes are lazy, so they tighten up, get strong you know? Well back to Altered Recipricol Inhibition, If those hams are tight and over worked then they are talking smack to your quads all the time. "Give me a break man, loosen up!" All this is happening in electrical signals within the muscles, even against your will. Remember the pec example earlier?
Still don't believe me? Try this little test. Lie down flat on your back, and hold one leg up a little and allow someone to grab your foot and stretch your calf. Nice and easy I mean, it shouldn't take much pressure ,just stretch..., if your like most of my clients, you can't let go. Of the calf I mean, I struggle to, I been training for like 10 years, only to find out, I can't control my own calves. I can flex them, oh baby! I slam the whole rack 4 sets of 20 on a regular basis. But I struggle to let them relax. That by definition is neuro-muscular effiniency(or lack thereof). My brain and the muscles are not cooperating 100%.
So to tie it all together, whether power lifting or bbing, we all want maximum recruitment of muscle fibers. In the legs... stretch those psoas, and the hams. And start doing exercises to fire those glutes. Glutes are actually pretty big, if you get them working they are so strong! This will give your hams a break so you can hit them hard when it's their turn. Also the hams will quit sassin your quads, all in like 4 weeks. You need to lay off the compound movements during this time. (this is gonna piss some of you off) Squats and leg presses only aggrivate this condition. If you are serious, or a pro, you need this. Try this out for 4 weeks for real. I guaranty, when you come back to hammering the quads they'll be stronger. Along with all the other muscles.
Please don't misunderstand me, I am not saying squats are bad. They are the best, I feel, for muscle hypertrophy. This is is a technique to correct a muscle imbalance. 4 weeks is not a long time.
Oh, by the way, if your lower back aches when, or after, you train, then this thread absolutely applies to you.
Americans have a curious obsession with excess, everywhere except excercise it seems. (present company excluded). But along with our over eating, sweet rides, suped up computers, and executive jobs comes a huge sacrifice. "What's this sacrifice?", you may ask, well it's poor posture, over worked (or wrongly worked) muscle groups, and what we professionals call pattern over-load. Please allow me to ellaborate.
There are many of these pattern over-load syndromes, but for times sake I will only focus on one, that is the legs as title suggests.
We Americans tend to sit alot, in the car, at work, on the pc checkin out ef etc... This leads to Tightned and shortened psoas, (that is hip flexor) also lengthened and lazy glutes. Add on top of that Altered Reciprocal Inhibition (that's a big one) which is the concept that a tight agonist (prime mover) will decrease neural drive to its antagonist(opposing muscle). Now when I say neural drive I mean your brain communicating with the muscle, this absolutely effects relative strength.
Remember the first time you found your pecs and could make them bounce, I was about 16 and gaining alot of muscle on the swim team. Well did I start bouncing my pecs cause I finally had the strength? No, that was evidence of the neuro-muscular continuum. By training those muscles everyday I was making my brain communicate with those muscles, they became good friends so now when my brain tells them to fire, they do immediately.
Back to topic. We call this concept neoro-muscular efficiency, that is your brains ability to recruit and fire 'the correct' or in some cases 'the most' muscle fibers. In the psoas- glute example, we have tight psoas, long glute, then on top of that the psoas is telling the glute to let go! So we have this long, stretched out, lazy glute that isn't doing much of anything. What do you think happens next?
Enter synergistic dominance, this is where the neighbor muscles are recruited to help a muscle do it's job. In the case of your glutes the synergists are your lower back and more importantly for this thread the hamstrings. So the ham strings are doing all this extra work, cause the glutes are lazy, so they tighten up, get strong you know? Well back to Altered Recipricol Inhibition, If those hams are tight and over worked then they are talking smack to your quads all the time. "Give me a break man, loosen up!" All this is happening in electrical signals within the muscles, even against your will. Remember the pec example earlier?
Still don't believe me? Try this little test. Lie down flat on your back, and hold one leg up a little and allow someone to grab your foot and stretch your calf. Nice and easy I mean, it shouldn't take much pressure ,just stretch..., if your like most of my clients, you can't let go. Of the calf I mean, I struggle to, I been training for like 10 years, only to find out, I can't control my own calves. I can flex them, oh baby! I slam the whole rack 4 sets of 20 on a regular basis. But I struggle to let them relax. That by definition is neuro-muscular effiniency(or lack thereof). My brain and the muscles are not cooperating 100%.
So to tie it all together, whether power lifting or bbing, we all want maximum recruitment of muscle fibers. In the legs... stretch those psoas, and the hams. And start doing exercises to fire those glutes. Glutes are actually pretty big, if you get them working they are so strong! This will give your hams a break so you can hit them hard when it's their turn. Also the hams will quit sassin your quads, all in like 4 weeks. You need to lay off the compound movements during this time. (this is gonna piss some of you off) Squats and leg presses only aggrivate this condition. If you are serious, or a pro, you need this. Try this out for 4 weeks for real. I guaranty, when you come back to hammering the quads they'll be stronger. Along with all the other muscles.
Please don't misunderstand me, I am not saying squats are bad. They are the best, I feel, for muscle hypertrophy. This is is a technique to correct a muscle imbalance. 4 weeks is not a long time.
Oh, by the way, if your lower back aches when, or after, you train, then this thread absolutely applies to you.
