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December
1999
Innervation
Training Article I
One of the things that bother me as an intellectual involved in this industry, is how one-dimensional everything about the industry has become. From magazines to contests, to the bodybuilders themselves, this industry is dominated with one-dimensional thought processes. One way to publish, one way to promote, one way to grow. The bodybuilders themselves and their industry's guru's are the worst offenders of all. It galls me that the only "real" thinking and talking about progress in this sport surrounds drugs and supplements. Training has taken a back seat or is a non-consideration because "everyone trains hard" and hardcore bodybuilders "already know how to train". This is probably the most abounding myth existing in the sport today, and it infuriates me. I have spent the good part of fifteen years studying all aspects of anaerobic training, and the one thing that becomes perfectly clear through a "proper" interpretation of the research, is that bodybuilders professional and amateurs alike, haven't got the slightest idea how to monitor or vary their training to get maximum results. Why? They have never been taught. Because it is out of mainstream sport, there has never been any real applied coaching in bodybuilding circles. The key word here is real. Bodybuilders are traditionalists. The training and the training myths that correspond with tradition are simply followed generation after generation. Because training is based on tradition alone, rather than applied traditional knowledge, bodybuilders are also trendists. They will follow any current "trend" borne out of the "opinion" of any current reigning champion, because they do not know any better. Right now, the current vogue is the Heavy Duty, or Dorian Yates style of training which everyone follows because "this guy's Dorian Yates and he is Mr. Olympia; therefore, he must know". I hate to burst anyone's bubble but when you win a show the award is no applied knowledge award. Lightning does not strike upon the winning of a contest imbuing the winner with years of sound theoretical and practical knowledge. No. Most elite athletes in every sport are born to be elite athletes in their sport. The only difference between bodybuilding and other sports is that other sports are strongly steeped in knowledge based coaching and bodybuilding is not. Take the Dorian Yates style for an example. How many people who take up this "style" of training ever critically address it before doing so? For instance, how do we know Dorian isn't the exception rather than the rule? That is, maybe that style of training suits Dorian and only Dorain (maybe a select few other). How do we know that Dorain couldn't look better and progress better using other training "styles". If he did, would that automatically make that training style the new "vogue" training style and therefore the "new correct" one. Dorian himself has abandoned "that" style of training and has gone back to other "traditional" training styles. Why? Because longevity for Dorian is important. That former heavy-duty training style also resulted in one of the most hurt and injured athletes in the sport. The question then begs, "if a training style is going to risk severe strains, and career threatening tears, how effective is it in the long term daily scheme of things?" These are obvious questions about training strategies that bodybuilders never address. They are satisfied with tradition and trends. However, they are missing one of the most critical aspects of this sport, which could affect their progress. Training. Yes, there is a right and wrong way to train. There is a right and wrong technique to employ while executing movements. In the coming issues I will destroy many of the training myths and "guru voodoo" knowledge that exists in this sport. I will prove that as the research shows there is a right way and a wrong way, to plan and carry out training programs. I have always been amazed at the simplistic and often moronic logic employed by bodybuilders. They all seem to think that if they win a show, then they must have done everything right. When you win a show it just means that you were better than the other competitors that day! It doesn't mean you were at your best, or you knew what you were doing. It just means you were the best specimen that day. Enough said. The way bodybuilders approach training strategy boggles my mind. It is usually always borne out of ego and opinion and very little else. An analogy about this may help to explain the lunacy here. What if I set a goal for myself to be a swimmer in the Olympics? For training I go to the family open swim at the Y every chance I get. I go for years. I decided when I get there what I feel like doing or maybe I even write it down in advance to give it the "look" of applied knowledge, if for no other reason than to make me confident in my choices. I may even ask other more "serious" swimmers and "lifeguards" at the family swim to comment or help my training. Then I go to the Olympic trails. I get laughed out of water. Why? I tried hard, worked hard, and was disciplined all the time. I got beat by serious athletes who take their genetics gifts and desire to the proper coaching atmosphere. Knowledgeable, skilled applied coaching nourishes the athlete, enriches the training environment so that training time is time invested not just time spent. In bodybuilding there is just as sound a training strategy that exists. That does not mean the same program for everyone. It means applying the same principles to everyone at their individual anatomical, specific fitness levels. I call it Innervation Training. Studying the musculoskeletal system, biochemistry, and endocrine responses to training has yielded specific quantifiable conclusions. We know for instance that maximum strength training methods with their high intensity resistance but low volume of work (eg. Powerlifting; weightlifting) do not elicit substantial muscle hypertrophy. Strength has always been poorly related to hypertrophy. (Indeed some uninformed "bodybuilders" are still striving to make strength gains thinking this translates to muscles gain). It has been shown that a higher volume of work (>6 reps in multiple sets) is needed to ensure a critical concentration of intracellular amino acids to stimulate protein synthesis. (Tesch and Laroon 1982, Tech 1992, Komi 1992, Behn 1995). We have also learned that placing the muscles in a stretched position can enhance the anabolic effect of muscular contractions, because this has an affect on protein specific degradation and synthesis. (Etlinger et al 1980, Baracos and Goldbug 1986, Hatfaludy et al 1989). This illustrates the importance of training a muscle through its full-intended range of motion. (How many bodybuilders think about that?) Notice it's the muscle that should be trained through a full range of motion. Most bodybuilders I know of are strictly concerned with a movement (exercise) rather than the muscle. What a colossal mistake! So while biochemical research, biomechanics research, and exercise physiology research have yielded impressive findings…These findings are nothing really new to the informed researchers among us. Furthermore, what these areas of research offer to training science fail poorly in comparison to the available research in the areas of neuroscience. Indeed the research into the neurological aspects of training and neural influences on training as well as neurological influences on adaptations to training have been the cornerstone of my research, culminating in what I have labeled. Innervation Training…Innervation Training and its main tenets of research will completely disassemble and destroy the "traditional" approach to training. To those beginning and advance bodybuilders and athlete's. I will prove there is 1) a right way to train 2) a correct exercise sequence to follow and even 3) a correct way to execute a movement right down to the exactness of a repetition. If this research and its application do not fascinate you; wait you will be. People following the tenets of Innervation Training can a) improve structure b) improve performance c) improve weak bodyparts. One year of Innervation Training applied will equal in gains double the amount of time on any given drug stack your guru can conjure. And these gains stay with you. The fundamentals involved in Innervation Training are intricate and technical. However, it is necessary to address them point by point in order to understand the whole paradigm. First a brief look at the research that lead to the orientation toward neurological parameters being the defining variables involved with Innervation Training is critical as a starting point to understanding Innervation Training. In the area of neurobiology Henneman's (Henneman et al 1965) "size principle of fiber recruitment" is the grandfather of research done in this area. According to this research fibers are recruited from smallest to largest depending on the task at hand. Moreover, the most fatigue resistant fibers are the smallest while the largest fibers are the most fatigable. Tasks requiring little effort or dexterity or tasks requiring a vast workload will dictate motor neuron firing frequency according to the size principle. Thus, large fibers, which are the easiest to fatigue, are recruited when such a workload demands. (Hermenan 1962). This research drew some interesting and practical conclusions, but more importantly, it set the groundwork for the more fascinating and ongoing research into neurological influences on muscle that continues to this day. Probably the most telling research in this area was by Buller et al 1960. This was a study of cross re-innervation of the cat hindlimbs. Buller showed that cross re-innervation of the nerve supply to the soleus muscle (a slow twitch muscle) and the flexor digitorum longus muscle (a fast twitch muscle) altered the contractile properties of the re-innervated muscles…that is, the fast muscle acquired properties of the former slow muscle and vice versa… It is well established that not only the biochemical properties are changed, but also many of the histochemical, mitochondrial, and structural differences between fast and slow muscles are under neuronal control (see also Komi, 1992, Sales 1986, 1992, 1995). That is, if you attach a slow twitch motor neuron to a fast twitch muscle, it will in essence becomes slow twitch, and the reverse tends to also be true. While this information bodes well to the Specificity Principle of Exercise Physiology, it extends well beyond that. This research suggests that adaptations within muscles are dependant variables adapting to a specific stimulus of neural command. It amazed me that researches pay scant attention to the implication of this research. Further research illustrates the independence of the nervous system in being able to command specific responses to training within its own communication network as well as within and between muscle groups as well. (See Komi 1992, Sales 1986, Behn 1995, Bartnett et al 1995, Paton and Brown 1995, and many others). Studies on the effect and the independence of the nervous system in commanding a specific response from muscles continued to elicit important results. Studies referred to as "cross education" research showed that a neurological adaptation takes place in an untrained limb as a result of training the contralateral limb. The untrained limb actually gains strength through a neurological adaptation of having trained its contralateral limb. (See Yasuda and Miyamura 1983; Moritani T and H.A. deviries 1979, Houston et al 1983). Training studies also illustrated that the elimination of the "bilateral deficit" is considered a neural adaptation to strength training. In the early period of strength training the total force produced by two acting limbs say is less than the sum of the forces produced by left and right limbs acting alone. In other words beginning strength trainer's produce more force unilaterally than bilaterally. The elimination of this bilateral deficit is a neurological adaptation. This research has tremendous implications for training in terms of weak bodyparts and neurological pathways. Komi (1989, 1992) states that early strength increases that are seen as increases in performance are actually due to adaptive changes in the nervous system that optimizes control of muscles involved in the exercises (neural adaptations). The way the nervous system optimizes control and direction of working muscles is one of the main tenets of Innervation Training. The many neural influences on muscle performance are just as important to understand for advanced athletes as for beginners. Even in elite athletes when adaptation in muscle are the limiting factors to better performance ( i.e. Bodybuilders) the nervous system must not be ignored. The desired muscle adaptations whether increases in strength or rate of force development will critically depend on the way the muscles are activated by the nervous system during training (Sales 1986, 1992; Komi 1992). This suggests therefore that there is essentially an exact way to train to dictate an exact adaptation in the muscle since the adaptations "critically depend on the way muscles are activated by the nervous system during training". Rather than viewing muscles simplistically as agonists or synergists in a given movement, muscles should be viewed as a community of motor units which can act with some degree of independence to maximize efficiency of the muscle. It is clear from the research that muscle performance is determined not merely by the size of involved muscles but also by the ability of the nervous system to appropriately activate the muscles, and indeed selectively activate segments of a muscle. This article is an attempt to initiate the reader to some of the backbone research that developed into Innervation Training. It is also an attempt to get the reader to begin to think in modalities outside of musculoskeletal concerns, and accept that other predominantly neurological factors can be interrupted and used to create an exactness in an application of training and training science. Consider this a broad-based overview of some of the research. The next article will delve specifically into the neurological adaptations and mechanisms of adaptations that are neuronal in nature. Next time I will explain in more depth Innervation Training Principles and some of the most important research contributing to its development including specifically the concept of Functional Differentiation and what it means to your training program needs. References and Suggested Reading
Copyright 1999 Jason Meuller and Anabolic Extreme. This material may not be copied, reproduced, or transmitted without the express written permission of the copyright owners. |
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