The Final Rep: Re-evaluating the Practice of "Training to Failure"

After reading through all this crapola.

It's it the general view here that Olympic lifter don't use a bodybuilding type template from time to time?

Is it the view that Olympic lifter shouldn't do a barbell bicep curl?
Which is in-fact not an isolation exercise.

spartacus said:

What is the big deal here. Oni shows chinese athletes doing some movements associated with bb.

Perfectly plausible that chinese coach emphasises assistance exercises.

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This is what has me perplexed spart, as with most things here, people throw the baby out with the bath water.

most bb movements are general weight training exercises.

For a weightlifter, or any other sports person, there is an important role for such movements. This may include helping specific strengths and weaknesses, recovering from injury given that explosive lifts are not plausible at times, and even putting on weight. A variety of exercises may also have a psychological benefit in terms minimising boredom.

To be honest, I don't know that many bb movement that don't have some potential functional benefit.

The fact that some bb's appear cumbersome and unathletic may have more to do with the individual rather than bb movements themselves. Key, as always, is balance with more focus on certain exercises in regard to specificity of sport.

spartacus said:

most bb movements are general weight training exercises.

For a weightlifter, or any other sports person, there is an important role for such movements. This may include helping specific strengths and weaknesses, recovering from injury given that explosive lifts are not plausible at times, and even putting on weight. A variety of exercises may also have a psychological benefit in terms minimising boredom.

To be honest, I don't know that many bb movement that don't have some potential functional benefit.

The fact that some bb's appear cumbersome and unathletic may have more to do with the individual rather than bb movements themselves. Key, as always, is balance with more focus on certain exercises in regard to specificity of sport.

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Super reply!

Fadi said:

Logically speaking, he wouldn't ,..he wouldn't carry it unless it benefited him. Now that we've covered this bit, let us now continue this logically based discussion.

Why would any sane athlete want to add a single gram (not a kilogram) to his frame if that additional weight was not achieved through a functional movement? Which takes me all the way back to that wonderful bodybuilding exercise, namely the dumbbell side laterals!

Why, why would be the logical question to ask of that weightlifter, should we be able to find one.

Ps:Lu Xiaojun seen in the video Oni put up was performing side laterals with two weight disks was no more than a warm up. Weightlifters do "anything" to insure a thorough warm up, particularly of their shoulder and knee joints. Yes, anything could entail rope skipping, hand push ups against a wall, whatever really...But, that does not suddenly mean it's part of some higher weightlifting program.



Fadi.

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I'm gonna play devil's advocate here, but isn't it less important that muscle be gained through a "functional" movement, and more important that it contribute to a "functional" movement? Now, 9 times out of 10, the best way to improve a specific movement is to do the movement, but there are instances in which you're doing enough direct work with the specific movement and just need to work one or two muscles that contribute to the movement.

Similarly, let's continue with the side raise example for shoulders. Suppose (for argument's sake) a weightlifter needs to develop more muscle mass on his deltoids, but does not need additional mass on his triceps or traps. By using overhead press variants to gain the extra shoulder mass, he's contributing to extra unnecessary weight on his arms and traps. This extra weight on his arms and traps is not helping to deal with the problem, and so could be seen as counter-productive. Again, the context (and I'm not suggesting that this is a normal or likely situation in real life, it's just to illustrate a point) is that the lifter needs more delts but not more triceps and traps, so doing something to gain all three when he only needs one could be more costly than simply focusing on the one muscle.

RyanF said:

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here, but isn't it less important that muscle be gained through a "functional" movement, and more important that it contribute to a "functional" movement? Now, 9 times out of 10, the best way to improve a specific movement is to do the movement, but there are instances in which you're doing enough direct work with the specific movement and just need to work one or two muscles that contribute to the movement.

Similarly, let's continue with the side raise example for shoulders. Suppose (for argument's sake) a weightlifter needs to develop more muscle mass on his deltoids, but does not need additional mass on his triceps or traps. By using overhead press variants to gain the extra shoulder mass, he's contributing to extra unnecessary weight on his arms and traps. This extra weight on his arms and traps is not helping to deal with the problem, and so could be seen as counter-productive. Again, the context (and I'm not suggesting that this is a normal or likely situation in real life, it's just to illustrate a point) is that the lifter needs more delts but not more triceps and traps, so doing something to gain all three when he only needs one could be more costly than simply focusing on the one muscle.

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I think the bit in bold is where your argument fell over, and you had me up to that point

I don't think you can hold a suscessful argument while saying something like "and I'm not suggesting that this is a normal or likely situation in real life, it's just to illustrate a point".

The lifter was doing side laterals because he was bored.

Where's the ideal physique thread? I wanna look like that guy...well, not exactly like him

RyanF said:

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here, but isn't it less important that muscle be gained through a "functional" movement, and more important that it contribute to a "functional" movement

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Cart has been put before horse here Ryan.

but there are instances in which you're doing enough direct work with the specific movement and just need to work one or two muscles that contribute to the movement.

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No, not in weightlifting. We don't think of a one particular muscle as having precedence over a section of a whole movement. We understand things as the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,..or... the sum of the whole is greater than its parts. Or however you wish to put it.

Here's how we do it...

Example: a lifter has a weakness at the parallel squat position when getting out of a clean. We don't consider sending him to the leg extension or leg curl machine to strengthen his legs further or to build additional muscles in these leg areas no, we base our methodology on the above quote by Aristotle, the whole is greater than...

In addition to his normal squat program, we give this weightlifter some work in the trusted power rack, utilsing its pins and placing them exactly where the sticking point may be for our lifter in question. We apply two elements here, namely the static holds (which add virtually no muscles at all to the area, yet increase its strength by folds), ,,and we have the lifter drive explosively (relative to the weight at hand) from that sticking point, focusing on his weakest link and bringing it up to balance the rest of his lift. As you can see, we have isolated, not a particular muscle, but rather a section of the whole lift and focused our attention on it. Hence, we've hit two birds with one stone here: isolating a section of the total lift (namely the squat), and fixing the problem during the performance of it (and not whilst performing some "way out" muscle isolation exercise").

Similarly, let's continue with the side raise example for shoulders. Suppose (for argument's sake) a weightlifter needs to develop more muscle mass on his deltoids, but does not need additional mass on his triceps or traps. By using overhead press variants to gain the extra shoulder mass, he's contributing to extra unnecessary weight on his arms and traps. This extra weight on his arms and traps is not helping to deal with the problem, and so could be seen as counter-productive. Again, the context (and I'm not suggesting that this is a normal or likely situation in real life, it's just to illustrate a point) is that the lifter needs more delts but not more triceps and traps, so doing something to gain all three when he only needs one could be more costly than simply focusing on the one muscle.

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Now if you allow me to play the devil's advocate here Ryan, I would have to say that you’ve answered your own question Sir.

PS: The only time I've ever witnessed an Olympic weightlifter perform leg extensions was after knee surgery.



Fadi.

High Road said:

I think the bit in bold is where your argument fell over, and you had me up to that point

I don't think you can hold a suscessful argument while saying something like "and I'm not suggesting that this is a normal or likely situation in real life, it's just to illustrate a point".

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Um, I was giving the example of deltoids sans triceps and traps because fadi gave the example of lateral raises vs OHP. My point was never to indicate probability, but to point out the purpose of a given movement. Isolation exercises are performed to work on x without working on y and z, when x needs the extra work and y and z do not; or when xyz can all be worked together but isolating x works x better than working xyz at once. If the logic fails because of probability, then you've misunderstood the point.

If we were talking powerflifting instead of weightlifting, which is equally a weight class sport, then a similar (although more probable) scenario would be doing direct triceps work for the bench press, when (hypothetically) a triceps isolation exercise will give the triceps enough meat to hit a PB while getting the same meat out of additional pressing exercises will put enough muscle on globally to cause the lifter to tip the scales and move into the next weight class.

Fadi said:

Cart has been put before horse here Ryan. No, not in weightlifting. We don't think of a one particular muscle as having precedence over a section of a whole movement. We understand things as the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,..or... the sum of the whole is greater than its parts. Or however you wish to put it.

Click to expand...

Yes, but you need the parts in order to have the whole.

Here's how we do it...

Example: a lifter has a weakness at the parallel squat position when getting out of a clean. We don't consider sending him to the leg extension or leg curl machine to strengthen his legs further or to build additional muscles in these leg areas no, we base our methodology on the above quote by Aristotle, the whole is greater than...

In addition to his normal squat program, we give this weightlifter some work in the trusted power rack, utilsing its pins and placing them exactly where the sticking point may be for our lifter in question. We apply two elements here, namely the static holds (which add virtually no muscles at all to the area, yet increase its strength by folds), ,,and we have the lifter drive explosively (relative to the weight at hand) from that sticking point, focusing on his weakest link and bringing it up to balance the rest of his lift. As you can see, we have isolated, not a particular muscle, but rather a section of the whole lift and focused our attention on it. Hence, we've hit two birds with one stone here: isolating a section of the total lift (namely the squat), and fixing the problem during the performance of it (and not whilst performing some "way out" muscle isolation exercise").

Now if you allow me to play the devil's advocate here Ryan, I would have to say that you’ve answered your own question Sir.

PS: The only time I've ever witnessed an Olympic weightlifter perform leg extensions was after knee surgery.



Fadi.

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That's all well and good in 99% of circumstances, but what about the other 1%? Again, my point had nothing to do with the likelihood that lateral raises would be more advantageous than some sort of press for w weightlifter, only that it's possible in some circumstances.

RyanF said:

Um, I was giving the example of deltoids sans triceps and traps because fadi gave the example of lateral raises vs OHP. My point was never to indicate probability, but to point out the purpose of a given movement. Isolation exercises are performed to work on x without working on y and z, when x needs the extra work and y and z do not; or when xyz can all be worked together but isolating x works x better than working xyz at once. If the logic fails because of probability, then you've misunderstood the point.

If we were talking powerflifting instead of weightlifting, which is equally a weight class sport, then a similar (although more probable) scenario would be doing direct triceps work for the bench press, when (hypothetically) a triceps isolation exercise will give the triceps enough meat to hit a PB while getting the same meat out of additional pressing exercises will put enough muscle on globally to cause the lifter to tip the scales and move into the next weight class.

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Then I have misunderstood the point. It's possible, just not probable.

interdasting