A question of strength

Q: I have calves that look like Tara Lipinski's calves. Should I work with high or low reps? Should I do standing calf raises or seated calf raises? Should I put a bullet in my head or take a good dose of anthrax?

A: Calf training requires all the brainpower you can muster. Calves are problematic from a physiological point of view. A lot of exercisers are unhappy with their calves because the load parameters for lower leg development are much more limited than, say, arm training. Unlike something like your bicep training, your calf repertoire is limited. To compensate for this, you need to be much more careful when it comes to manipulating your reps, sets and rest intervals to add variety to your calf workout.

Another problem is the limited range of motion in calf exercises. Let's say you're doing squats. The range of motion for squats is large and it's easy to vary the tempo. For example, you can take 3, 4, 5 or more seconds to perform the eccentric part of the movement. With calf exercises, however, you have a limited range of motion and cannot vary the tempo as easily as with squats or other exercises. During the Nagano Olympics, some of my athletes from different disciplines were discussing on the bus the value of the calf training programs I had given them, specifically focusing on the program I had created for Luke Saunder, one of my alpine skiers. One of the skiers recalled how Luke had come to training camp with a completely new pair of calves and the ski company rep had freaked out because he had to fit him with a new pair of ski boots. I remember Luke wanting a calf training program because muscular calves can prevent knee injuries in alpine skiing (they provide a kind of cushioning that prevents the skier's knees from forming too high a lateral angle when skiing downhill).

When I got home, I pulled out the program I had given Luke. It's a program that would serve anyone well. Here it is:

Day 1: High Volume

Exercise A: Calf Superset*

A1) Seated calf raise

• 3 x 10-5-5 (One set of 10 reps followed by two sets of 5 reps) with a 101 tempo (1 second to lower the weight, no rest and 1 second to lift the weight)

A2) Donkey calf raises

• 3 x 30-50 with a 101 tempo

* After performing a set of exercise A1, go straight to performing a set of exercise A2. Then pause for two minutes before performing the next superset.

Exercise B: Standing calf raise

B1) Standing calf raises

• 10 x 10-30 with a 111 tempo, 10 seconds **

**In other words, you will perform a long extended set where you pause for 10 seconds between each mini-set, lowering the weight between sets.

After day one, you'll probably feel a burning sensation in your calves that makes you want to call the fire department. It could also be that your gait resembles that of Homer Simpson's 80-year-old father.

Day 2: Low volume (should be performed 48 hours after day 1)

Exercise A: Standing calf raise, double descending set

A1) Standing calf raise, double descending set

• 3 x 10-10-10 (in other words, two descending sets) with a 121 tempo,*** and 90 seconds rest between sets.

*** The pause is taken in the lowest stretched position and you should make sure to pause for a full 2 seconds.

This program should give you insane gains in muscle mass. As you can see, you will be performing a large number of total repetitions. I have found that you need sufficient training frequency and volume, but that you cannot use high volume and high frequency at the same time. Therefore, I recommend training the calves twice within a 5-day cycle: with a training session with many sets (16) and many total repetitions (250 to 510), as well as a training session with few sets (3) and a low amount of total repetitions (90). I know people who have gained 1.5 to 2.5 centimeters of calf circumference in just 30 days with this program.

Q: When I do bench presses, my shoulders hurt like crazy. Should I train around the pain, or take up stamp collecting as a new hobby instead?

A: It's very likely that one of the following three shoulder problems is responsible for your pain:

A muscle imbalance:

When the strength ratio between two muscle groups is unbalanced, it can lead to misalignment. For example, if the strength of your pectorals is proportionally much higher than that of the external rotators of the humerus (teres minor and infraspinatus), then you will probably feel a sharp pain in the upper, anterior part of the upper arm (this problem is often misdiagnosed as inflammation of the biceps tendon). There are plenty of other examples of displaced muscle strength relationships, but explaining them all here is beyond the scope of this column.

A development of adhesions:

One of the undesirable side effects of years of training with weights, is a development of adhesions in soft tissue and other body structures. Adhesions are a result of the load used and the total volume of repetitions. In other words, the more sets and repetitions you perform and the stronger you get, the more adhesions you will develop. This build-up of connective tissue can occur within a muscle, between muscle groups or between nerve and muscle. Adhesions can occur in any muscle structure, but the area most commonly responsible for shoulder pain during bench presses is the subscapularis muscle. The good news is that you can quickly find and fix these adhesions with soft tissue treatment techniques known as Active Release Techniques®.

A lack of mobility:

Not stretching your muscles regularly can encourage injuries to occur. You don't have to become a yoga grandmaster now, but regular shoulder girdle stretches before your upper body workouts will do wonders when it comes to keeping your shoulders healthy and functional.

A real life example

Some time ago, a good friend and IFBB pro called me and told me that he was going to have athroscopic surgery on his shoulder next week. He was excited as this surgery would be expensive and he would have to go through a long period of rehab afterwards which would prevent him from competing and earning a living. I told him that he should definitely consult an Active Release Techniques® (ART) specialist before such an operation. (The original diagnosis was impingement syndrome and supposedly surgery to remove part of the bone in the shoulder to make room for the muscle was the only option).

When this IFBB pro came into the office, he had not trained for 4 months due to his hellish pain, as even lowering an empty Olympic barbell (20 kilos) caused him excruciating pain. After 45 minutes of treatment, the ART specialist sent him to the gym to do a shoulder workout. I had the opportunity to accompany him and could hardly believe how he completed 5 repetitions of bench presses with almost 150 kilos. Five days later, he was able to do 6 repetitions with this weight completely pain-free. About a month later, he was almost back in competition shape and training for the next competitions.

The most important point to realize is that you don't have to suffer or stop training just because you have shoulder pain. Depending on the individual problem, you should find an experienced trainer to help you put together a suitable training program or seek treatment from an experienced therapist.

Q: Every time I go to the gym, I see a guy doing upper body twists with a broomstick on his shoulders. Are these guys really training their external obliques (external oblique abdominal muscles) and slimming their waistline, or is it all just pointless jumping around?

A: I see two different issues here: Training the lateral abdominal muscles and reducing the waist circumference. Training the external oblique abdominal muscles will not ensure a slim waist. On the contrary, strongly developed lateral abdominal muscles will be detrimental to the V-shape of your upper body and the classic bodybuilding look. However, if you are a judoka or a wrestler and you are more concerned with function than attracting girls, then stronger side abs will help you with your throws and wrestling.

As for twisting your upper body with a broomstick, this will do absolutely nothing for your lateral abs. Why? A broomstick puts minimal stress on the lateral abdominal muscles. Since you're not fighting gravity, you're not putting any kind of overload on these muscles. Effective training for the obliques requires a much heavier load than you can create with a broomstick. As for a slim waist, this has more to do with reducing body fat than choosing any exercise that specifically targets this area. Since there is no empirical or scientific evidence of localized fat loss, all the abdominal exercises in the world will not help you reduce your lifelines, regardless of training volume. Effective body fat reduction is the result of a combination of diet manipulation, optimal training volume and the right training intensity.

Q: How would you recommend incorporating Power Cleans - my favorite exercise - into a mass/strength training program?

A: Power Cleans should always be used on leg day as the first exercise of the program, as you are using a high speed of movement and accelerating the weight to the maximum when performing this exercise. Therefore, this exercise should be performed when the nervous system is still fresh. Be sure to perform more than six repetitions per set and rest sufficiently between sets (3 to 5 minutes).

Q: What are your views on the theory of training with static contractions and how would one use static repetitions or partial repetitions with extremely heavy weights? Since the very beginning of my career as a strength & conditioning coach, I have been a firm believer in using a power rack to promote massive gains in strength and muscle mass after applying the methods of Don Ross, Rasch, Bill Starr and Anthony Ditillo. This program is the most effective. The average, somewhat advanced bodybuilder, can expect to increase their personal bests on curls by 5 to 12 kilos and on close bench presses by 15 to 20 kilos with this program. This is quite impressive as these gains are achieved within such a short time frame of only 3 to 4 weeks.

The physiological basis of this program is what sports scientists Fleck & Kraemer and O'Shea refer to as "functional isometric contractions" (FIC). Over 40 years ago, this training method was introduced to players of the iron game under the name "isometric training", which is a combination of the terms "isometric" and "isotinic". German weight training experts such as Letzelter & Letzelter and Hartmann and Tünnemann prefer the term "autotonic training" to describe this training method. The concept behind this protocol is to use the best that the isometric method has to offer in combination with a regular style of training. With FIC, you can utilize the specific joint angle strength gains of isometric training after pre-fatiguing the muscles involved using heavy repetitions over a short repetition range on the power rack.

Like any other training system, this system has its advantages and disadvantages:

Pros:

• Allows you to "uninhibit" the nervous system: can help you overcome psychological barriers to certain weights.
• Provides variety to your training program due to new challenges.
• Increases maximal strength in the specific areas trained. This type of training may be well suited for a powerlifter who has difficulty reaching the hyperextended arm position on the bench press or the upright position on the deadlift.

Disadvantages:

• It is time consuming to prepare the setup
• Produces strength gains in a range of plus/minus 15 degrees of range of motion. In other words, isometric holds with an elbow flexion of 130 degrees will only increase your strength in the range of elbow flexion between 115 and 145 degrees. This means that the first 115 degrees of elbow flexion will remain untrained.
• With certain exercises, this can easily develop into a kind of circus act, which can of course be quite entertaining. One of the books on the subject recommends heavy isometric holds in the top position of Scott curls. I once watched a boy try this with a weight heavier than his body weight. He made the mistake of trying to hold the weight too far down in the range of motion, which caused him to tumble forward over the Scott bench.

From: by Charles Poliquin
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/question-of-strength-1 , https://www.t-nation.com/training/question-of-strength-2 , https://www.t-nation.com/training/question-of-strength-3