"lifting fast"...why? Stronglifts5x5

jzammetti

The book I just read, New Rules for Lifting for Women, says strength and power are two different muscle functions. If I understand it correctly, lifting fast improves power and slow improves strength.

tigersword

He's basically confusing strength and power. I'm not quite sure he understands that they are two different things.

But like some pointed out isn't strength relative. Even in his video he points out that doing a bench from touching your chest to locking your elbows requires more strength then the guy lifting heavier weight and doing what he considers 'half reps' since he grabbed him and the guy couldn't put up the weight he said he could...which brings up the question doesn't more weight require more strength...I guess that's mostly based on opinion. Just wanted to know which opinion the video was going for.

My comment had nothing to do with full reps vs half reps. Strength is moving weight a certain distance. Power is moving weight a certain distance in a certain amount of time. If two people can bench press 200 pounds max, they are equally strong, but if one person can lift faster, that person is more powerful, not necessarily stronger.

jimmie65

Mehdi isn't the only one who advocates dynamic lifting. It's a big part of Westside's training.

My understanding is that you should go as fast on the concentric movement as you can with control, and go slowly on the eccentric movement.

danimalkeys

Moving the weights fast helps train your CNS to recruit more muscle fibers at the same time. The more fibers you have firing at once, the more you can lift. This is standard powerlifter training. You train for explosiveness. Yes, a 1RM isn't going to be explosive but your body is still trying to fire all those cells at once.

You are not bouncing and throwing the weights around, it's still done in controlled motion with good form. Slow on the way down, as hard as you can on the way up. From the 1st warmup to the last heavy rep, this is what I have always tried to do.

All the slow lifting protocols teach you is to, well, be slow. You can still have bad form on a slow lift. Good form is all about repetition. Lifting the weight the same way every time no matter if it's a warmup or a 1RM.

Hadabetter

Moving the weights fast helps train your CNS to recruit more muscle fibers at the same time. The more fibers you have firing at once, the more you can lift. This is standard powerlifter training. You train for explosiveness. Yes, a 1RM isn't going to be explosive but your body is still trying to fire all those cells at once.

You are not bouncing and throwing the weights around, it's still done in controlled motion with good form. Slow on the way down, as hard as you can on the way up. From the 1st warmup to the last heavy rep, this is what I have always tried to do.

All the slow lifting protocols teach you is to, well, be slow. You can still have bad form on a slow lift. Good form is all about repetition. Lifting the weight the same way every time no matter if it's a warmup or a 1RM.

This! It's the intent to move the weight fast that recruits more muscle fibers rather than the actual speed of the weight.

Ditto the second paragraph.

Cr01502

Moving the weights fast helps train your CNS to recruit more muscle fibers at the same time. The more fibers you have firing at once, the more you can lift. This is standard powerlifter training. You train for explosiveness. Yes, a 1RM isn't going to be explosive but your body is still trying to fire all those cells at once.

You are not bouncing and throwing the weights around, it's still done in controlled motion with good form. Slow on the way down, as hard as you can on the way up. From the 1st warmup to the last heavy rep, this is what I have always tried to do.

All the slow lifting protocols teach you is to, well, be slow. You can still have bad form on a slow lift. Good form is all about repetition. Lifting the weight the same way every time no matter if it's a warmup or a 1RM.

Very well said.

The closer you get to your 1RM the slower your lift is going to be but on my warm up sets I always drive upwards with as much force as possible.

CoderGal

F=ma. If you consider strength as the amount of force that can be applied, it takes twice as much 'strength' to accelerate a weight twice as much. Applying more force uses more energy, and the only way I can think of for this to occur (assuming form stays constant) is by using more muscle fibers in the lift. Using more muscles to apply more force should be equivalent to lifting more weight. Without getting pedantic that would be my guess at what strength is supposed to mean.

However once you hit the point where you can just barely complete 5 reps, it doesn't seem like 'speed' is an option anymore, you just lift as hard as you can to finish the set. However I guess this is another way to make the training progressive... even if you're stuck at 100 lbs for example, just barely being able to complete the 5th rep versus finishing with a bit of speed might make it more like lifting 103 lbs instead, and help you progress toward the next increment at 105. ::shrug::

As far as going slower, it might burn out the muscles being used, but I would guess it doesn't use more muscle. That is, I can bench press 20 pounds really slowly to get my muscles to exhaustion, but it's not going to increase my max 1RM by doing so. (Or is it?)

I agree with your thought process but I remember when I was young and dumb and paranoid and holding out my little dumbbells from side to side trying to get rid of my little kid cellulite lol. Anyhow...let's ignore how stupid I was being for a second and notice that the more I did it the longer I could do it...so the muscle is yes getting fatigued on less weight, but there was progress, and the heaviest lift in my day was my purse lol. Bad example but I am going to guess that something is getting 'stronger' somewhere along the lines.

tigersword

Your endurance improved. Endurance and strength are different.

CoderGal

He's basically confusing strength and power. I'm not quite sure he understands that they are two different things.

But like some pointed out isn't strength relative. Even in his video he points out that doing a bench from touching your chest to locking your elbows requires more strength then the guy lifting heavier weight and doing what he considers 'half reps' since he grabbed him and the guy couldn't put up the weight he said he could...which brings up the question doesn't more weight require more strength...I guess that's mostly based on opinion. Just wanted to know which opinion the video was going for.

My comment had nothing to do with full reps vs half reps. Strength is moving weight a certain distance. Power is moving weight a certain distance in a certain amount of time. If two people can bench press 200 pounds max, they are equally strong, but if one person can lift faster, that person is more powerful, not necessarily stronger.

Definitions:
Velocity = distance/time
Acceleration = Velocity/time
Force = Mass* Acceleration
Work = Force*distance
^strength maybe? Move a large mass slowly = moving a smaller mass over a longer distance (ie "full rep") = moving a smaller mass quickly.
Power = Work/time
^power. It wouldn't be weight over a distance...it's more to do about the length of time they can push back the same force, not weight. The longer you can do the same Work = more power.

CoderGal

Just wanted to say thanks for the replies everyone. Apparently my biology/chemistry sucks. Never heard of twitch muscles etc before.

Your endurance improved. Endurance and strength are different.

But if my endurance improved didn't something just get stronger :P

CoderGal

Just wanted to say thanks for the replies everyone. Apparently my biology/chemistry sucks. Never heard of twitch muscles etc before.

Your endurance improved. Endurance and strength are different.

But if my endurance improved didn't something just get stronger :P

If you can run farther does that mean you can run faster now?

In my experience, to a point, yes :P

zorreena

Very interesting thread thanks

LiftAllThePizzas

I agree with your thought process but I remember when I was young and dumb and paranoid and holding out my little dumbbells from side to side trying to get rid of my little kid cellulite lol. Anyhow...let's ignore how stupid I was being for a second and notice that the more I did it the longer I could do it...so the muscle is yes getting fatigued on less weight, but there was progress, and the heaviest lift in my day was my purse lol. Bad example but I am going to guess that something is getting 'stronger' somewhere along the lines.

But you wouldn't be going from being able to lift 100 lbs to being able to lift 200 lbs like that. I would guess you'd experience a small gain in the max you could do one rep with, but a lot less compared to if you had increased the weight of the dumbells every workout to keep your max reps the same or similar.

My comment had nothing to do with full reps vs half reps. Strength is moving weight a certain distance. Power is moving weight a certain distance in a certain amount of time. If two people can bench press 200 pounds max, they are equally strong, but if one person can lift faster, that person is more powerful, not necessarily stronger.

But the person benching 200 lbs faster is applying more force than the person lifting 200 lbs slowly. I mean, it takes 200 lbs of force to lift 200 lbs, it takes more than 200 lbs of force to lift it quickly. (Sorry it's too early in the morning to do the actual math accounting for the constant acceleration of gravity, LOL.) And therefore (it seems to me anyway) the fast person should be able to bench more than 200 lbs.

I'll admit I'm no expert on lifting yet and I'm totally new to this stuff, but I would be shocked if there's anyone who does their 1RM really fast but then add 5 lbs more and they just can't even budge it at all. (unless their 1RM is 3 lbs, hehe) If you can do it way faster, it isn't your maximum.

Bakkasan

HelloDan

Just train for what you want to achieve.

If you want to be a sprinter, thrower, jumper, weightlifter, you need a lot of power, as you need to apply full force in short amount of time. Applying a huge force slowly is worthless, as once the object being thrown has already left your hands, or your body has left the ground, you have nothing to exert the force against.

if you want to be a strongman(or woman), powerlifter (odd name, especially referenced against weightlifting), bodybuilder, able to impress the ladies (or guys) buy putting their grand piano on their fridge for them, then power is less important.

EvgeniZyntx

It's all about which motor units are being recruited.

and goats... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22972893
there is a cat study but it's gross.

the reality, in humans, is that it does not really matter
http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/3297731

CoderGal

It's all about which motor units are being recruited.

and goats... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22972893
there is a cat study but it's gross.

the reality, in humans, is that it does not really matter
http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/3297731

Interesting lol.

LiftAllThePizzas

Ok here's the math...

1 Newton is the amount of force needed to accelerate 1 kilogram at 1 meter per second per second.

Gravity is a constant 9.8 m/s/s, so a 1 kilogram weight would exert a downward force of 9.8 Newtons. 100 kg would exert 980 Newtons.

In order to hold an unsupported 100 kg weight up you'd need to exert 980 Newtons upward.

Let's take an example of someone doing an overhead press of 100 kg where the distance covered in a rep is 1 meter. (Yes they are really strong and have long arms, LOL.)

In order to do a 2 second rep (taking 2 seconds to go from bottom to top) they would accelerate the weight at about 0.5 m/s/s. Which would require 980 + (0.5 * 100) or 1030 Newtons.

In order to do a 1 second rep, they'd accelerate the weight at about 2 m/s/s, requiring 980 + (2 * 100) or 1180 Newtons.

The first lifter would have applied 2060 Newton seconds worth of energy to get the weight over his head. The second lifter would have expended 1180 Newton seconds to do it. (Is this where "power" is said to be greater for the slower rep?)

Since the second lifter can apply more force, he can lift a heavier weight at 0.5 m/s/s. This would be found by solving for 9.8w + 0.5w = 1180. Or 10.3w = 1180. So w=1180/10.3 = 114.56 kg.

Conclusion: the lifter who can push 100 kg in a 1 second rep can lift 114 kg for a 2 second rep by applying the same amount of force.

(This is assuming the second lifter has enough "endurance" to exert that amount of force for two whole seconds. But I find it hard to imagine anyone running out of steam THAT quickly.)

I quickly went through the math so anyone is welcome to double check/correct it.

ninerbuff

Mehdi isn't the only one who advocates dynamic lifting. It's a big part of Westside's training.

My understanding is that you should go as fast on the concentric movement as you can with control, and go slowly on the eccentric movement.

I incorporate this with clients too. This way they work on power too. I'd have to research more on why Mehdi believes what he does.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

CoderGal

Ok here's the math...

1 Newton is the amount of force needed to accelerate 1 kilogram at 1 meter per second per second.

Gravity is a constant 9.8 m/s/s, so a 1 kilogram weight would exert a downward force of 9.8 Newtons. 100 kg would exert 980 Newtons.

In order to hold an unsupported 100 kg weight up you'd need to exert 980 Newtons upward.

Let's take an example of someone doing an overhead press of 100 kg where the distance covered in a rep is 1 meter. (Yes they are really strong and have long arms, LOL.)

In order to do a 2 second rep (taking 2 seconds to go from bottom to top) they would accelerate the weight at about 0.5 m/s/s. Which would require 980 + (0.5 * 100) or 1030 Newtons.

In order to do a 1 second rep, they'd accelerate the weight at about 2 m/s/s, requiring 980 + (2 * 100) or 1180 Newtons.

The first lifter would have applied 2060 Newton seconds worth of energy to get the weight over his head. The second lifter would have expended 1180 Newton seconds to do it. (Is this where "power" is said to be greater for the slower rep?)

Since the second lifter can apply more force, he can lift a heavier weight at 0.5 m/s/s. This would be found by solving for 9.8w + 0.5w = 1180. Or 10.3w = 1180. So w=1180/10.3 = 114.56 kg.

Conclusion: the lifter who can push 100 kg in a 1 second rep can lift 114 kg for a 2 second rep by applying the same amount of force.

(This is assuming the second lifter has enough "endurance" to exert that amount of force for two whole seconds. But I find it hard to imagine anyone running out of steam THAT quickly.)

I quickly went through the math so anyone is welcome to double check/correct it.

I actually loled at that part.

Also, shouldn't that bolded 2 be a 1 leaving us with 1080? And for the power comment, The second lifter is doing 1s lifts. So Power=Force*1m/1s where as the other would be (F*2=2060)*1m/2s=F*1m/1s since that guy only did half a meter right...so wouldn't the power be equal?