BigE wrote:
Everything you say is right -- if your sport is powerlifting/olympic lifting. Individuals that are involved in these sports MUST train using the full ROM, since those sports require full ROM.
Well, by now, E, we're probably writing only to each other. But, what the heck, let's continue our good-natured disagreement. Actually, we appear to agree on many things. Debate tends to hightlight the differences.
You imply that olympic lifting requires full ROM, but skiing doesn't. That allows me to make a useful distinction here. Recall that several miles of emails ago I recommended that anyone with compromised functioning should follow your advice to not squat below parallel. That applies to lower back and knees (and ankles and hips and . . .) So we're presuming an audience not in need of rehab. (
Some of them will eventually benefit from full squats, but let's try to stay focused here.) Now that audience may be divided into those who ski cautiously and don't want to make a chore out of it, and those who are athletic by inclination and are always pressing their personal limits. I suggest that the latter group of folks frequently find themselves by design or accident in deep flexion of the knee. My point is that skiers with an athlete's mentality who push themselves are going to benefit from strength and tendon thickness at pretty complete ROMs. If that's true, it makes sense to learn what we can from folks who use an extreme version of full ROM under load, without trying to duplicate their exact methods.
I would add that neither olympic or powerlifters train with weights anywhere near their competition standards, and in fact, train quite extensively with weights that are well below 50% of the competition levels. No one calls them wimps.
Gonna call you on that one. When they periodize, they certainly have cycles at 50% of 1RM. But at the peak of their intense cycle they're doing heavy doubles and triples. Those weights are much higher than 50% of 1RM.
They are also very often hurt. And it's the knees that suffer the most. precisely because of the ROM and the explosive power they need to harness.
E, you're going to have to give me your source here. That counterdicts my experience and the experience of the strength coaches I've known. If readers follow the results of olympic lifting at state and regional levels as well as national levels, they will have noticed that most of the names appear year after year. (Don't laugh; there may be one or two out there who follow lifting results as avidly as ski forums.) Very rarely will an injury report involve knee surgery rather than the tweaks that are part of any sport. Knee injuries are common among competitive skiers, football running backs, and anyone Tonya Harding doesn't like, but not with olympic lifters. I have an acquaintance who trains olympic lifters and was himself a member of the 1980 US team. I checked to see if my information was outdated; he says not.
The failing of full ROM squats is that people do them with weights and reps that exceed their needs.
But that's a failure of judgement or coaching, not of the lift.
The way to get around injury and STILL use full ROM exercises is to use sufficiently light weight. Most find this very difficult to do, as they look really wimpy. They are so self conscious that they will try to lift too heavy too early, and cause damage to connective tissue. This is coupled with the mistaken opinion that they are getting stronger week to week so they should lift more week to week. A clear recipe for disaster.
These are folks that have no idea about periodization -- they jump into the gym, do full ROM and stack the weights on as fast as possible, each and every time out, because of some magazine article spouting "Joe Weiders training tips".
Yep. We're in agreement here. That's why both Piggyslayer and I recommended knowledgeable supervision.
Injuries from full ROM exercises can be very crippling. eg. Dumbell flyes. Just because the arms move that far back does not mean the exercise demands it. Improper dumbell flyes through excessive ROM is the quickest way to tear a rotator cuff. The weight need not be all that heavy either.
But if a lifter aggressively engaged in activities where the pectoralis and shoulder joint were drawn that far back, they should train that way--safely. While seated or lying down, postion your hands as they would be at the top of a DB flye.
Bend your elbows slightly, and keep that angle of bend constant. Now imitate the concentric portion of the flye. Your upper arm is probably about 100 degrees from the starting position, 110 degrees if you're flexible. You can safely use weights to that same degree of movement if proper form is followed and the lowering phase is under complete control.
Other examples: upright rowing lifting the bar above the shoulders, behind the neck press bar below the ears. The list is endless, shrugs, dips, back hypers, lat raises.... I could go on and on and on listing exercises that MUST not be done with full ROM -- BY ANYONE!
There are few absolutes in training, including your list and last sentence. I'll take just one, behind neck presses (BNP). Any one with no laxity in the shoulder joint who takes the time to develop very good flexibility in the shoulder joint can do BNP, if the movement is controlled, the weight is well thought out, and s/he doesn't extend the neck forward for bar clearance.
In college atheletics I shattered my right acromiolclavicular joint so badly that surgical pins wouldn't hold. It was redone with two 4 inch screws, holding bone to bone. Yes, primitive, but this was 1967. I was told I wouldn't be able to use that right arm in anything other than an abreviated walking swing, forget abduction. After a year of careful preparatory flexibility training, I began to train my shoulders again with weights. I have complete range of motion. The mainstays for my shoulder strength: incline bench press and BNP. At my age I no longer use above my bodyweight for the BNP, but I still use around 150 pounds during part of my yearly cycle.
My shoulders also hold just fine for weighted dips. During part of my cycle I'll use 60 to 70 pounds around my waist for complete eccentric contraction of the triceps, i.e., at the bottom, my elbows are significantly higher than my shoulders. This is a safe ROM for me. Would I recommend this for someone in our clinic rehabing shoulder surgery? No. But if the person were an athlete who, after suitable rehab, wanted to take it to the next level so s/he could resume her/his sport, I'd ask our physical therapist to evaluate for unweighted dips to the depth that shoulders were almost even with elbow level. We'd progress, slowly, from there with reevaluation at every step.
I'm not sure if there are any recognized lifts that should
never be done by
anyone. Too absolute for me.
Which brings me to another "vogue" activity: Lifting to failure. Don't. I doubt that one of 100 lifters actually knows what that means. You could be surprised: It means failure to maintain form.
Oh, oh, we're in agreement again, E. If this keeps up we'll be leaving our wives and buying a cottage by the sea together. Training to failure, just as you defined it, is a useful minicycle within a mesocycle.
Imagine failing just when coming up from the squat. It's not a matter of avoiding injury, it's now just a question of what kind and how bad.
Which is why I only do squats to failure in a power cage with the pins set very carefully.
OTOH, heavy ass to the grass lifts, inexperience, overtraining, improper workout schedules(no periodization), poor form, poor nutrition (eg, dieting) and bobbling on the way up from a squat on rep 17 of 20. Geez it hurts just thinking about it.
Hmm, once again we're in agreement. I'm becoming alarmed.
To suggest that we all run to the gym and immediately partake in full ROM exercises is exceedingly dangerous.
Be fair, BigE. I don't think I ever wrote anything that universal and unqualified.
Michael