Range of motion

A

Atlas

New Member
I’ve been reading this forum for about 2 years now. Very, very interesting.
But it seems that the “Range of motion case” is closed. But not for me. I’ve been questioning myself about that since I started working out.

I’ll give you an example. I knew a “skinny guy” here. I lost him for a couple of years. But when I saw him again…. he was so huge!!! You should have seen his legs, traps, everything. I asked him what he did. Well, all he does is that he’s carrying rocks and stones in a wheelbarrow 8 hours a day…that’s it! And he’s eating like a horse.

So, especially for the traps and legs, when can forget about the “full range of motion”. All he does is walking (very short range of motion for the quads) with heavy load in his hands (no rom at all for the traps). Isn’t that questioning anybody?

So I’d like to hear you guys on this. Please, help me understand.

Oh! Another thing: he’s doing this 8 hours a day. Too bad for those who train each muscle group only once a week….. You know the study that says that a muscle can adapt WHILE under tension….. guess it’s true!

Thanks guys. The best forum…

Atlas
 
It's possible but not optimal to grow with limited ROM stuff.

Stretch in the context of a normal, full ROM is something very conducive to hypertrophy. So, unless you want to haul rocks around for hours to get hyooge, I'd recommend the usual advice of full ROM exercises.

Something else your example brings up, however, is the importance of food in all of this. People act as if training is going to make all sorts of magical difference, but training out of context won't make you hyooge either. Weights + time in the kitchen = success.
 
Range of motion isn't super-important, it's tension that counts for hypertrophy. Like mikey, I don't recommend static holds though. That guy lifting a wheel-barrow, has to get underneath it, bend his knees, pull with his traps, forearms, most back muscles, glutes, hams, calves, etc. just to get it started. He is basically doing a dead-lift, then walking around with the load!!! And since he walks around all day like that, his workload (sets and reps) is extremely high. I would bet if you worked your way up to it, and eventually you could dead-lift 400 lb.s and walk 10 meters with it and you did that fifty times/day, you would be huge, too! Of course you would have to eat like a buffalo on steroids just to get the calories burned back and hypertrophy!
 
ill jump in here. nothing scientific, just thoughts.

1st your talking about two diff. types of body stress. the full range everyone here is talking about is to maximize gains when lifting 3-4 times a week (not once).  if you could gain 20-30 lbs of muscle by lifting hst style (full range) for an hr 3-4x a week for 2 yrs or lug a wheelbarrow (limited range) around your yard for 8hrs a day, 5 days a week for 2 yrs which would you chose. the point being ,imo, full range work comes closest  to stimulating the type of growth you can get from a tough manual labor job only it does it in a few hr sessions each week not 40 hrs every week.

i just feel that body your impressed by is probably due to serious eating+serious work+half decent genetics waiting for food and work and not overly dependent on the "range of motion" of his work.

who knows, i liked to hear what others think.
 
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(scientific muscle @ Oct. 13 2006,15:25)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Range of motion isn't super-important, it's tension that counts for hypertrophy. Like mikey, I don't recommend static holds though. That guy lifting a wheel-barrow, has to get underneath it, bend his knees, pull with his traps, forearms, most back muscles, glutes, hams, calves, etc. just to get it started. He is basically doing a dead-lift, then walking around with the load!!! And since he walks around all day like that, his workload (sets and reps) is extremely high. I would bet if you worked your way up to it, and eventually you could dead-lift 400 lb.s and walk 10 meters with it and you did that fifty times/day, you would be huge, too! Of course you would have to eat like a buffalo on steroids just to get the calories burned back and hypertrophy!</div>
Well, ROM is important in terms of tension as it were, though.

Positions of stretch = comparatively more tension on the actual contractile structures of muscle tissue. And, needless to say, that is VERY important.

So when people, for example, do half bench presses and half pulldowns/pullups, stopping well short of a full rep, they are not performing the area of ROM theoretically most conducive to actual growth, the positions of stretch.

Same deal for deep squats and the quads.
 
I have always been a &quot;full range of motion&quot; guy. Now, recently my brother is using a BB trainer to get him to the next level. The guy is the guy that BB's go to who can compete but can't place let alone win. When he is done with them, they have the tweaks needed to balance their physique &amp; most then do very well. That said, he is training my brother to NOT use full range of motion as he says its a waste. He prefers to always keep the muscle under constant tension, where a full range allows the muscle to rest somewhere either at the beginning or end of range. Example is biceps curls, he does not go to full downward extent (rest at bottom) nor full contraction (rest at top). He trains my brother &amp; BB's to limit the range of motion, use lighter weight which will increase the overall TUL. After a set he has him stretch in between.

I will be watching this closely as this is a good example of changing from full to limited range where I can watch to see changes along the way. I'm sure there is more to it than I have mentioned, but this is the gist of what my bro has explained to m so far.

O
 
I agree mikey, doing the exercises like you described is basically 'cheating' as the tension in the muscles is lessened. I also agree with Omega man's trainer, doing bench press without locking out is better for hypertrophy, because the muscles are under stretch-tension for the entire exercise not just part. A good pec-builder is to do bench presses from the point where to bar hits the chest, and stopping before arms are straight and go back down...more TUT. Same with almost all exercises, there are points in the movement which have much less tension on the muscles and are not necessary.
 
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(Omega_man @ Oct. 13 2006,20:30)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I have always been a &quot;full range of motion&quot; guy. Now, recently my brother is using a BB trainer to get him to the next level. The guy is the guy that BB's go to who can compete but can't place let alone win. When he is done with them, they have the tweaks needed to balance their physique &amp; most then do very well. That said, he is training my brother to NOT use full range of motion as he says its a waste. He prefers to always keep the muscle under constant tension, where a full range allows the muscle to rest somewhere either at the beginning or end of range. Example is biceps curls, he does not go to full downward extent (rest at bottom) nor full contraction (rest at top). He trains my brother &amp; BB's to limit the range of motion, use lighter weight  which will increase the overall TUL. After a set he has him stretch in between.

I will be watching this closely as this is a good example of changing from full to limited range where I can watch to see changes along the way. I'm sure there is more to it than I have mentioned, but this is the gist of what my bro has explained to m so far.

O</div>
Mr. O, I think this is typical of old school BB ideas. It's an idea that abounds in all the training routines of the guys in the 80s. (I know cos I've just been going through a pile of M&amp;F mags from 84/85 - during the reign of the Haney). Of course, it doesn't really increase TUT if the same number of reps are performed but it does increase fatigue, as metabolic byproducts are not able to be flushed away so readily. Plus you get more occlusion. It doesn't increase strain. Having to use a lighter weight is the result of this which, as we all know, will not increase hypertrophy over time.

Has he got him doing 5 sets of bb curls too, followed by 5 sets of incline curls?

Perhaps someone should ask him why and how deadlifting can stimulate bicep growth?  
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(Atlas @ Oct. 13 2006,12:08)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I’ll give you an example. I knew a “skinny guy” here. I lost him for a couple of years. But when I saw him again…. he was so huge!!! You should have seen his legs, traps, everything. I asked him what he did. Well, all he does is that he’s carrying rocks and stones in a wheelbarrow 8 hours a day…that’s it! And he’s eating like a horse.

Atlas</div>

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er...yeah, ok

As far as the range of motion thing is concerned, bbers shouldn't make such a big deal over it. No one is grading us over our ROM in lifts. Only powerlifters need to worry about that. I do a certain tricep exercise that probably looks asinine to most people, because the rom is so little, but it works the tris good.
 
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">As far as the range of motion thing is concerned, bbers shouldn't make such a big deal over it. No one is grading us over our ROM in lifts. Only powerlifters need to worry about that. I do a certain tricep exercise that probably looks asinine to most people, because the rom is so little, but it works the tris good.</div>

Could you be more specific... why bbers shouldnt make such a big deal over it?
And what your tricep exercise?

Atlas
 
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(Atlas @ Oct. 13 2006,21:20)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"> <div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">As far as the range of motion thing is concerned, bbers shouldn't make such a big deal over it.  No one is grading us over our ROM in lifts.  Only powerlifters need to worry about that.  I do a certain tricep exercise that probably looks asinine to most people, because the rom is so little, but it works the tris good.</div>

Could you be more specific... why bbers shouldnt make such a big deal over it?
And what your tricep exercise?

Atlas</div>
The goal of a powerlifter is to lift as much weight as possible and be judged on it, so if his rom is subpar he fails the lift.  

A bber only cares about muscle, not the lift itself.  So, do what works for you and doesn't tax your joints too much.  You will develop a good feel for these things as you gain experience.  Don't be overly concerned with all the guys screaming about range of motion.

I do close grip bench presses on an incline of about 20 degrees for tris.  I only go down about 6 inches (where my lower spotter bars are set) and I also have spotter bars near the top of my range of motion that prevent me from locking out when I go back up.  I use about 150% of the  amount of weight that I'm able to close grip bench press), but the rom is very small.  I'm lowering and pushing the bar up in a very small confined area.  The heavy weight really works my tris, and the spotter bars on top prevent me from locking out which makes life easier on my elbows.  If I did this sort of thing in a public gym I'm sure there would be 100 small fries all lined up snickering about my weak range of motion or something silly like that.
 
I think partials have some limited use, however, I would not pay much attention to how a competitive BB trains as it is probably useless to a natural trainer. Most competitive BB are using boatloads of drugs.
 
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(scientific muscle @ Oct. 13 2006,20:48)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"> I also agree with Omega man's trainer, doing bench press without locking out is better for hypertrophy, because the muscles are under stretch-tension for the entire exercise not just part.</div>
Hi Scientific muscle,

Just wondering how you reconcile this opinion with your enthusiasm for max-stim?

The usual rationale for not locking out etc is to avoid letting the muscles having a rest...which is the opposite of what max-stim seeks to do...

Cheers

Rob
 
What I meant was this...partials in certain ranges of motions can be beneficial, while partials in other ranges of motion can be basically worthless. So the answer to wether partials are good or not is double-edged. For example squatting with a heavy weight on your back and only going down 2&quot;, wouldn't do much but compress your spine! While if someone does squats to parallel, that is great for quadricep hypertrophy although technically that is a partial range of motion as the squat can go ALL the way down.

For the record I don't really incorporate much partials in my routine, and yes partly because I am doing max-stim. I was just pointing out that the trainer who recommends partials to advanced BBs has a valid idea. I never said his idea was perfect! Of course if he was a real training genius, he should be recommending Max-stim or HST clustering!
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