Strength and
- Thread starter semajes
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Dianabol
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Dear semajes,
1. Can someone explain the issue of fiber recruitment to me? Does it mean that until your body "learns" to use all of its fibers that some are not being utilized, even when lifting something heavy?
>>>> We never do recruit all muscle fibres in normal circumstances. From memory, we recruit about 20% or thereabouts, usually.
If 100% recruitment did occur then the muscle would tear simply because it's own contractile strength exceeds its structural integrity. Such is often seen with electrocution victims - the electricity overrides all safety mechanisms and stimulates all fibres to contract.
You can train to recruit more fibres, and this is how a muscle can get stronger without getting larger. For those concerned with strength, recruiting more fibres can be a good thing since this means lifting more for the same muscular weight. Weight-class restrictions means that more bodyweight might not be a good thing too, depending on competition strategy.
For those concerned with hypertrophy, recruiting more fibres is a bad thing, since our concern is with mechanical loading per unit fibre, not so much lifting the weights itself. Say for example, we could just recruit one fibre. It wouldn't take much loading to load one fibre for the microtrauma that we so desire for primary hypertrophic stimulus. This is great. It means I could get away with lifting very little for very great loading per unit fibre and all else being equal, the higher the loading per unit muscle fibre, the greater the primary growth stimulus. If, on the other hand, I could only recruit 100 muscle fibres, I'd have to lift much more to get the same tension per muscle fibre as in the case of recruiting one muscle fibre.
Besides, efficiency in the sense of growth is different from efficiency in the context of strength. For growth, ideally, we want to lift the least amount of weight for the most growth. Even better if we didn't have to lift any weight at all and just grow. But for strength, we want to lift the greatest amount of weight for the least effort.
Just off the top of my head really
Godspeed, and happy HSTing
1. Can someone explain the issue of fiber recruitment to me? Does it mean that until your body "learns" to use all of its fibers that some are not being utilized, even when lifting something heavy?
>>>> We never do recruit all muscle fibres in normal circumstances. From memory, we recruit about 20% or thereabouts, usually.
If 100% recruitment did occur then the muscle would tear simply because it's own contractile strength exceeds its structural integrity. Such is often seen with electrocution victims - the electricity overrides all safety mechanisms and stimulates all fibres to contract.
You can train to recruit more fibres, and this is how a muscle can get stronger without getting larger. For those concerned with strength, recruiting more fibres can be a good thing since this means lifting more for the same muscular weight. Weight-class restrictions means that more bodyweight might not be a good thing too, depending on competition strategy.
For those concerned with hypertrophy, recruiting more fibres is a bad thing, since our concern is with mechanical loading per unit fibre, not so much lifting the weights itself. Say for example, we could just recruit one fibre. It wouldn't take much loading to load one fibre for the microtrauma that we so desire for primary hypertrophic stimulus. This is great. It means I could get away with lifting very little for very great loading per unit fibre and all else being equal, the higher the loading per unit muscle fibre, the greater the primary growth stimulus. If, on the other hand, I could only recruit 100 muscle fibres, I'd have to lift much more to get the same tension per muscle fibre as in the case of recruiting one muscle fibre.
Besides, efficiency in the sense of growth is different from efficiency in the context of strength. For growth, ideally, we want to lift the least amount of weight for the most growth. Even better if we didn't have to lift any weight at all and just grow. But for strength, we want to lift the greatest amount of weight for the least effort.
Just off the top of my head really
Godspeed, and happy HSTing
D
Dianabol
Guest
Dear Stevie,
1. Is this not a contradiction of what has been said in the past? Dont ALL fibres experince the load?
>>>> It is true that a muscle fibre contracts on an all or nothing principle but this applies to the muscle fibre, not the entire muscle itself. Furthermore, fibres under voluntary contraction would experience the load if the load is sufficiently heavy regardless of their fibre type. And so, my answer would be no, in that this isn't a contradiction. I could be wrong though... this is just off the top of my head... been awhile since I last read-up on this
2. Do fibres really need to be recruited before they can experience microtrauma?
They do need to contract against the load for more of the load to be applied to it. It is for this reason you'd contract the muscles in a loaded stretch position rather than just stretch passively. And so, they must be recruited (to recruit is to contract them, is it not?) before they can be inflicted with maximum microtrauma. I suppose if you just stretched passively they would get some of the bashng but with the passiveness non-muscle structures bear more of the load, which is a bad thing in terms of hypertrophy and safety.
Godspeed, and happy HSTing
1. Is this not a contradiction of what has been said in the past? Dont ALL fibres experince the load?
>>>> It is true that a muscle fibre contracts on an all or nothing principle but this applies to the muscle fibre, not the entire muscle itself. Furthermore, fibres under voluntary contraction would experience the load if the load is sufficiently heavy regardless of their fibre type. And so, my answer would be no, in that this isn't a contradiction. I could be wrong though... this is just off the top of my head... been awhile since I last read-up on this
2. Do fibres really need to be recruited before they can experience microtrauma?
They do need to contract against the load for more of the load to be applied to it. It is for this reason you'd contract the muscles in a loaded stretch position rather than just stretch passively. And so, they must be recruited (to recruit is to contract them, is it not?) before they can be inflicted with maximum microtrauma. I suppose if you just stretched passively they would get some of the bashng but with the passiveness non-muscle structures bear more of the load, which is a bad thing in terms of hypertrophy and safety.
Godspeed, and happy HSTing
I
imported_da1andonlychacha
Guest
[b said:
Why would recruiting more fibres be bad? all that means is that you need to lift more weight, which is fine b/c with more fibres recruited you are able to lift more weight. Which means that this way you can train for *gasp* both strength and size!! You don't have to have 190 lbs of lean muscle mass that doesnt do anything!! that's what we call rational hypertrophy as opposed to irrational hypertrophy, which would be significant increase in size w/o increase in strength. more strength does NOT make it harder for you to grow, just means you need to up your weights, which is (as previously stated) fine b/c you can handle it. go recruit some fibres.
So do these other fibers get recruited in the case of static contractions or super slow when endurance and fatigue are more of a factor (as it is claimed)? or do these fibers never become activated?
It seems like a fiber that is rarely, if ever, recruited would be highly susceptible to training stimulus, and thus if you could devise a way to consistently begin loading these "additional" (rarely activated) fibers, then ... they would grow, would they not?
It seems like a fiber that is rarely, if ever, recruited would be highly susceptible to training stimulus, and thus if you could devise a way to consistently begin loading these "additional" (rarely activated) fibers, then ... they would grow, would they not?