constant tension

[stak]

HST seems to be based on the idea of regular low intensity bouts of exercise. I've also heard stories about how people have grown a large amount of muscle using low weights, but constant load.

This being said, does anyone think that there is any merit in wearing a weighted vest throughout the day. This, in theory, would trick the body into thinking you have put on more weight and would be forced to become stronger and more muscular to cope with this extra weight?

I'm just venting, but any thougths would be very appreciated.

 

[savagebeast]

Quote[/b] (stak @ May 12 2005,1:32)]wearing a weighted vest throughout the day

I like your thinking and dedication. I've actually thought about similar things myself

.

However, I don't know how much of a benefit this would have. It also depends on how heavy the vest is. My guess is that if the vest was heavy enough, you would feel really light once you take it off. Perhaps it would improve your vertical leap or sprinting speed. I would compare it to the way baseball players sometimes use a donut (little weighted ring that fits on the bat, not the kind you eat) to warm up before going up to bat. Do a few swings with the donut, take it off, then you feel like you're swinging twice as fast as before.

My hunch is that it would be more beneficial to do 1 set of a compound movement every hour, or 2 sets every 2 hours. I would say that this is probably the closest we can do to reproducing the bird studies, where the birds were put under constant tension and grew. Staying away from failure, loads of calories, and probably a good amount of sleep each night would be absolutely necessary for this to work. I've thought of trying this out before, but I just haven't gotten around to it. I would follow HST's principles, meaning I would SD and increment the weights every day or every other day. A rest day might be nice, too.

The most obvious problem with this program? For the majority of people, it just isn't practical enough. You'd need a pretty free schedule for this type of training to be feasible.

 

[imported_doitright orgohome]

what you are suggesting is that trick your body into thinking you are fat.
in general fat people are not stong...theyre fat
would make your feet ache though

 

[imported_dkm1987]

Quote[/b] (doitright orgohome @ May 13 2005,2:47)]in general fat people are not stong...theyre fat

Sorry to disagee, but logically and physiologically this is a wrong assumption for 3 reasons. 1. You haven't specified muscle groups. 2. The additional weight that the obese carry acts the same as a progressively added weighted vest, it has to act on the muscle tissue until the tissue has adapted to a stagnate load. 3. Strength also has a lot to do with the CNS, not just muscle.

Yes, wearing a vest would increase the constant tension in certain groups, but the key that is lacking in your idea is a progressively weighted vest, this would increase hypertrophy until the weight became so heavy that you wouldn't be able to bear it, then naturally you would need to SD and start over. But the hypertrophy would not be whole body, it would be in the tissue that the weight causes a strain on. Read the work of Antonio and his weighted quail wings, same thing different species.

 

[vicious]

I imagine constant tension with cardio is a nice way to improve functional performance as well as gain some mass. For example, long-term jogging with a backpack or parachute, or kickboxing with ankle and wrist weights. Watch out for the flying pink band!

Quote[/b] ]would compare it to the way baseball players sometimes use a donut (little weighted ring that fits on the bat, not the kind you eat) to warm up before going up to bat. Do a few swings with the donut, take it off, then you feel like you're swinging twice as fast as before.

Actually, I think that's a really bad practice nowadays. Most MLB power hitters nowadays use a rotational bat swing, which is largely based on turning the hips and upper/lower hand torque generation to produce high bat speed. This is really timing and synchronization sensitive. Warming up with a donut causes timing problems and may cause your rotational swing to fall out, which makes you even more suspectible to good offspeed stuff and outside pitches. But I think it's okay to use donuts with a linear bat swing. Mmmm . . . donut . . .

cheers,
Jules

 

[savagebeast]

I haven't played baseball for 5 or 6 years, and I don't follow it either, so I don't know what players are doing nowadays. Except for steroids, I do know those are supposed to be pretty prominent . I also have no idea what a "rotational bat swing" is. I was just trying to come up with some sort of analogy for what I was trying to say. I used to like using a donut, back in my day. However, I wasn't exactly the best hitter... .

 

[Old and Grey]

Back in the days when men were men and baseball was based on natural ability honed to perfection, we didn't have those donut thingies. We'd just grab 3 of the largest bats we had (when we had 3 bats) and started swinging them. It was great for your grip strength. Donuts'll make ya fat, lazy and lead to steroid use! Donuts have destroyed American baseball!

 

[Dood]

There was an old thread on here about constant progressive loading with a weighted vest, you might be able to search it.
I think many of us have toyed with this idea.

 

[the_dark_master]

Here's a radical idea - why not just do it; then report back your findings?

 

[precious_roy]

My roomate and I used to discuss a similar idea, but a little more extreme...
When you had a child, you would move into a sealed house, specially constructed to where you could vary the gravity. Everything else would be normal, toys and such, but the gravity would be like 2.0 times normal. Every year or so you would increase gravity until it became dangerous, then "decondition" and start over. Then you would have an all natural superbaby! (This really has little scientific basis whatsoever, but man would it be sweet)

 

[xahrx]

Quote[/b] (precious_roy @ May 18 2005,1:28)]My roomate and I used to discuss a similar idea, but a little more extreme...
 When you had a child, you would move into a sealed house, specially constructed to where you could vary the gravity. Everything else would be normal, toys and such, but the gravity would be like 2.0 times normal. Every year or so you would increase gravity until it became dangerous, then "decondition" and start over. Then you would have an all natural superbaby! (This really has little scientific basis whatsoever, but man would it be sweet)

Full body metal suit and powerful magnets in the floor, and you've got something approximating your dream.

As far as the weighted vest, it'd work but as was said muscles grow when tension is applied to them. The vest doesn't strain all muscles. You'd also need weighted attachments around your forearms and head. You'd also need to find a way to spread the weight around so it more closely matched a natural body weight increase.