Strength Tuesday 12th October 2010

Dynamic Warm-up
Then:
2x 20x Forward Walking Lunges + 20x Backward Lunges
3×10 BB OVH Lunges (Each set increase the weight)
Then:
5×5 BB Squat to Push Press (Work to heavy)
Then:
Power Cleans +
Front Squat +
Push Press +
OVH Squat +
Snatch
Complete 20x 1 rep of each exercise. Minimal rest.
Then:
20x BB Back Step-ups
20x Box Jumps
Complete 3 rounds
Then:
Cool down

Increase Strength without an Increase in Size?
By Lee E. Brown

Resistance training results in strength gains. This has been known since early Greek times when Milo lifted cows. Since then, hundreds of experimental studies have agreed that gains in strength are the primary result of an increase in muscular size, referred to as hypertrophy.

When a muscle gains size it also gains strength. What is less well known is the phenomenon that results in increased strength after only a few resistance training sessions. This has been observed in people without a long history of resistance training. It has been speculated that these “short-term effects” are the result of changes in neural factors rather than hypertrophy (Komi, 1992). Experimental studies have shown that short-term resistance training can increase strength production in the absence of hypertrophy or muscle size. These early strength gains are largely attributed to an increase in the maximal muscle activation level. In other words, the untrained human system
becomes more efficient at both sending and receiving the brain signals that cause muscles to contract prior to initiating growth of muscle.

De Lorme and Watkins (1951) were the first to suggest that the initial changes in strength following resistance exercise in untrained individuals occurs at a rate too fast to be accounted for by hypertrophy. In later work by Moritani and deVries (1979), they measured untrained subject’s elbow strength in conjunction with neural signals from the brain. After the subjects trained for eight weeks in a progressive resistance, dumbbell exercise program, all of them had significantly increased their maximal strength. More importantly, the neural measurements indicated that changes in electrical activity at the elbow were primarily responsible for early strength increases while hypertrophy responses gradually increased over time. That is, the first factor that influences strength gains in untrained subjects is not size but brain signal efficiency.

A recent study (Akima, 1999) also demonstrated short-term improvements in leg strength-speed can occur by increasing the amount of resistance training performed during the training time. This study increased the training volume and this increase in the amount of exercise performed contributed to the strength changes demonstrated by the subjects. However, when the muscle of the upper leg was measured via MRI at the conclusion of training, muscle fiber area revealed no changes. In contrast, the neural activity of the leg increased significantly. These results again point to a learned neural efficiency in untrained subjects as a function of resistance training

The above article was first published NSCA and taken from Mel Siff.