| Ronnie Coleman's Training
I read an interesting article in Ironman about the 'secrets' behind Ronnie's training and how he can get so big with only partial reps.
The basic run down is that the article followed a peak contraction/muscle work theory. This is simplified as follows: a muscle has a range of movement but only in about 40% of this range does maximum strength apply and so to increase muscle size you should work within that range.
We've all had this problem I'm sure whereby we do bicep curls for example and we need a spotter to just push the bar up a little bit so we can finish the lift. The article did make a lot of sense but I've always been an advocate of a full range of motion to hit all the fibres and have always worked on the presumption that by not going through a full range you are not stimluating growth all over the muscle and hence reducing gains.
However thinking on the other side of things, muscle fibres are not split down into sections and so you should only have to stimluate growth in the fibre itself by increased workload to make it grow. If this stimulus occurs in the 40% maximal strength area then surely the IGF1 response to the heavier workload will effect the whole fibre making the overall size of the muscle grow?
Aside from the obvious 'Ronnie uses loads of gear' option, What does everyone else think? :confused: |