Structural balance

[Quagmire911]

This article is intended for those that are not complete beginners and have stalled in their main lifts for 4 weeks+. Or those coming to the end of a training phase and perhaps are interested in getting a bit more technical with things.

I have been doing a lot of reading on muscle imbalance etc, and came across this article. It deals specifically with the upper body. If anyone finds a similar one for the lower body, please pm it too me and post it in this thread.

Quote by Charles Poliquin:

"In other words, more than often enough, if you're failing to make progress in a given lift, the body is protecting itself from injury by neurally inhibiting strength gains."

http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=459454

Now that I am on a week off I think I will figure some of this out and see how I get on.

Please feel free to discuss...

Quagmire

 

[wolf116]

Charles Poliquin is a genius.

 

[The Bat]

Hmm, I'm sure you can just do the same for leg workouts. Just substitue leg workout similiar to close grip bench/incline bench/chinups. Maybe squat is the reference exercise? (so it'd be similiar to close grip bench).

 

[Quagmire911]

Hmm, I'm sure you can just do the same for leg workouts. Just substitue leg workout similiar to close grip bench/incline bench/chinups. Maybe squat is the reference exercise? (so it'd be similiar to close grip bench).

Yes but you wouldn't know what percentages etc are recommeded as a minimum and for what exercises.

 

[The Bat]

Well, yeah that's the major hurdle. But what I mean is at least you can look up some leg exercises that are similar in mechanics to the exercises he described. From there, you can play around with the numbers as long as you keep it within the ballpark/range of the original.

So far, no luck on finding anything with legs. Although he does say that this is a new field where more studies need to be done. Interesting nonetheless.

Have you (or anyone) read that regular bar bench press and pull ups (i forget the grip) are also used to assess front and back strength? It's basically a 1:1 ratio as far as weights go. I saw it posted at the gym, forget the source. Just wondering how reliable that assessment is.

 

[Mad Manic]

Charles Poliquin is a genius.

Although the study is a decent one, I'd hardly call him a genius and there are flaws to what he says anyway. All he's saying is that if you have severely plateaud, quite often it's due to an 'imbalance' or also known as a 'lagging bodypart' that's holding you back. Basically, he's saying fix the weak links in whatever compound moves you plateau on, then that should help progression. This is common sense really, the movement is always limited by the weakest link in the chain. As long as you train properly using freeweight movements, things like this shouldn't happen. But his flaw is using %'s given one movement (CG Bench), people will always have different ratios anyway, it's not a set thing.

MM

 

[Mad Manic]

Have you (or anyone) read that regular bar bench press and pull ups (i forget the grip) are also used to assess front and back strength? It's basically a 1:1 ratio as far as weights go. I saw it posted at the gym, forget the source. Just wondering how reliable that assessment is.

I've read that BB Bench and BB Row should be pretty similar as they are mirror movments of one another, but I don't really agree with it, people are different and their genetics and limb proportions etc. are different. As long as there isn't a huge imbalance I wouldn't worry about it. I row more than I bench, because I'm just better at rowing. I started off better, and I still am better.

MM

 

[insidious]

I've read that BB Bench and BB Row should be pretty similar as they are mirror movments of one another, but I don't really agree with it, people are different and their genetics and limb proportions etc. are different. As long as there isn't a huge imbalance I wouldn't worry about it. I row more than I bench, because I'm just better at rowing. I started off better, and I still am better.

MM

My rows suck. I would say my BP is about 20% stronger than my rows. I've tried to accelerate on my rows recently and ended up with a tweaked left elbow to show for it. Either 1) a bodily imblance or 2) bad form. I'm going to step back and work on my form, and I know for a fact that my left shoulder is weak due to a previous injury. The body is like the traffic flow in a large city...an incident somewhere, street or freeway, may very well affect traffic flow far removed from the original problem.

 

[Mad Manic]

My rows suck. I would say my BP is about 20% stronger than my rows. I've tried to accelerate on my rows recently and ended up with a tweaked left elbow to show for it. Either 1) a bodily imblance or 2) bad form. I'm going to step back and work on my form, and I know for a fact that my left shoulder is weak due to a previous injury. The body is like the traffic flow in a large city...an incident somewhere, street or freeway, may very well affect traffic flow far removed from the original problem.

Often people are better at Bench simply because they've done more of it, maybe that applies to you, I don't know. But Bench being 20 % stronger suggests your back is a bit weak. For Rows I'd go heavy and not worry about perfect form, just try and get the weight up with full reps, a bit of body movement is fine. My BO Row is about 15 % better than my Bench.

MM

 

[wolf116]

Although the study is a decent one, I'd hardly call him a genius and there are flaws to what he says anyway. All he's saying is that if you have severely plateaud, quite often it's due to an 'imbalance' or also known as a 'lagging bodypart' that's holding you back. Basically, he's saying fix the weak links in whatever compound moves you plateau on, then that should help progression. This is common sense really, the movement is always limited by the weakest link in the chain. As long as you train properly using freeweight movements, things like this shouldn't happen. But his flaw is using %'s given one movement (CG Bench), people will always have different ratios anyway, it's not a set thing.

MM

I didn't read the article. But he is a leader in the strength training industry, trains Olympic athletes and has been in the business for over 20 years. Always has something good to say.

 

[The Bat]

I've read that BB Bench and BB Row should be pretty similar as they are mirror movments of one another, but I don't really agree with it, people are different and their genetics and limb proportions etc. are different. As long as there isn't a huge imbalance I wouldn't worry about it. I row more than I bench, because I'm just better at rowing. I started off better, and I still am better.

MM

Haha, I'm in the same boat as you. I row quite a bit more than I bench. I don't BB bench as much as I used to when I first started off since I do lot of dumbbell bench variations. Call it genetics (although that term is such a scapegoat I don't like using it too much) but I always dominated at rows so that probably has a lot to do with imbalance.

However, my case is opposite when it comes to BB bench and pull ups. I am terrible at pull ups and hence can't do as much as BB bench. I'm assuming that I need to do more pull ups so my back can catch up to power as far as rows are concerned.