Contracting at failure: Key to Superstrength?
Dear Mark,
When we try to lift something heavier than we actually can, or an extra rep once we hit failure, we get to this point where the body shuts down because of perceived (conscious or unconscious) risk of injury, precipitating the activation of Golgi tendons or muscle spindles. I believe, however, that it has been proven that the limits of muscular contraction are much further down the line than the body anticipates.
In certain exercises, this risk isn't overt, so the body truly is shutting down too soon. The pull up is a good example.
In addition, I think if we looked at the relative size and strength of each muscle group, we would probably find that the upper body is performing significantly more work due to this phenomena solely. That is, we move more weight relatively with the muscle size of our upper body than our lower body because we have tended to spend more time in a state of failure here without getting injured over years, causing our Golgi tendons and spindles to activate much later on than would other wise happen with our lower body, building stronger nervous fibers in the upper body, relatively. But that is just one possibility.
I also think that some people are genetically build to favour certain exercises in the sense that they can enjoy going to failure without fear of injury. I know personally that I have never had much fear with the deadlift, knowing I can fail on a weight without injury, allowing me to push to failure. However, I have always had a block, mental or actual, in the squat, where I have serious doubt about injury and generally find the movement totally unnatural. In fact, I've always found the squat unnatural, and once I started training it I realized I sucked at it. I would be curious to hear from people who are gifted in the squat, if they have ever found this movement unnatural. I would think that people who are gifted in the squat would find this movement very comfortable and easy, and have little fear of injury when training it.
Anyway, I'm curious if there are some ways to implement this training in the squat. That is, lowering risk of injury whilst performing similar movement patterns without risking injury when training to failure and attempting to gain super strength. I know the leg press could be utilized possibly, but I'm not sure if it has a good translation over to squat strength at the end of the day.
I have had real difficulty in getting my squat up, and its a big goal of mine to break into the 200 kg territory. I'm currently stuck at around 180 kg x 2 reps and the amount of sacrifice had to do to get them was beyond reasonable.
Kind regards,