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Recovery with higher weights
I was wondering why, despite the fact that one is adapting to higher weights, it's so much more fatiguing to lift heavier weights. For instance, a couple months ago my squat was 185 and deadlift around 225. Now my squat is up to 235 and deadlift 315. And my sleep requirement and just feeling of being 'spent', especially after a workout with both lifts, has gone way up in these two months.
Intuitively I'd think that as my strength has improved I would be adapted to these higher weights. So 185 x 5 x 3 a couple months ago would produce a similar demand then as 235 x 5 x 3 does now. And while lifting that additional tonnage requires more force and therefore more energy, the actual calorie consumption from the lift itself is not all that great.
So this leads me to wonder whether it's a function of all the stabilizing muscles, all the stuff firing isometrically just to maintain posture under the load (especially the squat), that produces all the fatigue. In other words, maybe squatting a lighter weight "disproportionately" taxes the prime movers, but supporting the load requires a lot less input from stabilizers in the trunk, shoulders, etc. As the weight goes up much more tension is required to support the load on the frame.
Another thought I had was that there's some proprioceptive or visceral effect of the higher weights. That is to say a much greater neurologic feedback from structures that are under the load, and this induces fatigue.
TMPHBITEU
Heavier weights recruit more motor units, thus fatiguing and causing adaptation in more of the tissue. Heavier weights place a greater structural stress on non-contractile components as well. Most compellingly, more force production is required to lift heavier weights, and this force must be produced by the physiology, which -- unlike a mechanical device -- must recover from the effort.
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Slightly related ... I saw a Dan John clip in which he had someone squatting with chains ... but instead of using the chains as most do, in this case he looped all of the chain higher so it wouldn't touch the floor even at the bottom, and hooked in a weight to swing around a bit in it. The overall weight was still quite light, but when Dan set things doodling around in the air, upping the instability for the hapless lifter, it became a serious workout for stabilizer muscles.
I've wondered about whether this would be a good option to pursue on lighter days ... because it would still rest the primary movers with a reduced load, while specifically working as an assistance exercise targeting the stabilizers. Does this make reasonable sense to you, Rip? Might it logically make sense to introduce it early on in advanced novice or early intermediate training, or only wait till other approaches have played out a bit?
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The force production, or really the energy requirement to produce that force, is certainly great per unit time during the lift, but the total caloric cost of the workout (say doing 3 sets of 5 for 3 exercises) is going to be very small compared with, say, doing an hour of a stairclimber. So it seems like the energy cost of producing that force isn't enough of an explanation. Tissue injury and the cost of adaptation strikes me as more plausible.
TMPHBITEU
This might be useful for a lighter day workout, where no real progression was relied upon to drive the other days.Originally Posted by TomF
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I've wondered the same - do it on a light day. I guess the unanswered question (till trying it) is whether you can run something approximating a useful linear progression for your stabilizers this way on what would otherwise be an active recovery day, or whether the stabilizers themselves get all the work they can manage in the main event heavy days.
TMPHBITEU
If they function to stabilize, why would they be "underworked" when doing heavy squats and deadlifts?
✓ Member
Careful. If you had prefaced this with PRAXIS, someone might think you were seancing the ghost of Mike Mentzer. Except this actually made sense.
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If you've got a wide base then you probably don't need to stabilize much. If you've got a narrow base, like standing on one foot, then you will probably need to recruit stabilizing muscles much more actively just to keep your center of mass over that base.
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Another thought is that the CNS/neuromuscular 'program' to do an unstable lift is probably much different than the program to do a stable (yet heavy) one. Put differently, your brain's "don't fall down" program is different than the "lift a shitload of weight" program, and in fact is probably more fundamental. Babies, for instance, start developing protective reflexes against falling at 4-6 months of age.
The proprioceptive clues are much different. The cerebellum, vestibular system, and basal ganglia (in its role to suppress unwanted movements) is probably greater in a setting of instability. And these would presumably lead to a neuromotor output that would favor greater activation of stabilizing muscles than would happen in a lift with a wide, stable base.
I don't know that this means that your gemellus and piriformis and stuff are "underworked" per se with a heavy squat or deadlift, which is a different question. But in addition to its neurologic components, balance probably requires a rather particular muscular program that isn't synonymous with the movement pattern of a heavy squat.
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