THIS..is a gym!

[Mr Nobody]

Now your getting it. Yes there are. You have movers and stabilizers. Movers are what the name implies, those are the muscles that move bodyparts so to speak, stabilizers are the muscles are the ones that hold your bodyparts in place and prevent you from being damaged while the movers are moving you. A good example would be your rotator cuff, a stabilizer and mover would be delts. Damage your rotator and see how much movement you have left?

Barbell and Dumbells a few hammer strength and nautilus machines its all good.

[Coach is Back!]

One of the main protocols we do before we train anyone is joint stabilization before we add any significant loads to the primary movers.

[disco_stu]

"Most muscleheads believe more crap than they would even comprehend"
I'm having a hard time with this statement. How does one believe in something if they don't comprehend it? They may comprehend it with a somewhat limited perception, but I don't think this statement makes clear sense.
Ambiguous. Random. Call it what you will. It doesn't even 'sound' good.
Believe: to suppose or assume; understand
Comprehend: to understand
Are we being redundant, or am I missing something?

i think you ARE missing something. Its a very true statement...muscleheads believe more crap....

they make up some comprehension that suits them or explains it to themselves and most times its completely wrong and doesnt go deep enough to the root cause of the concept.
Ambiguous and Random are completely different. Ambiguity is something that is unclear. Random is something that is chance based. Believe does not mean "understand" - at all!
and comprehend- is more an ability to understand the language or ones own rationale- it doesnt mean that they understand the true concept.

[DroppingPlates]

You got me on that vastus medialus thing. But again that is dependent of the stance you adopt. Narrow stance will hit the outers more.

But really, in a way, it's all moot. I've done infinitely more barbell squats than Smiths and I'm still a twink. I think if you have the genetics you'll get big quads doing either Smiths or barbell and the difference will probably be insignificant. A friend of mine, bless with brutal Samoan genetics, calves are twenty inches and his quads measure 30 and it's all muscle. He doesn't have the definition to step on stage but when he flexes his quads you see the blurry separation in his quads. And he's done the exact same amount of squats with a barbell as with a Smith machine which in both cases is zero.

And people wouldn't why I'm such a spiteful, bitter man.
 

You're correct about that stance and targeted areas. I presume(!) they performed squats with a regular stance; heels on hip width with the toes a little outside.

Right now we're talking about finetuning the choice of exercises, but with good genetics or not, I believe any healthy person can build quad size, no matter which quad exercise is performed. I can't judge why you can't. Maybe it's your intensity, frequency, volume, lack of protein consumption, etc.... but there has got to be a reason other than only the genetic part.

[pellius]

Now your getting it. Yes there are. You have movers and stabilizers. Movers are what the name implies, those are the muscles that move bodyparts so to speak, stabilizers are the muscles are the ones that hold your bodyparts in place and prevent you from being damaged while the movers are moving you. A good example would be your rotator cuff, a stabilizer and mover would be delts. Damage your rotator and see how much movement you have left?

Well, you did present the one example that I have to concede. But the shoulder is a unique joint because, other than perhaps the neck and ankle, it preforms in a rotary fashion rather the push/pull bend/straighten of the rest of the joins. Most muscles (except the rotator cuff) will act as movers or stabilizers depending on what they are doing. Your abs, obliques and lower back act primarily as stabilizers with practically anything you do except if you start doing side bends, crunches/situps or good mornings.

I know what it is like to damage my rotator cuff as I tore them on both shoulders and had surgery on both. In the case of my right shoulder it couldn't be repaired as the tendon had retracted into the joint and they couldn't fish it out. My shoulder was virtually useless and I couldn't raise my arm more than say 10 degrees from waist level. But I just kept exercising it as best I could which first started with me raising it as far as I could and just doing a static hold and always trying to get higher and higher. Also, I would use my other arm to raise my dead arm and try to do negative reps. It was a long haul but by a year and a half I could start using weights and by three years I was pretty much back to where I was though I get pain if I over do explosive movements (which always happens when rolling on the mat so I can't roll like I use to and always have to guard my arm).

If you look at this photo of me taken last October you can see a distinct gap between my front and side deltoid where the muscle has atrophied (what looks like my left shoulder is actually my right since the photo was taken from the mirror). I was able to strengthen the surrounding muscles to regain full use. I avoid taking falls now because if I post on my right arm I fear it will dislocate and had a few close calls.

[Topskin69]

Not really. Anyone who has been around the Irongame for a long time realizes that a lot of beliefs are held like people hold religious convictions. Opinions and attitudes spread in various ways and they guide behaviour, beliefs, theories and so on. We believe lots of things we don't comprehend. Eg., a muscle needs to recover to grow. That, in my opinion, is false, but most gym goers believe it. The actual physical processes that occur in muscles are very complicated. The discipline of exercise science is exceedingly difficult, and most here, including myself, don't have the vocabulary to comprehend it. That doesn't stop us from formulating theories based on our experience. However, that usually isn't very solid for evidence that the theories work and are true.

If what I am saying is true is it any wonder that there is so much disagreement in bodybuilding? Go to any muscle forum and there are still debates about training.

Vince... Instead of offering a very long-winded and meandering post  bemoaning the supposed lack of intellectual veracity of your fellow Getbiggers, and Iron Brothers, why don't you actually take some time and post a thesis on hypertrophy?

Until then you are just beating your chest, without any substance behind it.  

[pellius]

Vince... Instead of offering a very long-winded and meandering post  bemoaning the supposed lack of intellectual veracity of your fellow Getbiggers, and Iron Brothers, why don't you actually take some time and post a thesis on hypertrophy?

Until then you are just beating your chest, without any substance behind it.  

Not a chance. He's been doing this for many years now.

[Topskin69]

Not a chance. He's been doing this for many years now.

That's what I am afraid of... 

[Van_Bilderass]

Vince... Instead of offering a very long-winded and meandering post  bemoaning the supposed lack of intellectual veracity of your fellow Getbiggers, and Iron Brothers, why don't you actually take some time and post a thesis on hypertrophy?

Until then you are just beating your chest, without any substance behind it.  

Like I said, Vince never actually says anything. How about just a theory, or something we could try in the gym? No go.

Vince always says how stupid people on getbig are. But there's a reason why he found a home here. He was branded an idiot on the more serious training boards, the boards where the nerds theorize. Even there the debates never lead anywhere and no one would recognize his expertise and genius. 

[Palpatine Q]

Again, to reiterate, all muscles act to some extent as stabilizers. But is there a unique class of stabilizing muscles? It's often referred to as your "core" which someone defined here as all your muscles minus you arms an legs. OK. So you are working your traps and abs when you do squats. I get that. But is squats the optimal movement for working you abs and traps? A lot of what a trainer refers to as "stabilizers" is simply the skill of balancing and controlling a weight when doing a specific movement (such as doing dumbbell bench presses on a Swiss ball). This is great if you are trying to develop the skill in pushing weight on a Swiss ball and I'm sure you are using more muscles than just doing a traditional bench press but the unstable environment compromises using maximum resistance on the pec muscles and makes that movement less than optimal for developing the pecs (assuming that is your goal).

What he said.

[Coach is Back!]

Well, you did present the one example that I have to concede. But the shoulder is a unique joint because, other than perhaps the neck and ankle, it preforms in a rotary fashion rather the push/pull bend/straighten of the rest of the joins. Most muscles (except the rotator cuff) will act as movers or stabilizers depending on what they are doing. Your abs, obliques and lower back act primarily as stabilizers with practically anything you do except if you start doing side bends, crunches/situps or good mornings.

I know what it is like to damage my rotator cuff as I tore them on both shoulders and had surgery on both. In the case of my right shoulder it couldn't be repaired as the tendon had retracted into the joint and they couldn't fish it out. My shoulder was virtually useless and I couldn't raise my arm more than say 10 degrees from waist level. But I just kept exercising it as best I could which first started with me raising it as far as I could and just doing a static hold and always trying to get higher and higher. Also, I would use my other arm to raise my dead arm and try to do negative reps. It was a long haul but by a year and a half I could start using weights and by three years I was pretty much back to where I was though I get pain if I over do explosive movements (which always happens when rolling on the mat so I can't roll like I use to and always have to guard my arm).

If you look at this photo of me taken last October you can see a distinct gap between my front and side deltoid where the muscle has atrophied (what looks like my left shoulder is actually my right since the photo was taken from the mirror). I was able to strengthen the surrounding muscles to regain full use. I avoid taking falls now because if I post on my right arm I fear it will dislocate and had a few close calls.

Ok...(and Devon97, feel free to add if I missed something). You have to think of your hips in the same way you think of a rotator cuff as it's a rotator as well (hip rotators)..with stabilizers. Stabilizers in that case would be rectus femoris and TFL, gluteus minimus, pectineus, gluteus medius, piraformis and psoas (IMO the most important). Now think about when your on a smith or having to stabilize a bar on your back on whether what muscles (stabilizers) are going to be used most. Which brings me to my other point when doing a smith squat vs. a regular squat. You have two different types of muscle, tonic and phasic (on/off) it's what fires most if at all. In order for us to get the most out of our lower body exercises, we will use activation methods to turn those muscles "on". A perfect example of an phasic/tonic muscle would in fact be "glutes" and the "psoas". The way I see it, doing a smith (or just about any machine) you have limited stabilizers being used, you might have strong movers but if the stabilizers are weak, your chance for injury increases if these muscles are being attended too.

Stabilizers in the hip are NOT being strengthen using a machine (smith for example) as they would by using free weights. Lets face it, you can to a smith squat without holding on to the bar there for there is minimal stability involved.

Activation, strengthening of the stabilizers, etc is almost another article/thread because that should be added before you add heavy loads and this thread would turn into a 500 page thread.

[Vince B]

Dropping Plates seems to be the only exercise scientist in this thread. Dyslexis knows how to debate in a sensible fashion and has read a lot of the literature. Pellius means well but is confused. DME has pet theories and holds them no matter what. That is the opposite of having a scientific mind. In science you pretty much have to assume you are wrong and go from there with your best hunch.

Presenting a complete theory of hypertrophy would be pointless on Getbig. Most do not have the background to assess such theories for validity and truth. In other words, what is the test for the truth of an hypertrophy-hyperplasia theory that explains all growth and lack of growth from training? If we could agree on the test that should be where we start. Without such a test all debates on discussion boards result in a me vs you opinion and there is no way to distinguish who is correct and who is in error. The state of the art re hypertrophy suggests that at best most of us will be partly right. How much of the true theory we possess is unknown. Obviously for practicing, highly motivated natural male bodybuilders it is easy to come up with a test. Does the training result in daily, measureable muscular growth? If so, the trainee is doing something right. If no growth results then the trainee is not growing rapidly and must try something else. Nutrition goes hand in hand with hypertrophy training but is not being considered here. Pellius, for example, does some martial arts and keeps his bodyweight low to stay in a weight category. Nothing he does re hypertrophy training will result in additional size. Why is he even interested in the subject? A mystery except to show he is an expert in the area.

I have presented a practical method to apply my theory. Most muscleheads are not intelligent enough to apply a theory to the practice of growth training. This is not my problem but theirs. They literally wouldn't know the formula if it was right in front of them. You see, they have imprinted in their brains theories and facts that prevent them from growing. That seems bizarre but is true, nevertheless.
Does the sun rise in the morning? No, the sun has never risen in the morning! How can that be when experience proves otherwise? Well, the truth is the sun appears to rise in the morning. The fact is the sun is more or less stationary relative to the earth and the earth rotates and moves around the sun. Yet we still talk about the sun rising.

[Vince B]

BTW, the talk about stabilizers is a complete waste of time re hypertrophy training. It is up there with the free weights vs machines debate. The first ends up being semantics while the second, while important, reveals the primitive beliefs held by muscleheads.

[Coach is Back!]

Dropping Plates seems to be the only exercise scientist in this thread. Dyslexis knows how to debate in a sensible fashion and has read a lot of the literature. Pellius means well but is confused. DME has pet theories and holds them no matter what. That is the opposite of having a scientific mind. In science you pretty much have to assume you are wrong and go from there with your best hunch.

Presenting a complete theory of hypertrophy would be pointless on Getbig. Most do not have the background to assess such theories for validity and truth. In other words, what is the test for the truth of an hypertrophy-hyperplasia theory that explains all growth and lack of growth from training? If we could agree on the test that should be where we start. Without such a test all debates on discussion boards result in a me vs you opinion and there is no way to distinguish who is correct and who is in error. The state of the art re hypertrophy suggests that at best most of us will be partly right. How much of the true theory we possess is unknown. Obviously for practicing, highly motivated natural male bodybuilders it is easy to come up with a test. Does the training result in daily, measureable muscular growth? If so, the trainee is doing something right. If no growth results then the trainee is not growing rapidly and must try something else. Nutrition goes hand in hand with hypertrophy training but is not being considered here. Pellius, for example, does some martial arts and keeps his bodyweight low to stay in a weight category. Nothing he does re hypertrophy training will result in additional size. Why is he even interested in the subject? A mystery except to show he is an expert in the area.

I have presented a practical method to apply my theory. Most muscleheads are not intelligent enough to apply a theory to the practice of growth training. This is not my problem but theirs. They literally wouldn't know the formula if it was right in front of them. You see, they have imprinted in their brains theories and facts that prevent them from growing. That seems bizarre but is true, nevertheless.
Does the sun rise in the morning? No, the sun has never risen in the morning! How can that be when experience proves otherwise? Well, the truth is the sun appears to rise in the morning. The fact is the sun is more or less stationary relative to the earth and the earth rotates and moves around the sun. Yet we still talk about the sun rising.

LOL....if you're referring to me you must think I'm pulling my theories out of my ass. Wake up and quit reading research (providing you do research) from the 50's.

[Coach is Back!]

BTW, the talk about stabilizers is a complete waste of time re hypertrophy training. It is up there with the free weights vs machines debate. The first ends up being semantics while the second, while important, reveals the primitive beliefs held by muscleheads.

Times change Vince, people want to avoid injuries when training, whether it's for hypertrophy or athletics. Geez, Vince...keep up with the times.

[pellius]

Ok...(and Devon97, feel free to add if I missed something). You have to think of your hips in the same way you think of a rotator cuff as it's a rotator as well (hip rotators)..with stabilizers. Stabilizers in that case would be rectus femoris and TFL, gluteus minimus, pectineus, gluteus medius, piraformis and psoas (IMO the most important). Now think about when your on a smith or having to stabilize a bar on your back on whether what muscles (stabilizers) are going to be used most. Which brings me to my other point when doing a smith squat vs. a regular squat. You have two different types of muscle, tonic and phasic (on/off) it's what fires most if at all. In order for us to get the most out of our lower body exercises, we will use activation methods to turn those muscles "on". A perfect example of an phasic/tonic muscle would in fact be "glutes" and the "psoas". The way I see it, doing a smith (or just about any machine) you have limited stabilizers being used, you might have strong movers but if the stabilizers are weak, your chance for injury increases if these muscles are being attended too.

Stabilizers in the hip are NOT being strengthen using a machine (smith for example) as they would by using free weights. Lets face it, you can to a smith squat without holding on to the bar there for there is minimal stability involved.

Activation, strengthening of the stabilizers, etc is almost another article/thread because that should be added before you add heavy loads and this thread would turn into a 500 page thread.

OK Coach, I'm definitely going to have to reread this much more closely when my chi is flowing more smoothly (usually later in the night. It's still only 2:35 PM here in Hawaii). I think there is something to learn here.

Thanks for taking the time. Say hi to Kongo for me. Tell him to be a better sport the next time. Win, lose or draw you can never go wrong when you conduct yourself with a little bit of class, dignity and humility.

[Vince B]

Times change Vince, people want to avoid injuries when training, whether it's for hypertrophy or athletics. Geez, Vince...keep up with the times.

Absolutely. If you get injured your bodybuilding career will stall or end. You have to train sub-maximally re resistance to avoid injuries. Thus, powerlifting has no place in bodybuilding. Doing things for less than 10 reps is probably not required and probably dangerous. Humans have 10 fingers so naturally like that number. The exact beneficial and efficient number of reps for maximum growth is unknown but might be higher than 10.

[Mr Nobody]

 

[pellius]

Vince, I'm interested in muscle hypertrophy because I find it interesting. You don't have to be a bodybuilder to be interested in what makes a muscle grow. You're a shining example of that as I assume you have abandoned any efforts to grow bigger muscles though you claim age is not a prohibiting factor.

I'm also interested in machines vis-a-vis free weights as evidence in some parts of this thread (Coach's last post to me) it's possible to learn something. But it's not like I can put this into any practical use as this is the gym where I do most of my weight training (believe me I would love to train at a gym that you built and established and I promise I will never do tricep pushdowns with a rope):

[pellius]

Absolutely. If you get injured your bodybuilding career will stall or end. You have to train sub-maximally re resistance to avoid injuries. Thus, powerlifting has no place in bodybuilding. Doing things for less than 10 reps is probably not required and probably dangerous. Humans have 10 fingers so naturally like that number. The exact beneficial and efficient number of reps for maximum growth is unknown but might be higher than 10.

Well, there you go. A broken clock is right twice a day (sorry Vince, I had to get in a shot).

[Mr Nobody]

Vince, I'm interested in muscle hypertrophy because I find it interesting. You don't have to be a bodybuilder to be interested in what makes a muscle grow. You're a shining example of that as I assume you have abandoned any efforts to grow bigger muscles though you claim age is not a prohibiting factor.

I'm also interested in machines vis-a-vis free weights as evidence in some parts of this thread (Coach's last post to me) it's possible to learn something. But it's not like I can put this into any practical use as this is the gym where I do most of my weight training (believe me I would love to train at a gym that you built and established and I promise I will never do tricep pushdowns with a rope):

pellius how much for a membership to this gym I want to join, Blood and Guts baby

[Coach is Back!]

Absolutely. If you get injured your bodybuilding career will stall or end. You have to train sub-maximally re resistance to avoid injuries. Thus, powerlifting has no place in bodybuilding. Doing things for less than 10 reps is probably not required and probably dangerous. Humans have 10 fingers so naturally like that number. The exact beneficial and efficient number of reps for maximum growth is unknown but might be higher than 10.

So you're saying that doing bench presses and squats have no place in bodybuilding?  

[DroppingPlates]

Is that your homegarden gym?

[Coach is Back!]

pellius how much for a membership to this gym I want to join, Blood and Guts baby

Agreed, Pellis can you post a pic of the inside?

[pellius]

So you're saying that doing bench presses and squats have no place in bodybuilding?  

No, it's just assuming you define powerlifting as performing your 1 rep max. Demonstrating strength and developing strength are two different things.