Your Inner Coach #3- Muscle Control

Exerting control over your muscles is essential for putting out the maximum force possible during a heavy lift.

Unfortunately, many lifters have developed the habit of exerting less than maximum force through years of lifting lighter weights with high repetitions.

This is because endurance lifting is a different skill than putting out maximum force. However, many lifters do not understand this distinction.

 

Maximum Contraction

Exerting maximum contractive force is very difficult and few people ever practice it. The legendary Pavel dryly commented that the only time most people contract their muscles with maximum force is when they are being electrocuted.

Im not suggesting that you plug yourself into the wall socket when you do heavy squats, but developing the skill of maximum voluntary contraction can be very useful in building up your numbers in the power lifts.

We have all heard our coaches yell at us to get tight when we get ready to lift a big weight.

Most lifters can make their whole body tight when standing in a static position such as when they lift the squat bar off the rack.

However, once they begin doing the lift, the tendency is to relax some muscles. This means that all muscles are not maximally contracted.aka: putting out full power.

This is the way most of us have learned to lift things during our lives. We put out only the minimum needed to lift a flower pot or a grocery bag.

Minimum force necessary is our default setting when trying to lift anything. Learning to lift big iron means learning to go way above the default setting.

Here are some suggestions about how to voluntarily control our muscles to put out maximum force.

 

Squat: Practice full tension at different positions

Each of the power lifts involves moving a weight through different ranges of motion.

A simple but effective technique for teaching our muscles to contract with maximum force is to use a light weight or empty lifting bar and do a maximal isometric contraction at different positions of the lift.

For example, in the squat take a light weight (25% or so) and begin with the start position.

Begin by flexing each muscle group to the maximum while standing erect.

Your toes should be digging into the floor, calves fully tense, glutes flexed, hamstrings and quads tight, abs tight, chest up, neck flexed, hands crushing the bar and jaw set. When you try this the first time you may be surprised to find that many muscles are quite relaxed.

Tighten them up!

Hold everything tight for about 5 seconds.

Next, begin to squat down and descend about 3-4 inches. Check and see if everything is fully flexed. In your early practice, many muscle groups will have relaxed.

Consciously tense all the muscles in your body at the position 3-4 inches below erect.

Next go down another 3-4 inches and repeat the full body tension.

Go all the way to the squat position below parallel, every 3-4 inches pause and consciously put out full body tension for 5 seconds.

This drill will be very tiring the first time you try it. Probably best to do only one or two full range descents in the squat.

Eventually your body will learn to kick in with maximum tension at all different positions in the lift.

You will also develop the skill of voluntarily controlling the tension at every position.

It will take regular practice for many sessions.

 

Bench Press

Building bench press tension can be done with an empty lifting bar, or a very light weight.

The starting point should be when the bar is resting on your chest. Exert the maximum tension you can manage for 5 seconds while holding the bar on your chest.

Next move the bar to your sticking point and do another maximum whole-body contraction for 5 seconds.

Do another static contraction a few inches below lock out. Your final contraction should be at full lockout.

 

Deadlift

Use a light weight and do the contractions for 5 seconds.

Begin with a full body contraction in the start position. You can actually put upward tension on the bar if you wish (aka. loading).

Do a second contraction just below the knee.

The contraction at the start position can be particularly helpful for lifters who tend to relax their whole body just before the pull.

Relaxing just before the pull is a bit like swimming in the seweryou may do a good butterfly stroke, but your overall performance will be..pungent.

 

Coda

Making improvements in advanced lifting requires a lot of attention to small details of performance. All the easy corrections are waaaay back in your past.

Lift Big!

Richard