Mel Siff Blog

Someone on another user group responded to my letter on making medicine balls
like this:

<< Someone posted before and I have tried with success a way to make your own
medicine balls. Take a kickball or soccer ball. Carefully pull out the
piece where the air goes in. It is just a rubber seal. Fill the ball with
sand or water and put the rubber seal back in. It really works! I filled a
small one with water and it doesn’t leak, it can bounce and it only costs a
few bucks! >>

Mel Siff:

***Yes, I posted that information a while ago. I have been making my own
medicine and “plyo” balls for many years from old basketball, water polo,
volleyball, soccer and other used balls and saved a fortune in the process.
When I used sand for making heavier medicine balls, I filled the balls with
very fine (river type) sand from the gold mines in South Africa (where I used
to live), so it was very easy to pour through an enlarged hole made in the
ball or even into the original bladder of the ball. In the USA, you can buy
some of the very fine construction sand to serve the same purpose. If I had
to make a larger hole instead of using the existing hole, I simply covered
the enlarged hole with a rubber patch.

To make balancing devices, I simply used a variety of used inner tubes from
cars, trucks and tractors inflated to a suitable pressure – again the cost is
little or nothing and one does not have stabilise the base, as one has to for
some physio ball routines. In using them as an unstable surface for standing
exercises, I simply place a large wood rectangular piece across the top of
the tube. Just another cash saving device for you! If you visit my gym in
Denver, you will come across many other such home-made training devices.

Mel Siff
Denver, USA

.

We often come across endless debates about the risk of using plyometrics, but
the case against the latter is usually poorly researched or emotively
argued, so let’s see if we can address a related issue in some more depth:

Is it possible to develop explosive speed and power without using plyometric
training? Can anyone quote past or present examples of world class
‘explosive’ athletes who have achieved their results without plyometrics or
combinations of plyometrics and free weights? In responding to these
queries, we also need to ask if it possible to entirely avoid the use of some
form of plyometric ACTION in sports training.

What does the example of gymnastics teach us, knowing that large numbers of
elite gymnasts do not use formal weight training or plyometrics?

How many elite Weightlifters use plyometric training (as opposed to fairly
conventional jumps)?

In answering these questions, let us draw upon logical science and practical
experience and avoid being drawn into the highly emotional territory which so
often characterises HIT and ‘Superslow’ discussions on this sort of topic.

Mel Siff
Denver, USA

.Dr Mel Siff and a Supertraining Yahoogroup member going back and forth

<If you hit bounce off the box correctly you will not experience any problems
with the lower back. The bounce needs to be make on the hamstrings and not
directly with your butt. If you perform it correctly you will the hamstrings
and to some extent the gluts will absorb the impact.

If you perform it incorrectly, you will experience some pressure in the
spine. Sitting back on the box places a lot of pressure on the lower back.
If you perform the bounce correctly, this is no more loading on the
spine…maybe even less that sitting back on the box. >

*** It certainly is useful advice to make most of the contact with the back
of the thighs rather than ever sitting with any significant pressure on the
glutes. However, cases have occurred where poorly understood and
technically hazardous bouncing off a box has caused fractures of area such as
the lumbosacral region of the lower spine, while back pain is also not
uncommon among those who use a definite bounce — and that is the problem
with novice users of the box squat. One cannot emphasize Kenny’s advice
strongly enough that the exercise be done with a correct, very light touching
bounce which does not longitudinally impose impact along the spinal column or
cause the spine to lose its lumbar concavity

Remember that the act of sitting down tends to elicit a relaxation of the
lumbar spine and posterior tilting of the pelvis, which leads to flattening
of the lumbar concavity. If you sit down on a box, you have to make very
definite actions to prevent these spinal relaxing processes from happening,
as is constantly stressed by the Westsiders.

<Bouncing off the box provides a greater stretch reflex. Minimize the risk
by performing it correctly and you’ll illicit a greater training effect in
the stretch reflex.

*** Bouncing off the prestretched muscle complex stimulates the myotatic
stretch reflex more strongly if you do not sit on a box at all. Any
superficial contact with the skin that you sit on will tend to diminish the
intensity of this reflex, plus any delay incurred while you are sitting (even
for less than a second) will diminish it further. Advocates of the box
squat do not even advocate “bouncing” off the box, especially under heavy
loading with a weight or a weight and bands combination.

If you wish to retain enough of the stretch reflex in the muscles of the
“posterior chain”, you should not use the box to offer anything more than a
slight brief touch to the backs of the thighs to enhance proprioceptive
awareness of the position at which you wish to commence your upward drive.
You can gain a good awareness of the prestretch in that position by using a
“Romanian” deadlift — i.e., by lowering and raising the bar from upper thigh
to below the knees by pushing your rear end backwards. Bent-knee good
mornings with glutes thrust back (rather than relying solely on hip flexion
or simple “leaning forwards”) will also enhance one’s awareness of that same
prestretch process.

<You should ease into ballistic box squatting. Once you learn to do it
you’ll illicit a greater training effect in the stretch reflex.>

*** See above – ballistic box squatting will not elicit a greater “training
effect in the stretch reflex”. If you are using box squats to enhance
performance in the squat, the reason is not mainly because you are trying to
“train” the stretch reflex, especially since the competition squat has to be
done without a box and methods of acquiring specific neural programmes tend
to be rather specific to the way in which they were learned. Anyway, I am
sure that this is what Kenny is advising – namely not using the box to sit
upon, but to serve as just a gentle warning system to offer tactile contact
so that you know exactly when to begin your upward drive in the squat. In
this way, you will retain the necessary prestretch and manage to execute the
movement explosively.

There are several reasons why one may use some forms of box squatting, but
“training the stretch reflex” is not one of them. However, the main problem
here is more a matter of scientific correctness and differences in phrasing
the advice more accurately. Some of the box squatting and Westside fans out
there might like to list some of their reasons for using box squats with and
without the added effect of bands for those who have never used box squats.

Mel Siff

THE VERTICAL JUMP TEST

Siff MC “Supertraining” 2000 Ch 8

This well-known test may be applied in several different ways. Invariably it
requires the subject to leap from a standing position with a preliminary dip
and touch a measuring device sideways with one’s dominant hand. Recalling
the specificity of training, it is important to note that the results of this
test correlate best with conditions which are most similar to that of the
test. Therefore, it is useful to repeat the test with the non-dominant hand
or in the frontal plane with the athlete using both hands to reach for the
target. Moreover, there are several different initial conditions for
executing this test:

1. Starting statically from an optimum knee flexed position using no arm
swing
2. Starting statically from an optimum knee flexed position using arm swing
3. Starting statically from sitting on a low seat using (a) no arm swing, or
(b) arm swing
4. Starting dynamically with an optimal knee dip using no arm swing
5. Starting dynamically with an optimal knee dip using arm swing.

The major difference between the first two methods is that jumping without
armswing is intended to focus primarily on the role played by extension of
the lower extremity and trunk, without the picture being confounded by the
use of arm momentum. The major difference between the static and dynamic
starts is that the absence of an initial sharp dip allows one to focus more
on starting strength and the role played by the contractile (actin-myosin)
component of the muscle complex, instead of the more plyometric rebound
action encouraged by the use of the dip. This can sometimes assist one in
ascertaining whether the athlete needs more strength (or functional
hypertrophy) training or more rebound, nervous system training.

It can also be helpful to perform the static tests from different initial
knee angles to obtain a profile of individual jumping characteristics. For
example, if the maximum vertical jump is attained for a fairly large knee
angle, which is generally associated with a slower overall jumping time from
start to finish of the action, then it is obvious that the athlete needs to
concentrate on modifying his range and speed of maximal strength production.

Table 8.12 provides guidelines concerning the depth of loaded knee dips.
This reveals that the dip characteristically is deeper for heavier loads or
persons and that in all cases the pause during the dip should not last longer
than 0.25 second. Herein lies the benefit of performing push jerks or jerks
off racks with different weights as a form of supplementary plyometric
training. After all, plyometric training is of little value if it fails to
enhance adequately explosive strength or power over the range required in a
given activity. The use of drills which do not correlate strongly with the
functional needs of a given sport constitute one of the most common errors in
popular plyometric training…..

———————

Mel Siff

A supertraining member asked this:
<I am interested in any information on depth landings and their
implementation in strength training. In post on some other boards, members
have misread the questions and responded with answers concerning depth
jumps. I am referring to depth landings. Depth landings where one drops
from a platform and simply sticks the landing like a gymnast does.

I am interested in whatever information someone might have on depth landings,
such as recommended height, how depth landings impact strength development,
how the Russians used them in training, frequency in training, etc.
Mel Siff’s response was
*** Their main role is in producing high levels of eccentric force, which
seems to be associated with increases in strength and hypertrophy, but only
for a limited time, because their ephemeral and explosive nature is
associated more with neural than muscular changes (depending on how you
amortise or slow down the landing). Russian research has even examined depth
drops from a height of as much as 9ft or more, but this has not shown any
superior increase in “functional strength” or movement speed over
conventional “plyometrics” (discussed in Ch 5 of “Supertraining”). Dr
Zatsiorsky also is not very enthusiastic in his text “Science and Practice of
Strength Training” about the value of depth landings. Russian athletes seem
to rely seldom on this type of training for any significant part of their
training, although many forms of vertical or long jumping (and low
repetition”plyometrics”) are quite regularly used.

If you are contemplating the use of regular landings for bodybuilding or
non-competitive reasons, you are simply increasing the risk of injury unless
your drop heights are no more than about 1 metre (say, about 3 ft), your
number of repetitions is low and your landing technique is exemplary. A far
better way of eccentrically loading the extensors of the knee for increasing
strength and hypertrophy is to do exercises such as heavy squats, dips for
jerks or push presses.

Mel Siff