Mel Siff Blog

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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 Read more…

Here is an interesting paper which investigates that old problem of the
sticking point in the bench press. However, the same analysis is also
relevant to the sticking point in any other non-ballistic movements.

Note the conclusion that the sticking region does not appear to be caused by
worse leverage (“an increase in the moment arm of the weight about the
shoulder or elbow joints”) or by a significant decrease in muscle activity
during this region. The authors suggest that the problem may lie in the
possibility that the sticking region represents a force-reduced transition
zone between the earlier stretch-assisted acceleration-strength phase and the
later mechanically efficient maximum strength region. The use of limited
range elastic band and chain training (e.g. by Louie Simmons and the Westside
team) may play a useful role in attending to this specific deficit in the
transition zone referred to in this paper.

The relevance of analysing the force-time curve in terms of strength Read more…

All too often, personal trainers and coaches seem to regard “cheating” as
some sort of heinous crime against the ethics and laws of strength training.
This attitude unfortunately disguises the fact that cheating can be carried
out usefully or dangerously. For example, bouncing a bar directly off the
sternum during the bench press or bouncing off relaxed knees at the bottom of
a full squat are both unwise and potentially dangerous ways of “cheating”.
We are all familiar with many such examples of inadvisable and unsafe ways of
cheating, so let us rather examine the possible merits of more intelligent
“cheating”.

For example, cheating allows one to operate in a different way over one’s
strength curve and actually produces a different strength curve to achieve a
certain activity goal. The manufacturers of variable resistance machines
would have you believe that the use of cams, hydraulic systems and levers is
the only way to enable you to adjust to the varying leverages of a given
joint action. However, one can use cheating to take you past a weaker region Read more…

Almost all of the comments that one reads about the wearing of supportive
lifting apparel, wraps and belts are negative, with admonitions that use of
these compressive or supportive aids creates some sort of dependence and loss
of strength. Previously I have discussed their positive role in enhancing
proprioceptive awareness and helping an athlete train when sore or injured
(e.g. in my “Facts & Fallacies of Fitness” book), but let us now investigate
this issue further with the assistance of the following reference.

The study below shows that even moderate resistance training executed while a
muscle is compressed can produce a greater increase in strength, hypertrophy
and local muscle endurance than if one trains without the muscle being
compressed. Note that the exercise was performed with only 50% of 1RM and Read more…

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 Read more…