Mel Siff Blog

.

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…

For newcomers, these P&Ps are Propositions, not facts or dogmatic
proclamations. They are intended to stimulate interaction among users
working in different fields, to re-examine traditional concepts, foster
distance education, question our beliefs and suggest new lines of research
or approaches to training. We look forward to responses from anyone who has
views or relevant information on the topics.

PUZZLE & PARADOX 72

The effects of joint manipulation or mobilisation may not be as clearly
related to traditional explanations of their underlying mechanisms as
suggested by various therapists.

Most sports scientists, physiotherapists and athletes are very aware of the
various classes of mechanical ‘realignment’ of joints (including
manipulation and mobilisation) that are applied by physical therapists or
chiropractors. These twists, thrust, pulls or pushes of the spinal column,
in particular, are often accompanied by an audible ‘click’ or ‘pop’.

The professional therapists who apply this form of treatment attribute any 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…

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 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…