VlaudTheImpaler
do you or Mr. Stapleton have any advice or tips to increase overall strength of connective tissue like tendons and ligaments? Anecdotal or any books? In your other posts a while back I think from what I could remember it’s mainly about extremely high repetitions with very low weights
Oh snap I missed this. Hey, if I ever miss anyone's question when you've tagged me, just @ me again. Sometimes I wake up to a whole lot of notifications and for various reasons I don't get a chance to go through all of them. So please don't feel bad to pester me.
Anyway, yeah, for tendon growth, tons of reps is one of the keys. As well as time under tension. So static/isometric holds as well as very slow positives and negatives under various degrees of load. Here's a vid that shows what I mean.
The goal here is to exhaust whatever red muscle tissue you have and put the load on your tendons without doing too much damage to them. This is why we use low weight and high volume, so that after the red muscle tissue is exhausted and our tendons are taking over, it isn't too much of a load for them and we can effectively and safely activate and exercise them. This also causes your brain to pay more attention to these areas as you are using them more and this will help immensely with your body learning to remove the lactic acid faster. When I'm training tendons in this way, I don't wait too long in-between sets. When I'm going heavy and still trying for high reps, or just training my larger muscle groups, I'll wait 5 mins or more between sets.
Hangs are actually really good for this in your upper body, especially hands and shoulders but all the way down your back as well. However, if you're too heavy and it's just too much for you, try to put some bands up high, as heavy as you can find them even if you have to use several, and stand on a stool, grab ahold of them and step off the stool till your feet hit the ground. Just try to hold on as long as you can but for at least 2 minutes. Slowly add more bands over the next couple weeks or months and try to keep that same time. Soon you'll be hanging without bands and from here just add more time.
As for stabilizer muscles (As well as tendon since you'll be using the same principles here as well) and such, unstable and/or dynamic ranges of movement are key. These are still best to do with relatively low weight or at the very bottom of progressions even if you have to assist in any way. As you work these you don't want your larger muscle groups to just take over, which is what tends to happen when you suddenly put on a heavy load. Low weight in as many, dynamic directions as you can, while CONCENTRATING on activating the correct muscle sets is key.
Whether loaded or unloaded, rings are amazing for this as they are unstable and your body will intuitively use it's stabilizers to help with any movement. One legged squats, I'm finding, have this same principle. As well as many of Ido Portal's bodyweight movement/animal flow routines. Even some of the kettlebell stuff like getups and one handed hammer curl to overhead presses where you keep the weight in the same position never letting it slip in your grip so the handle is on the bottom when the weight is over your head.
I personally spend around 80% of my time training going lightweight and 20 percent going super heavy. Basically my heavy day is Tuesdays at arm wrestling practice but now I'm able to spread some heavy work in throughout the week as all of my volume increases along with my recovery times reducing for whatever reason...
Something else, almost without fail, I train the apposing muscle group directly after if at all possible. Even if it means just reversing the direction if I'm doing a dynamic movement. Getups have this all in one which is why I love them. As do pelican curls, but I'm working on those. I can probably do one this week. But I'm trying to be wise, even though I feel fantastic, since I've been picking up and pressing my new atlas stone this week. Don't want to risk damaging something just enough that it'd be hell on me during arm wrestling practice. Definitely going to try to stay on this burst of vitality as long as I can.
Anyway, I'm gonna go hit it again. Probably a couple hundred curls then some pistol squat and pelican curl progressions. Then some Atlas stone stuff. Hope this helps.
EDIT: I also wanted to add that high volume increases blood flow. High blood flow increases development, recovery AND growth. I've never felt a pump in my life like I do when I do these hundreds of reps. Not even going heavy. My hands for instance give out on me when I go heavy, like holding a really heavy weight as long as I can, FAR before I feel
any sort of pump like I do after 45 minutes in the rice bucket...
Which reminds me, last week we did a grip contest
after practice. We pinch gripped a smooth ~2.5inch thick 45 pound barbell plate in each hand and walked them around the tables. My buddy got 1 and a half laps with both hands. Alex got 3 with both. Mr. Stapleton got 2 and a half with one hand and 3 with the other. And I got 3 and a half with both. Granted, Mr. Stapleton had been going HARD with Alex the whole day and he spends more time with him than anyone else. He'd also been sanding the Atlas stones all morning before practice... Anyway, it feels good to excel at
something around those monsters lol.