rbibbs
10-19-2003, 06:30 PM
File under “this phenomenon may be useful”. I noticed that isolated reciprocal lifting reveals relaxation hesitancy that non-reciprocal training had previously not revealed.
I’d done a couple days of orbital lifting, worn all my shoulder muscles and triceps to sensitivity fatigue and wanted to get my biceps closer to that degree of fatigue. (Orbitals are arm motions adapted from WW done with 15# handweights. One would be, outside curl, to stacked on shoulder, to behind head and about even with opposite shoulder, around front of head, and front-plane elbow fig-8 back to starting, rep then reverse.) To get the isolation, I sat with my elbows braced to the inside of my thighs, and did slow curls/uncurls.
The left arm had a step-function in the bicep relaxation as I extended my forearm, several decelerative notches as it approached full extension. I’d also had that elbow popped by an over-enthusiastic armbar in training two years ago. The joint is still afraid to fully extend under load, but doing the orbitals I’d never noticed that. In isolation it was very obvious and I could work on smoothing it out.
I don’t know if this particular technique works on anything but elbows, possibly knees, hinge joints. Or, had I been using sophisticated equipment, Clubbells, if I would have noticed the hesitancy more readily than I could with dumbbells. Or had I been more observant.
But if you’ve had an elbow problem and want to see if you’ve neurologically recovered, try it with a moderate weight, 1/3 to 1/2 of the max you can curl a set of (don't take any chances hyperextending a joint, especially one that's already had a problem).
Rick
I’d done a couple days of orbital lifting, worn all my shoulder muscles and triceps to sensitivity fatigue and wanted to get my biceps closer to that degree of fatigue. (Orbitals are arm motions adapted from WW done with 15# handweights. One would be, outside curl, to stacked on shoulder, to behind head and about even with opposite shoulder, around front of head, and front-plane elbow fig-8 back to starting, rep then reverse.) To get the isolation, I sat with my elbows braced to the inside of my thighs, and did slow curls/uncurls.
The left arm had a step-function in the bicep relaxation as I extended my forearm, several decelerative notches as it approached full extension. I’d also had that elbow popped by an over-enthusiastic armbar in training two years ago. The joint is still afraid to fully extend under load, but doing the orbitals I’d never noticed that. In isolation it was very obvious and I could work on smoothing it out.
I don’t know if this particular technique works on anything but elbows, possibly knees, hinge joints. Or, had I been using sophisticated equipment, Clubbells, if I would have noticed the hesitancy more readily than I could with dumbbells. Or had I been more observant.
But if you’ve had an elbow problem and want to see if you’ve neurologically recovered, try it with a moderate weight, 1/3 to 1/2 of the max you can curl a set of (don't take any chances hyperextending a joint, especially one that's already had a problem).
Rick