Post by Steve Gardener on Sept 13, 2008 18:00:54 GMT
I've copied and posted, at David's suggestion, one of my longer and hopefully better posts from the GB site. One of their newer members, Charles, is looking for what he calls 'the optimal routine'. In fact he means a routine made from the average of others. Below I write what I think is what people actually need to do. There is no set and rep scheme suggested and I say why.
This sounds and looks like it could easily go the way of the HIT/Hardgainers/logic of Mike Mentzer forums, discussions and debates.
You, for example, choose to argue that those who have been successful are, in fact, wrong in how they trained. In other words they became successful (getting 3's and 4's) in spite of their mistakes. Yet they and others are all you have to draw upon for information.
There is also the usual mistake of thinking the way grip strengthening works falls close enough to typical muscle training. Yet others, including myself, have mentioned several factors which should not be ignored.
1) Repetitive action 'teaches' the brain the best pathway. Words like 'sweet-spot' etc are used. Basically I will, for example, try to remember precisely how something felt when I did a PB then try and repeat that feeling. There is, if you like, skills training. In the same way that a dart player would practise over and over again to get him or herself in exactly the right position each and every time working on accuracy, stance and so on there is some support to doing the same with a gripper. I do agree that repping a 1 to exhaustion sounds more of an idea but some articles by the big closers should not be read as statements of how to train but what they did - right or wrong. They might have been experimenting and not mentioned that in the story.
2) CNS recovery. The smaller muscle groups, esp those of the hand and forearm do not stress the CNS like a full body routine. While we can grit our teeth, pass out as per a GGC contestant (holding his breath no doubt) and really put some effort into what we do gripper training will never overdo the body's ability to recover like 20 rep squats and so on.
3) Connective tissue, tendon strength and leverage. Gripper training is by it's very definition a short range of motion movement. 2 and 3/4-inches at best using a TNS on a standard width gripper. That many, including those you've already mentioned, then shorten the movement somewhat (setting) means that a decent enough percentage of what we do with grippers is down to leverage (big or small hands) as it is anything else.
4) Time scales and rep ranges. The most ardent of HIT freak will argue about rep ranges and recovery. They neglect to appreciate 3 things. 1 and2: that hardly anyone really goes outside the average in sets and in reps. 3: that you are dealing with the cream as it were. You've chosen to look at the freaks of the sport.
5) It's unlikely that you can learn from someone who trains grippers every day when most feel they do ok on 2 times a week. You'll learn nothing from a guy that does 50+ reps when most do well on 12 and so on. You CAN learn from freaks but and I've said this before, THERE IS NO MAGIC SET NUMBER OF REPS, SETS OR TRAINING SCHEME.
Using myself as an example you might learn application of effort, mental focus and so on. I might be very good and pushing you, myself and others around me. I might be the best at rousing 'coach' style speeches to get the juices going. But if you looked at my log when I'm going hard on grippers (torsion or Vulcan) I seem to have settled on 7 single attempts. Why 7 - god knows? I just chose the number.
Having sold a fair few e-books and read other grip guys articles, logs and so on the numbers are, to be frank, all over the place. I have been asked by buyers and fellow grip nuts on forums to 'tell me how many sets and reps I should do'. I could come up with some arbitrary number... 12 x 4 and providing they worked damned hard I'd probably get 50% saying it's great and 50% saying it didn't work for them. I've books and magazines going back to the turn of the century and writer after writer would choose a number from their heads. They KNEW that the reader needed this guidance. That said reader would feel short changed if a set number scheme was not produced.
More recently some studies have looked at best rep and set ranges. Over the past 20 or so years we've seen a more constant set of figures produced as 'ideal' or the norm. Under 8 = strength, 8-12 muscle and 12+ endurance. But what if you're having a great day - should you stop? Or a crappy day - should you carry on?
I'm amused by your idea of a routine above. It seems to suggest that you rates of recovery etc are constant. That's BS right there. Our minds know what day of the week it is, our bodies do not. There is no 'if it is Tuesday I must be ready to kick ass' from your hand. The only reason we have set days is to do work. That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Train when you are ready to kick ass. If that's three days on the trot so be it, if it's once a week so be that too (ahem).
Having the target and drive to get there helps but there will be those that shut 4's and those that do not. But we can all do better and learn to push ourselves. I can and have taken guys up a level in one session. It's the old 'if I trained with Ronnie' analogy. They applied themselves more, with me pushing them, not because of some secret I gave them or some smell in the air I breath but because they had a greater expectation of themselves. It's worked for me too with ours (Horne and McKinless for example).
Do not look for a rep and set range. Look for application of effort over any other thing.
This sounds and looks like it could easily go the way of the HIT/Hardgainers/logic of Mike Mentzer forums, discussions and debates.
You, for example, choose to argue that those who have been successful are, in fact, wrong in how they trained. In other words they became successful (getting 3's and 4's) in spite of their mistakes. Yet they and others are all you have to draw upon for information.
There is also the usual mistake of thinking the way grip strengthening works falls close enough to typical muscle training. Yet others, including myself, have mentioned several factors which should not be ignored.
1) Repetitive action 'teaches' the brain the best pathway. Words like 'sweet-spot' etc are used. Basically I will, for example, try to remember precisely how something felt when I did a PB then try and repeat that feeling. There is, if you like, skills training. In the same way that a dart player would practise over and over again to get him or herself in exactly the right position each and every time working on accuracy, stance and so on there is some support to doing the same with a gripper. I do agree that repping a 1 to exhaustion sounds more of an idea but some articles by the big closers should not be read as statements of how to train but what they did - right or wrong. They might have been experimenting and not mentioned that in the story.
2) CNS recovery. The smaller muscle groups, esp those of the hand and forearm do not stress the CNS like a full body routine. While we can grit our teeth, pass out as per a GGC contestant (holding his breath no doubt) and really put some effort into what we do gripper training will never overdo the body's ability to recover like 20 rep squats and so on.
3) Connective tissue, tendon strength and leverage. Gripper training is by it's very definition a short range of motion movement. 2 and 3/4-inches at best using a TNS on a standard width gripper. That many, including those you've already mentioned, then shorten the movement somewhat (setting) means that a decent enough percentage of what we do with grippers is down to leverage (big or small hands) as it is anything else.
4) Time scales and rep ranges. The most ardent of HIT freak will argue about rep ranges and recovery. They neglect to appreciate 3 things. 1 and2: that hardly anyone really goes outside the average in sets and in reps. 3: that you are dealing with the cream as it were. You've chosen to look at the freaks of the sport.
5) It's unlikely that you can learn from someone who trains grippers every day when most feel they do ok on 2 times a week. You'll learn nothing from a guy that does 50+ reps when most do well on 12 and so on. You CAN learn from freaks but and I've said this before, THERE IS NO MAGIC SET NUMBER OF REPS, SETS OR TRAINING SCHEME.
Using myself as an example you might learn application of effort, mental focus and so on. I might be very good and pushing you, myself and others around me. I might be the best at rousing 'coach' style speeches to get the juices going. But if you looked at my log when I'm going hard on grippers (torsion or Vulcan) I seem to have settled on 7 single attempts. Why 7 - god knows? I just chose the number.
Having sold a fair few e-books and read other grip guys articles, logs and so on the numbers are, to be frank, all over the place. I have been asked by buyers and fellow grip nuts on forums to 'tell me how many sets and reps I should do'. I could come up with some arbitrary number... 12 x 4 and providing they worked damned hard I'd probably get 50% saying it's great and 50% saying it didn't work for them. I've books and magazines going back to the turn of the century and writer after writer would choose a number from their heads. They KNEW that the reader needed this guidance. That said reader would feel short changed if a set number scheme was not produced.
More recently some studies have looked at best rep and set ranges. Over the past 20 or so years we've seen a more constant set of figures produced as 'ideal' or the norm. Under 8 = strength, 8-12 muscle and 12+ endurance. But what if you're having a great day - should you stop? Or a crappy day - should you carry on?
I'm amused by your idea of a routine above. It seems to suggest that you rates of recovery etc are constant. That's BS right there. Our minds know what day of the week it is, our bodies do not. There is no 'if it is Tuesday I must be ready to kick ass' from your hand. The only reason we have set days is to do work. That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Train when you are ready to kick ass. If that's three days on the trot so be it, if it's once a week so be that too (ahem).
Having the target and drive to get there helps but there will be those that shut 4's and those that do not. But we can all do better and learn to push ourselves. I can and have taken guys up a level in one session. It's the old 'if I trained with Ronnie' analogy. They applied themselves more, with me pushing them, not because of some secret I gave them or some smell in the air I breath but because they had a greater expectation of themselves. It's worked for me too with ours (Horne and McKinless for example).
Do not look for a rep and set range. Look for application of effort over any other thing.