Weight lifting and boxing?

[Spartacus Sully]

If it's not simply about sheer muscle fiber count or efficient muscle fiber recruitment than what is it?

when you lift heavy the contraction speed of fast twitch motor units causes them to tear more frequently than slow twitch motor units resulting in myofibril hypertrophy in mainly the fast twitch fibers. this causes your fast twitch muscles to get stronger much faster than your slow twitch muscles.

Most primates are composed of a 50/50 mix of fast and slow twitch muscles.

most activities use a combination of both.

the guy that can jump like crazy, likely trained his fast twitch and slow twitch muscles evenly through playing ball. speed of action and body weight put enough tension on the muscles to promote myofibril hypertrophy in both types of fibers, while at the same time not being so much weight that that it promotes unbalanced hypertrophy in just the fast twitch fibers.

for the guy that can jump, both his slow twitch and fast twitch muscles are trained optimally and evenly. also, he likely has very strong legs despite not being able to lift much with his arms.

in comparison the guy that cant jump does heavy lifts all day, he has very strong fast twitch motor units such that they are unbalanced in comparison to the slow twitch.

slow twitch muscle is responsible for general motor skills, fast twitch for fine motor skills. something like typing on a key board, that's fast twitch, something like jumping where the whole body works together, that's slow twitch.

it is my opinion that the unbalance causes inefficiency in the bodys ability to coordinate together to jump.

but even if that's not correct, you also you have the neglect of nearly half the muscle fibers in your body by not training for myofibril hypertrophy in the slow twitch muscles.



fast and slow twitch muscles tend to work best when they can work together in balance. strength is good, fast twitch fibers are good, when kept in balance.

[Spartacus Sully]

You fail at statistics. The data shows a very strong statistically significant correlation and all you do is say "oh look there's one or two people who don't fall exactly in line with the rest of the data".

If there were truly no correlation as you claim, the line would be flat and have no slope. You're just grasping at straws now.

the stronger you are =/= the higher you can jump.

strength is good, well balanced strength of both fast and slow twitch muscles is better.

there is a point where being stronger does not help.

[ShoulderRoll]

Are there any examples of successful boxers who trained with heavy weights and low reps?

[Spartacus Sully]

Are there any examples of successful boxers who trained with heavy weights and low reps?

a few boxers train with heavy weights low reps, but they only do it for short periods of time usually cutting the exercises out of their routine when they have 1-2 months left before the fight.

I belive the klitschkos do this.


Holyfield did some crazy heavy weight low rep training with Lee Haney to bulk up for the buster douglas fight, but it was only for the first 3 weeks of a 12 week program.

the other 9 weeks leading up to the fight consisted of sports specific training, plyometrics, and complex sets consisting of plyos, simple bar weight only exercises and more plyos done back to back to make up one set.



also, some boxers incorporate 1 or 2 heavy weight low rep exercises into their routine, like david Haye might do 5 sets of 5 reps of weighted pull ups but the majority of his strength training is Plyos.

[Banderivets]

The basketball player probably just has disproportionately strong legs compared to his upper body since you don't need a lot of upper body strength for basketball.

Well this is where this whole "fiber and recruitment" argument falls apart.

The basketball player does not have strong legs. As I mentioned he was "weak" when measured by either isolation or compound lift performance in the weight room.

I brought up the example because for 5 years I went to the way and dedicated my time there 70% lifting 30% running ball. And never have the guys who had great hops (there are exceptions) have good stats in the weight room.

So they were weak in the weight room with any kind of leg lift or isolation machine, physically their calves were often skinny with their thighs being as thin as some guys lower legs.

Perfect example, calves extension machine, some of them struggling with 90lb (two 45lb plates) where others are stacking 4-6 plates on there and hops nothing like the guy in question.

So again I stress, your strength it would appear has nothing to do with your ability to jump. The strongest guys in the gym do not have hops. It's often the skinny guys with no strength in either their legs or upper body.

Look at this guy,



Does he look like a strong man?

Only thing I can think is is a relative strength to weight ratio. Power to weight lets say. The guy with hops is rather skinny, and even though his legs are weak they are strong for someone his weight...that would be the only thing that explains it for me.

But then you have this guy, 6'2" 210lb with 48" not a huge guy, but 6'2" at 210 and knowing he is an athlete with little body fat is a relativly big guy



So again.....where does this jumping ability come from.

P.S. I a man of science, but when it comes to athletics there are some things that can never be clearly answered in a scientific way.

[Facade]

The correlation infers that some factor helps in achieving some goal, not that it is the only way to achieve that goal. All and any suggestions that a certain claim is untrue because 'i know friend X or athlete X' are therefore interesting, but only suggest that there are other ways of getting somewhere, not that therefore the scientific correlation isn't there at all.

A lot of the arguments being made here, pretty much strike out there. They isolate single variables too much (either being slow or fast twitch in this case) to make a case basically implying that muscle composition (to sum it up) is the single and only cause of a certain result. By doing so a lot of other things that come into play get ignored.

So to answer post above, you are looking too much for 1 single thing while it might be a multiple of things that play a role.

[Banderivets]

So to answer post above, you are looking too much for 1 single thing while it might be a multiple of things that play a role.

Well that is what I am saying. It can't be just these three variables. Fast, Slow and CNS. What are the other variables responsible in this case for one's jumping ability?

[Facade]

Would be impossible to tell from here. Perhaps the sheer length of their limbs plays a role as well.

From wiki "In terrestrial animals, the primary propulsive structure is the legs, though a few species use their tails. Typical characteristics of jumping species include long legs, large leg muscles, and additional limb elements.

Long legs increase the time and distance over which a jumping animal can push against the substrate, thus allowing more power and faster, farther jumps. Large leg muscles can generate greater force, resulting in improved jumping performance. In addition to elongated leg elements, many jumping animals have modified foot and ankle bones that are elongated and possess additional joints, effectively adding more segments to the limb and even more length.

Frogs are an excellent example of all three trends: frog legs can be nearly twice the body length, leg muscles may account for up to twenty percent of body weight, and they have not only lengthened the foot, shin and thigh, but extended the ankle bones into another limb joint and similarly extended the hip bones and gained mobility at the sacrum for a second 'extra joint'. As a result, frogs are the undisputed champion jumpers of vertebrates, leaping over fifty body lengths, a distance of more than eight fee"

Of course people are not frogs, but it doesn't seem entirely implausible that the length of someones limbs combined with the ability to use that advantage could have something to do with it. From what i hear people with long limbs are at a disadvantage with lifting weights so it wouldn't be entirely inconsistent either.

[Spartacus Sully]

Well that is what I am saying. It can't be just these three variables. Fast, Slow and CNS. What are the other variables responsible in this case for one's jumping ability?

with eccentric training you can force Hyperplasia where the muscle fiber tears and instead of regrowing larger each half joins up with a muscle stem cell to become 2 new muscles fibers.

also, id imagine in the regrowth process the myosin isomer can change and become more effective.

[Banderivets]

Of course people are not frogs, but it doesn't seem entirely implausible that the length of someones limbs combined with the ability to use that advantage could have something to do with it. From what i hear people with long limbs are at a disadvantage with lifting weights so it wouldn't be entirely inconsistent either.

To be honest this makes the most sense to me so far. Longer limbs makes sense, as just from observation good leapers have long tibias and their calf muscles appear longer. As is some people seem to have calf muscles that are just these chunks immediately below the knee that do not go down very much, and others have a much longer calf muscles that appears to be running all the way down to the achilles