Get Twitching

A lot of trainers hold beliefs that have been handed down as received wisdom but aren't necessarily true in an absolute sense. I've been training a long time, and most of that time I've been focusing on developing explosive power. I've known about fast-twitch fibre and how to train it (particularly through plyometrics and ways of overcoming the golgi tendon inhibition) for many years.

It is commonly believed that explosive power needs to have a strength base to be effective. You don't start to do the fast, explosive work until you've built a base through some form of weight training regime. But I always found, in practice, that the opposite is true. I didn't have any empirical proof, and I couldn't rationalize why; I could only make suppositions.

One thing I found when training for strength was that the impression of response that developed in my mind was always strength-oriented, and therefore, non-explosive. I know that the reactive sensitivity of the spindles is set by the impression, and so if the impression is non-explosive, then that's the response you're going to get. When I would try to engage in strength training and then produce an explosion, I found that there was a contradiction.

This article seems to validate what I've experienced and go some way to explaining why, at my age, I can still continue to produce powerful explosive responses. And that is because I'm training as I need to train for what I need to do, which is explosive.

http://www.aroundhawaii.com/lifestyle/health_and_fitness/2007-05_what_kind_of_car_would_you_want_to_be.html

The second article is about static stretching. In my earlier years, I went through the whole spectrum of finding ways of stretching the body. I got a yoga book when I was in my teens and I'd have my legs behind my head, the whole lot. But my conclusion, and I arrived at it nearly 30 years ago, was not to get involved with stretching. And I've never had pulls, strains, or problems through training. People said I was an anomoly and kept stretching no matter what I said. Another thing I can add (this isn't in the article): I always had cold showers and baths after training. That's from way back. Now it's common practice to stick athletes in ice tubs, but when I was doing it people thought it was some weird esoteric thing I was doing. I'd arrived at it intuitively; it just made sense to me from what my body was telling me.

http://www.aroundhawaii.com/lifestyle/health_and_fitness/2007-07_what_kind_of_car_would_you_want_to_be_part_2.html

Here's a final note. I know that the Chinese martial arts use shaking and vibratory movements to stimulate the release of power. I once read in a kinesiology book that each joint has a maximum oscillatory rate. And by the summation of these different oscillatory rates coordinated toward a specific intent, you can produce a dynamic movement. I'd seen that movement expressed in dogs shaking, fish shooting across tanks, and also through researching and observing the Chinese systems. For thirty years, I've engaged in practicing and experimenting with how to shake my body through the various planes of motion needed in a fight, through its primary patterns. I've used steel rings, light weights, flexible nine-foot poles, sticks, or just empty hand movement.

I personally believe that this ability to violently shake the body stimulates the fast-twitch fibre. It might be one reason why, rather than getting slower with age, I seem to actually be getting faster. A few people have commented on it.

So here's a tip: read the articles, take on board the new information, and above all TRAIN AS YOU WILL NEED TO FIGHT.

Don't be intimidated by your lack of muscle hypertrophy, remember, it's the summation of neural impulses to the muscle fibre that's important, and that means being in a state of psychological arousal to support the action you're trying to produce. And no matter how skinny you are, you have got fast twitch muscle fibre. Even if genetically it's a low percentage, you can train it to its full potential using the impression of needed response coupled with fight-specific high-intensity training. You might well be able to train your fast-twitch fibres to be more functional than somebody who has genetically got more fast-twitch fibres than you but isn't training specifically, or is getting caught up in the strength-oriented side of things.

You'll also see some interesting links about training with chains. Go and have a look.

--Steve

The Gallagher Effect (or, Use Your Head)