Muscle Strength, Endurance & Split Lifting Programs

• Muscular Strength (1 RM) is the body's ability to exert maximum force one time.
• Muscular Endurance is the body's ability to repeatedly contract muscles.

Core Muscle Groups

• Chest, legs, and shoulders are core because % 1 RM testing and multiple joint segments are involved in movements.

Split Lifting Programs

• Upper/lower split divides workouts into upper body and lower body days.
• Different muscle groups split involves:
  • All push (chest, shoulders, triceps)/(back and biceps), legs
• Opposing muscle groups involves working:
  • Chest, back, legs
  • Shoulders, biceps and triceps
• One muscle group per day focuses on a single muscle group for each workout session.
• A basic full body strength program is performed 3 times a week.
  • Chest exercises involve push movements.
  • Back exercises involve pull movements, assisted by biceps.
  • Full leg exercises (quads) involve push movements, focusing on quads, assisted by hamstrings and glutes.
  • Shoulder exercises involve push movements.
  • Hamstring-specific movements aim for a hamstring-to-quad strength ratio close to 1:1 to prevent knee pain, and include deadlifts, leg extensions, and hip movements.
  • Biceps exercises involve pull movements.
  • Triceps exercises involve push movements.
  • Finishes with abs exercises

Benefits of Muscular Strength/Muscular Endurance (MS/ME)

• Injury prevention, flexibility, and optimal body positioning for sports.
• Improved muscle and bone health with aging.
• Enhanced personal appearance and self-image.
• Increased expenditure or resting metabolic rate.
• Improved body composition.
• Improved performance of physical activity.

Physiological Basis for Strength and Endurance

• The human body contains 642 skeletal muscles, with approximately 434 used for body movement.
• The primary function of skeletal muscles is to provide force for movement (bone movement).
• Skeletal muscles maintain posture and body support.
• They regulate body temperature during cold exposure.
• They provide joint stability.

Muscle Tissue Characteristics

• Extensibility is the ability of muscle tissue to be stretched, defining its range of motion (ROM).
• Elasticity is the ability of muscle tissue to return to its normal length after stretching.
• Excitability is the ability of muscle tissue to receive a stimulus from the nervous system for function.

Muscle Structure and Contraction

• Skeletal muscle consists of long, thin cells called muscle fibers.
• Muscles attach to bones via connecting tissues called tendons.
• The process of movement involves muscle "belly" contraction, where single fiber cells contain myofibrils.
• Myofibrils run lengthwise through each muscle fiber and consist of sarcomeres.
• Sarcomeres are the functional contractile units containing myofilaments.
• Myofilaments connect actin and myosin.
• Crossbridges (contraction) occur when stimulated muscles pull myofilaments closer, shortening the muscle and producing contraction.

Muscle Contraction

• Muscle contraction is regulated by signals from motor nerves.
• A motor unit comprises the motor nerve and all contracted muscle fibers.
• The Ramp Effect involves training to use more individual muscle fibers by doing more sets and reps to recruit more motor units.

Types of Muscular Contraction

• Isotonic (dynamic) contraction applies force to muscles with movement at joints.
  • Concentric contraction shortens the muscle (e.g., bicep curl, flexion of the elbow/positive contraction).
  • Eccentric contraction lengthens the muscle (extension/negative contraction), aiding change of direction and deceleration.
• Isometric (static) contraction involves contraction without joint movement.
• Isokinetic contraction isolates muscle groups and strengthens tendon attachments to joints.
  • It requires a biodex machine to measure force/torque during contraction, assessing muscle groups individually (hamstrings and quads).
  • The speed of movement remains constant during this contraction type.
  • Used to identify the source of pain where X-rays or MRIs are insufficient.
• Plyometrics involves a sudden eccentric load and stretch followed by forceful concentric contraction.

Muscle Fiber Types

• Slow twitch (Type 1) fibers are red, have low force and power output, and are fatigue-resistant.
• Fast twitch (Type 2A) fibers are red, oxidative, and fall between slow and fast fibers in characteristics.
• Fast twitch, fast glycolytic (Type 2X) fibers are white, and generate high force and powerful contractions.
• Understanding muscle fiber types informs the design of training programs.
• Factors determining muscle strength include muscle size and muscle fiber recruitment.

Designing Strength and Endurance Programs

• Specificity concept focuses on training specific to the desired outcome.

Endurance Program

• Involves exercises with low intensity and high volume, with little recovery time.
  • It uses a light load, between 60-67% of 1 RM.
  • Sets consist of 2-3 sets with 12 to 20 repetitions.
  • Rest periods are short (20 to 30 seconds).

Hypertrophy Program

• Designed to increase muscle size using high volume and short to moderate rest periods & growth in muscle cells increasing from hypertrophic type changes.
  • It is a traditional method of program design .
  • It uses moderate load, between 67-85% of 1 RM.
  • Sets consist of 3-6 sets with 8 to 12 repetitions.
  • Rest periods range from 30-90 seconds.

Strength Program

• Involves compound sets, high loads, few repetitions, and full recovery.
  • It uses heavy load, between 85-100% of 1 RM.
  • Sets consist of 3-t sets with 1 to 6 repetitions.
  • Rest periods are longer, lasting 2 to 5 minutes.
  • Pyramid programs involve scaling up or down weight per set.

How the Body Adapts

• Atrophy is the loss of muscle mass due to lack of use.
• Hypertrophy is the increase in muscle size from muscle fiber cells increasing.
• Hyperplasia is the theoretical adaptation of increased muscle mass from the splitting of muscle fibers.

Rate of Improvements

• Muscular strength programs yield quick improvements.
• Hypertrophy shows changes in about 6 to 8 weeks.
• Beginners see faster improvements than those already lifting.
• Both types of improvements occur faster than with muscular endurance programs.

Gender Differences

• Muscle quality is the same between men and women.
• Men tend to have more muscle mass due to testosterone.
• Men can lift more due to their larger muscle mass quantity.

Frequency

• Train 2 to 3 days a week.
• Always take one day off from muscle groups.
• Rest for no more than 3 days.

Type

• Variable and constant resistance exercises use machine weights, where resistance varies due to the pulley nature affecting the joint range of motion.

Overload

• The 2 for 2 rule
  • Upper body: increase by 2.5 to 5 lbs.
  • Lower body: increase by 5 to 15 lbs.

Chapter 6 - Flexibility

• Flexibility is the ability of a joint or series of joints to move through a full, unrestricted, pain-free range of motion, intended to lengthen the muscle rather than shorten it.

Benefits of Being Flexible

• Increased functional ROM.
• Decreased low back pain (LBP) and injury.
• Posture improvement.
• Decreased delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).
• Mental relaxation.
• Increased level of skills and muscular efficiency.

Important Terms

• Agonist muscle contracts to produce movement (e.g., quadriceps in leg extension).
• Antagonist muscle is stretched in response to the agonist's contraction (e.g., hamstrings in leg extension).
• Reciprocal inhibition: Agonist contraction automatically relaxes the antagonist (e.g., when working the quad, the hamstring relaxes).
• Stretch receptors are in muscles and tendon attachments, detecting the extent of stretching as a defense mechanism.
  • Muscle spindles wrap around muscle fibers, sense lengthening, and produce reflex resistance.
  • Golgi tendon organs sense muscle tension and produce reflex relaxation.