Tempo

[Courtenay]

Hey all,

A good point was raised recently off-line about the amount of time it takes to do a pullup and how you can compare effort between one person's 1/2 chins done at high speed, with narrow grip, and another's wide grip, full range of motion pullup done slowly. Think about it. If we define a "repetition" as a single movement of an exercise through the full range of motion, taking 2 seconds on the lifting portion and 3 seconds on the lowering portion, then a set of 12 repetitions will take an individual a full minute to complete. That's a lot more "time under tension" than the reps done at 1 second up, 1 second down, for 15 (only 30 seconds to complete the set, or half the time under tension.)

Take into consideration another point: grip spacing -- keep in mind that for climbing, the palms-forward pullup grip most closely resembles what you'd use for climbing; however, most people are strongest doing chins (palms reversed, or palms-toward-chest), and weakest with hands spaced wide apart.

When comparing pullups, you need to make sure you're comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges. Who here does pullups from a dead hang? (hopefully EVERYONE, though I know that's not the case!)

[Marcus_Engley]

Courtenay,

First off, I totally agree with your "time under tension" theory for pull-ups (push-ups, crunches, whatever). Much easier to isolate the muscles that way, and helps to avoid injury, I think.

Anyway, I'm curious why most people can do more chins with palms facing the chest-- any ideas? My best theory is that it allows a more complete contraction of the bicep, since it brings the origin/insertion points a little closer together. More muscle recruitment... What do you think?

As for dead hangs-- I start my sets from a dead hang, but when I return down I don't go quite that far. I've always felt it protected the shoulder joint to keep the muscles active. Though if I'm really trying to pull out another one, I'll usually rest all the way down before trying...

[epb]

Marcus your right about not going back down to a dead hang on each pullup. For the reason giving by courtney's theory of time under tension. When you go back to a dead hang, you release the tension. Thats's no good.

[ 12-06-2001: Message edited by: epb ]

[Marcus_Engley]

True epb... More bang for the buck that way.

[nolanr]

Palms facing chest=more pullups, definitely because of more involvment from the bicep. Trying doing curls w/ palms facing and palms away from you, w/ the same weight, probably a dramatic difference in number of reps you can do.

[Figger_Eight]

So why is releasing the tension so bad? More painful doesn't mean harder, and harder certainly doesn't mean smarter.

[fleblebleb]

Yeah, I'm up for Si!

[Marcus_Engley]

FE,

It's not that releasing the tension is bad, but rather that keeping the muscles constantly under tension works them more, so over the course of the activity you get more muscle recruitment to help you through the movements. More recruitment means more work, and more work means more gain from the exercise. That's my take. It's not a matter of pain-- if there's pain, you shouldn't be doing the exercise.

[Courtenay]

Agreed, Marcus -- and everyone: IF THERE IS PAIN beyond the usual and typical muscle soreness (or at the time, lactic acid buildup) then back off and try something else. Case in point, if with a pronated (palms facing forward) grip on pullups you feel pain in the shoulders, but you are okay on supinated (palms facing chest) chin ups, then by all means do the chins rather than pullups until you can figure out what's going on with your shoulders. I do forward wide pullups almost exclusively because the chins at full hang do something painful to my shoulders; others have the opposite experience. Find what works best for you and helps you make the most progress, and stick with the tried and true.

[haireball]

so Courtenay, what's your take on the "super-slow" school? personally, I suspect there's some value in varying the tempo of a move from time to time, just as there's value in changing the move itself. I think there's particular value to "super-slow" (5 seconds for contraction phase, 10 seconds for the negative, a total of 15 seconds for each rep) for climbers, because we often find ourselves having to hold a partial contraction for a period of time (like, long enough to place a stopper). so, every once in a while I'll throw in a set of super-slow pullups just for giggles & grins.

[Courtenay]

My take on Superslow? Here ya go:

http://www.bodyresults.com/E2SuperSlow.htm

Summary: it's an okay training variation if used properly, but for anyone who wants power (i.e. most athletes), it's not the way to train regularly; furthermore, most people writing about Superslow training (Wayne Westcott and others) advocate doing this on machines, which hopefully most climbers now realize from all my previous posts is NOT how climbers should be training. Try a superslow pullup, or superslow lunge/squat, rather than superslow leg press or lat pulls -- but as always vary what you're doing so you get as much from your training as possible.