One of the most exciting things going on now in athletics is the use of weight training to improve performance in other sports. Weights are used to develop explosive power, maximum strength and muscular endurance, to correct muscular weakness and imbalance, to prevent or rehabilitate injuries and to improve technique and performance in virtually every sport.
For example, a person may have a lot of strength at bench press but not be able to do shot put well. He doesn’t have the speed of movement that, combined with strength, generates the necessary power for a long throw.
Strength in and of itself does not guarantee high performance.
Power is the most important ingredient in many sports. It is an athlete’s ability to rapidly develop strength. It is a product of strength and velocity of muscular contraction. Human muscle is composed of two very general types of fibers: fast-twitch and slowtwitch. All people have both fast-and slow-twitch fibers. Fast- twitch fibers contract faster and can produce more explosive movements, but they fatigue faster. You can not change the ratio of fast-twitch and slow-twitch fibers in your body, but weight training can maximize development of those fast-twitch fibers you do have.
Resistance training focused on the improvement of explosive power requires an intensity of exercise close to one’s maximum to guarantee stimulation of all, namely FTG (glycolytic), muscle fibers. The movement must be always at least 90% of max power output measured in watts (Hamar, Bosco).
In weight training, particular repetitions in an exercise set with a given weight can be performed at different rates and also with different power output in the concentric phase of muscular contraction. Although the same weight is used, different physiological mechanisms are involved and, hence, different adaptation processes can be expected.
Repetitions performed at below a certain critical level of maximum average power (90%)either because of lower motivation or fatigue, do not optimally stimulate development of fast-twitch muscle fibers.
The utilization of such a philosophy, supported by TENDO Weightlifting analyzer, substantially increases the efficiency of resistance training.
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