The S&C-related Studies Thread

[miaou]

He tweeted a co-authored paper where it argues resistance training may be useless for increasing athletic performance but believes it may have a protective aspect in injury prevention.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987717311106

Thanks for providing a paper. I read the full text, and I think what it comes down to is this quote:

“it appears that jumping performance can be improved through resistance exercise. This may provide some efficacy to resistance exercise for sports performance, as the ability to jump is important across a wide variety of sports and sporting events. However, it is still unclear if a laboratory measure of jumping performance will actually translate to jumping performance in the sports setting.”

The authors don’t claim that strength training doesn’t result in an improved vertical. They don’t even claim that it doesn’t result in increased jumping ability during the actual sport. They just argue that we don’t really know.

I don’t find that position compelling. For one, it is illogical that there will be no transfer from a standing or running vertical to jumping on the court. And, for another, it goes against extensive field experience: for instance, a basketball player who shows an increase in his measured standing vertical will typically also show a fairly obvious increase in their on-court jump (he will be ascending higher compared to the rim during a dunk). If you do find it convincing, then that’s up to you.

On a similar note, the article also refers to the claim that muscle hypertrophy doesn’t contribute to muscle strength. Sure, the relationship between the two is not linear and we don’t fully comprehend it, but to argue the two are unrelated is what I call “intellectual masturbation”. It is simply too contrary to our understanding of the underlying basic science and to extensive field experience.

Btw, that was basically an opinion piece, published in a journal whose reason for being is to publish unconventional ideas without much scrutiny, just to put them out there for consideration (for instance, the same journal has published aids denyalism papers).

 

[Noodles03]

It seems like the more you learn about the science behind strength and conditioning, the more you realize how little you know.

 

[Samuel Reynoso]

The authors don’t claim that strength training doesn’t result in an improved vertical. They don’t even claim that it doesn’t result in increased jumping ability during the actual sport. They just argue that we don’t really know.

I'm not saying the earth is flat. I'm just saying it's funny that we don't really know.

 

[spiderguarda]

Thanks for providing a paper. I read the full text, and I think what it comes down to is this quote:

“it appears that jumping performance can be improved through resistance exercise. This may provide some efficacy to resistance exercise for sports performance, as the ability to jump is important across a wide variety of sports and sporting events. However, it is still unclear if a laboratory measure of jumping performance will actually translate to jumping performance in the sports setting.”

The authors don’t claim that strength training doesn’t result in an improved vertical. They don’t even claim that it doesn’t result in increased jumping ability during the actual sport. They just argue that we don’t really know.

I don’t find that position compelling. For one, it is illogical that there will be no transfer from a standing or running vertical to jumping on the court. And, for another, it goes against extensive field experience: for instance, a basketball player who shows an increase in his measured standing vertical will typically also show a fairly obvious increase in their on-court jump (he will be ascending higher compared to the rim during a dunk). If you do find it convincing, then that’s up to you.

On a similar note, the article also refers to the claim that muscle hypertrophy doesn’t contribute to muscle strength. Sure, the relationship between the two is not linear and we don’t fully comprehend it, but to argue the two are unrelated is what I call “intellectual masturbation”. It is simply too contrary to our understanding of the underlying basic science and to extensive field experience.

Btw, that was basically an opinion piece, published in a journal whose reason for being is to publish unconventional ideas without much scrutiny, just to put them out there for consideration (for instance, the same journal has published aids denyalism papers).

That’s why I don’t understand Jeremy and company authoring the paper and getting it published. Not sure if it’s a joke or mocking other researchers.

 

[Badger67]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28871849

 

[aus101]

Here’s Jeremy Loenneke’s paper arguing strength exercises do not improve sports as there’s little evidence but may aid in injury prevention.

He did a lot of research on exercising with cutting off blood circulation as a novel way to increase hypertrophy. He doesn’t believe hypertrophy equates to increased strength. He argues for specificity which Brad Schoenfeld’s research shows both high load and low load can both increase hypertrophy but heavy weights increase strength while higher reps with low weights increases hypertrophy. At least that’s what I get out of it.

Jeremy seems to be a contrarian.

http://www.medical-hypotheses.com/article/S0306-9877(17)31110-6/pdf


Resistance exercise is typically performed to increase both muscle size and strength and is regularly incorporated into training programs for sports performance. Presumably, the exercise would be expected to increase the force producing capabilities of skeletal muscle, which may have subsequent influence on various sports related abilities. Interestingly, few studies are designed to examine sports related benefits of resistance exercise while including a proper control group to account for adaptations to simply performing the sports related task. Much of our knowledge on resistance exercise for sport is based off cross-sectional work showing that stronger athletes tend to perform at the highest level, along with cross-sectional work demonstrating that higher levels of strength are associated with various performance related parameters. Although there is a large body of cross-sectional literature providing a rationale for resistance exercise for sport, its implementation is largely based on the following: 1) An increase in muscle size will produce an increase in strength and 2) a stronger muscle will increase sports performance. However, there is a lack of evidence to support these assumptions. The weight of evidence suggests that resistance exercise may indirectly impact sports performance through injury prevention, as opposed to directly improving sport related abilities.

Depends upon the sport. In powerlifting you bet hypertrophy (usually) equals increased strength and increased strength equals increased performance but for a marathon runner more muscle and more strength might not be so useful. Looking at MMA even physical specimens like Romero perform frequent resistance training, so we can assume it has some affect on even their performance.

Even for the average joe athlete though. Think about wrestling/grappling, a trained 2.5 bw deadlifter will be able to exert far more force through their body than they would be able to not training deadlifts (or any resistance training). They’ll be far better “athletes” than their sub 2x bw lifting untrained selves.

 

[Noodles03]

Hopefully this isn't a repost. But here's an article on the effects of 6 week squats, deadlift and hip thrust training.

https://scholarworks.uttyler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=hkdept_grad

 

[corpse]

Skeletal Muscle Mass and Architecture of the World’s Strongest Raw Powerlifter: A Case Study

 

[Sano]

Skeletal Muscle Mass and Architecture of the World’s Strongest Raw Powerlifter: A Case Study

Not trying to be a negative nancy here, but could you clarify what's interesting about this study? Worlds strongest powerlifter has big muscle mass and both high and relative strength. Not really a revelation.

I chuckled a bit at the "drug free" part.

 

[corpse]

Not trying to be a negative nancy here, but could you clarify what's interesting about this study? Worlds strongest powerlifter has big muscle mass and both high and relative strength. Not really a revelation.

I chuckled a bit at the "drug free" part.

hey sano,
no problem with your objection. i just thought it's interesting because i never stumbled across a study where a strength sports world record holder in the super heavyweight class was examined relative to his muscle mass and strength values.

i also think it's remarkable that the subject has some of the highest values ever reported and the presumption that he is close to the physiological limit.

i don't read many studies. maybe it's old news for some of you.

cheers

 

[Queen B]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28871849

Im not sure how the Diet only group led to an increase in RMR. Probably because they werent eating a lot of protein (as protein has the largest thermic effect of all 3 macros)

The RT and RT+Diet group increase in RMR isnt surprising because muscle burns more energy than fat (by 2-4 calories per pound) and theres probably a small and almost negligible EPOC effectg