Size Principle

[hellboy3]

According to Chad Waterbury (the guy who wrote this article: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_...ight_less_time ), he says because of the Size Principle, as you approach failure you're recruiting the smaller, weaker motor units. This then causes an impediment for the body to recruit the larger, stronger motor units in the later sets, since the Size Principle tells us that smaller units are always recruited first before the bigger ones, but it's the bigger motor units that we need to target for maximal strength and growth. What are your opinions on this?

[hellboy3]

bumpy

[speed650]

If muscles are anything like reinforced concrete (sorry, im an engineer), the most rigid fibers will take the bulk of the load. When those muscles break, or are pushed above their usual stretch limits, the stress will influence the surrounding less rigid muscles which will take over some of the load.

What does that mean for weight training? The more weight you train with, the more muscles you are likely to use. If you train with low weight, you are only using a small percentage of the most rigid muscles. It does not really matter how many reps you do, sense you will only be using the same muscle fibers every rep which will simply get more tired. It's sort of like taking a bunch of elastic bands of different lengths and stretching them at the same time. The shortest elastics will have all the stress, while the long once will simple dangle around. The more you stretch the more elastics will get pulled.

Hmm.. my two cents :|

Oh, as for the article you posted i think his theory its bull****. You don't get bigger by fatiguing your muscles. If that was true, runners would look like body builders. You gain muscle by ripping the muscle fibers. As for his conclusion, lift heavy at the start (heavy automatically makes for short sets), that's basically the same thing i am talking about.

[Paumen]

According to Chad Waterbury (the guy who wrote this article: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_...ight_less_time ), he says because of the Size Principle, as you approach failure you're recruiting the smaller, weaker motor units. This then causes an impediment for the body to recruit the larger, stronger motor units in the later sets, since the Size Principle tells us that smaller units are always recruited first before the bigger ones, but it's the bigger motor units that we need to target for maximal strength and growth. What are your opinions on this?

He is right. All he is saying is to train with maxium intensity. Thats when type llb fibers fire....