Static holds with lat bar?

[Joebob]

Are static holds with a lat bar and a ton of weight effective? (instead of holding dumbells/barbell)

[nateakabear]

Originally posted by Joebob
Are static holds with a lat bar and a ton of weight effective? (instead of holding dumbells/barbell)

Never tried it. I imagine the effects on the forearms and shoulders and traps possibly would be the same as deadlifting though.

[Joebob]

Originally posted by nateakabear
Never tried it. I imagine the effects on the forearms and shoulders and traps possibly would be the same as deadlifting though.

Yea in theory it sounds like it works. Reason I'm wondering is because my lats need work, might as well get them built up a little bit while working on forearms too.

[WarriorFX]

I read the book, Static Contraction Training by Peter Sisco and John Little (BTW - every book I have read of theirs has been awesome). The book is a very good read above and beyond teaching the fundamentals of SCT! I thought this was an excellent way to describe muscle contractions:

"Muscle contraction begins with an electrical signal from the central nervous system. When the current arrives at the muscle, it is immediatly transferred up and down the length and depth of the muscle through a relay system of tubules. When the message reaches each one of those thousands of receptor sites, it drops of a little shot of calcium. Calcium inhibits the noncontractile proteins tropin and tropomyosin, which, until calcium showed up, had been doing there job of keeping the actin and myosin proteins seperated. The calcium has the same effect on tropin and tropomyosin that kryptonite has on Superman - it takes away their power to seperate actin and myosin, inhibiting their ability to function - and their function, of course, is to keep the contractile proteins from contracting.

Further analysis reveals this process even more clearly when we look at the sarcomere, which is simply one individual unit of actin and myosin. At each end of the sacromere is a rather broad anchoring structure called a z-disc. And extending inward from each z-disc are thin strands of actin that just manage to overlap the much thicker strands of myosin that reside smack-dab in the middle of each sacromere.

Myosin protein strands have little receptor site that emanate outward from either side of their main bodies that resemble something of a cross between little hooks and the strands of a feather. Technically, these receptor sites are called cross-bridges, as they serve to bridge or connect actin and myosin.

Once the electrical charge for contraction arrives via the nerve cells from the brainto the muscle, the nerve cells drop off a little packet of calcium that immediatly severs the leashlike effect of the troponin and tropomyosin. With the leash removed, so to speak, several rather phenomenal actions take place involving the now free-floating actin and myosin:

The cross bridges rotate and in so doing draw the actin filaments and z-discs inward ever so slightly.
The cross bridges begin to attach to the actin protein strands.
The proteins themselves undergo a change in shape.
The sacromere shortens as both z-discs are drawn inward.

When many of these sacromeres shorten simultaneously, the muscle fibers - and then the muscle itself - contract. And, although some textbooks may tell you that the shortening of the sacromere is caused by the release of energy caused by the breakdon of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), this is not the case. In fact, the process of contraction will occur automatically whenever calcium enters the picture, thus inhibiting the restrictive function of the troponin and tropomyosin proteins. ATP is required, however, for the cross bridges to release and return to their "resting" position until their required to contract again. An example of this can be seen if you flex the biceps of in your upper arm. This is the result of thousands of contractions and (if you extend your forearm) releases by the cross bridges, with the contracting portion precipitated by the presence of calcium and the release fueled by the energy generated by the breakdown of ATP."

I have been employing it for delts for awhile and have been getting really good results in overall strength and size. I still do regular mil presses - but I usually do static holds for side and rear dumbell raises...

But they really make some good points in regards to just keeping a static contraction on the muscle vs a full range movement... and they show results of several studies...

BTW - Sisco (and Little) mention that just becasue you are training the muscle at a steady contraction does not mean you will only develop static strength - they mention that as one of the biggest misinterpretations of the program. Dynamic strength also shows a marked inprovement from SCT... which they believe is a more effective way to work a muscle - by working it in its actual contracted state rather than letting it "rest" and recruit supporting muscle groups using a full-range rep.

[WarriorFX]

Here is a quote from Sisco regarding sport-specific training and static strength training:

"The appeal of Static Contraction Training was the fact that it permitted very brief workouts that could be spaced very far apart. As I'm now over forty, I am particularly interested in not just the minimum dose of exercise that can trigger new muscle growth, but more in the minimum dose of exercise which can sustain my lean mass into middle age and beyond.
"Old habits of thinking are often difficult to break. So even when I designed the Static Contraction Research Study, measurements were taken that would demonstrate static training's benefits, not just to static strength and muscle mass gains, but also to full range strength. It took me about a year to realize that static strength has its own merits which, in many applications, rank above full range strength.

I have become sensitized to how often I find myself using the static strength of my muscles rather than the dynamic strength of my muscles. For example, before these words were put on this page they were first dictated into a hand held recorder. One of my favorite ways of mixing work with pleasure is riding my off road motorcycle into the wilds of Idaho's mountains, finding a remote area of pristine wilderness, in today's case bedecked with wildflowers and elk tracks, and dictating articles like this one.

When riding a motorcycle, particularly in off road or motocross conditions, the body expends a great deal of muscular energy but nearly all of it is expended by holding the muscles statically. The biceps and triceps hold, or attempt to hold, the handlebars in a more or less fixed position despite being bumped and buffeted by various obstacles. The quadriceps and ham strings hold the body in a position three or four inches off the seat and do their best to maintain that rigid position in space despite the up and down motion of the motorcycle.

Once again I was aware of the value of static strength while trap shooting. All shooting sports rely on the ability of the muscles to have sufficient static strength to hold the gun perfectly steady under all conditions. Dynamic, or full range strength, is never used. I notice that my ten-year-old son, Alex, who shoots with me, can always break more clay pigeons on his first ten shots than he can on his second ten. I attribute this difference to muscle fatigue that sets in sometime after his first ten shots. I have no doubt that if he were to increase his static strength he would find it less tiring to hold his shotgun and his scores would improve proportionately. The same holds true for most adults after thirty to fifty shots.

Two more examples are alpine and water-skiing. A water-skier holds his arms and legs in a more or less rigid position while skiing. He will shift position from time to time but once shifted his knees and elbows stay bent at about the same angle. Bobbing up and down in the range of motion of a full squat, for example, would serve no purpose but to look ridiculous and manifest bad form. Skiers need static strength and they need it at a specific point in their range of motion.

Lately I have wondered just how long the list of sports and activities that utilize static strength really is. Horseback riding, mountain biking (upper body), wrestling, jet skiing, nearly all gymnastic events, fencing and no doubt many more sports all lend themselves to Static Contraction Training. In any application where an athlete would benefit from having more static strength at a specific point in his range of motion, he would surely benefit more by exercising statically and therefore developing the exact form of strength he needs, where he needs it.

As exercise science further evolves I firmly believe that Static Contraction Training will play not just the role I originally envisioned, of "minimum dosage" for maintaining or increasing muscle mass, but also as a very precise method of placing additional strength exactly where it is needed."

BTW (part 2 ) - as you probably already know, there are three types of muscular failure... 1) concentric failure - simply means you can't lift the weight again. 2) static failure - your muscles are so wiped out that you can't even hold the weight statically at any point in the range of motion. 3) eccentric failure - this the point where you can't control the weight as you lower it, regardless of what tempo you're using. Going to static failure places a greater demand on your body (a greater training stimulis), rather than simply stopping when you can't push or pull anymore. Here is part of their argument... the authors of SCT say negatives are not as good as static holds because there really is no way to judge improvements (training progression) - you don't know how much force you are exerting per workout. For example - when doing slow negatives you may be pushing 405lbs with anywhere between 315-400 pounds of force output... with static holds you are holding 405 - when you can't hold it anymore the set is terminated. You know where to measure improvements for next time.

[Uninspired]

what exactly do u do static holds with?

[WarriorFX]

I usually do them for Delts (a greater tendency toward slow-twitch/higher endurance muscle composition). I start off with Heavy Front Military Presses and then hit the Medial Delts with side lateral raises doing static holds.

Lately I have been training with someone new - he is a professional arm Wrestler (won $18,000 in 2001 and has fractured two forearms in his day) and has some well trained guns. I put forth full effort to make sure he hurts. We have been doing some EDT (Charles Staley) days with basic POF-type training that includes static holds for Biceps.

When we do static holds for biceps we use a power rack. We set the pins to a point were the bar hits them when the muscle is nearly fully contracted. From there the set consist of holding the barbell up against the pins. Your body will try and quiver and break form - you must keep your form solid and fight the pain... keep those biceps flexed. You try and add more time each session or add to the load - either variable will lead to progress.