Can range of motion during lifting determine the shape of the muscle?

[brightlight07]

During a moment of desperation, I ordered Mike Thurmond's six week body makeover. While I know I won't lose 30 pounds in six weeks and that it will take me much longer to transform my body, the kit does have a lot of useful information. Anyway, one of the things he says on the strength building video is that if you train with a shorter range of motion with exercises like bicep curls, hamstring curls, and leg extensions that you will build a longer leaner muscle whereas if you go the full range of motion you will build the more rounded humplike muscle. He says that the contraction actually helps shape the muscle. Is this true?

[vicjg]

Originally Posted by brightlight07

During a moment of desperation, I ordered Mike Thurmond's six week body makeover. While I know I won't lose 30 pounds in six weeks and that it will take me much longer to transform my body, the kit does have a lot of useful information. Anyway, one of the things he says on the strength building video is that if you train with a shorter range of motion with exercises like bicep curls, hamstring curls, and leg extensions that you will build a longer leaner muscle whereas if you go the full range of motion you will build the more rounded humplike muscle. He says that the contraction actually helps shape the muscle. Is this true?

I don't think so. I would think that especially in the beginning, the shape of muscles has to do more with genetics than anything else. I guess as they get bigger they can be manipulated by hitting them at different angles/different exercises, but I've never heard of the shape being helped one way or the other by ROM.

I'm under the belief, that full range of motion, is the way to go. Even more so if you're a beginner.

[kikoff]

one of the first things being written in the new encyclopedia of modern bodybuilding, after the history of bodybuilding of course, is this.

always use a full range of motion.

when reading your post i realized this here Mike Thurmond fellow seem to have eaten to much mickey mouse pills. it's pretty much the opposite of what he says.

if you, for instanse do a barbell curl, lets even say you got a deal down with god so that you only need one rep to get max size of one particular muscle part. if you lift the barbell to the most contracted part of biceps, then let it drop two thirds of the way down and drop the barbell to the ground and then flex you would see a couple of things, one your biceps would lack the bottom two/ three inches. and would be a round ball at the top. to get the bottom you will need to do the full range of motion.

ok, it's a little more complicated then that to build a perfect biceps, you having to do a lot more than barbell curls for instanse, but the point is there, you have to do it all to train it all.

[brightlight07]

Thanks for your reply. I had never heard Mike Thurmonds theory before which is why an alarm bell went off. Basically what he says is that if, using the barbell curl example, I just curl for a short range of motion, i.e, from my hips until my elbow is bent 90 degrees, that it would develop a longer muscle, where as if I curl all the way through the range of motion that it would form the rounded part at the top of the bicep. For women in particular, he recommends using the short range contraction for bicep curls, hamstring curls, and leg extensions, just using the first part of the contraction. Anyway, I had never heard of lifting this way so I wanted to see what you guys thought. Thanks again!

[metalsquid]

i think kikoff, Mike Thurmond and Arnie are essentially saying the same thing just in different ways.

in Arnie's book, he's talking about trainees having a gap between their biceps and forearm when flexed because of poor form. he says this is so because at the start of the bicep curl they are involving other muscles, like the shoulders, to swing the weight up from the start position. by not using the bicep during this lower part of the movement, the part of the bicep nearest the forearm develops less than the rest of the bicep, thus the gap.

by stopping when the elbow is at 90deg, like in Thurmond's method, you are only training that lower part of the bicep. that is what he means by 'elongating' the muscle and avoiding the 'rounding' because the top part is not getting the peak contraction it normally would in a full ROM curl. same principle, different application. that's how i understand it anyway. if i'm wrong someone will point it out

fwiw, i'd just do the full ROM. with good form you'll be working the lower part and 'elongating' the muscle anyway. plus the 'hump' will give you some nice curves. what's the point in having a long but flat bicep?

[brightlight07]

Thanks, that makes sense. You're right though about the curves! Thanks for the insight.