Understanding Muscle Balance / Positional Tension

Compared to fields like engineering and chemistry it's really the Wild West.

We have some ideas.

Some of them have some backing in good research. Some in bad research. Some in case studies.

Because there are many ways and means to get results the truth has been obscured and strength education is greatly lacking.

The skew towards doped athletes competing in powerlifting, bodybuilding, and weightlifting doesn't help either. These populations are poorly researched and what they are doing doesn't necessarily apply well to everyday coaches and athletes in other sports.

Student research is often short-term and in untrained groups. The opposite extreme of people who might not be taking their part in a controlled study as seriously as sex-life or even late-night study gains.

It's logical and undisputed that a muscle consistently forced to contract in a shortened position will become stronger in that position and the muscle will become shorter.

The reverse is also true.

A muscle consistently trained in its outer range will improve its ability to produce force in those positions.

The questions that aren't asked but must be asked are:

Short muscles are more prone to tears in outer positions.

Muscles that do well in long positions may cramp and become weak in their shortened ranges.

Options could be:

1. Train only the middle range and hope for the best.

2. Stop strength training altogether because it will cause imbalance to the natural strength curves of the body.

3. Train and balance all ranges with stretching and strengthening.

4. Train "natural movements" farm style training, Ido Portal / MovNat, etc.

In the modern world, we don't have much choice.

Everyday living is turning us into metabolically diseased mush.

To avoid that we need strength training.

1. This works for people who require no real function from their bodies or who do other activities that create enough stimulus in other positions to rebalance the body. Often these athletes will suffer more injuries and/or develop less strength than athletes who balance their training.

2. Athletes are competing against strength-trained athletes.

Very few can compete without strength training being part of the mixture.

3. This is the approach that requires the most thought and testing. It is the method that seems capable of great results. Has it been applied? We'll look further shortly.

4. Logically if we're looking to smooth the edges of the imbalances created by strength training we should look at what other activities have a strength component that could keep the body moving well. Wrestling, dancing, complex gymnastics and physical labor (farm work, furniture removals, construction) are some examples of real-world strength that will through high volumes of submaximal movements smooth some of the imbalances of overly rigid strength training movements.

For all these reasons this fundamental concept isn't well taught or understood in the world of strength.

Here comes your competitive advantage.

Here comes your next-level results.

Here comes a secret of very few pros.

First, we need a couple of underpinning principles

In which position is the muscle strongest / weakest?

In which part of the movement is hardest?

Which is easiest?

Generally, machines attempt to match the force curve to the strength curve. When we use free weights we should have awareness of the force curve and the strength curve.

Few coaches have heard of these concepts.

Fewer have deeply contemplated them and considered the impact they will have on muscle gains, strength gains, connective tissue damage, and rehabilitation.

By optimizing these variables for a given objective...

EVERYTHING CHANGES.

As you apply these tools you'll go from randomly using different tools for different jobs with variable results to getting reliable results and solving the challenges in front of you.

Sure you can manipulate total training volume, intensity, etc to survive any program but you will NOT be able to bulletproof and rehabilitate connective tissues or fill in strength gaps for specific movements without these tools.

Think of it like this.

You want to RENOVATE your biceps. One movement can be considered a sledgehammer, another a drill, and another a polishing tool.

Now you can swing a sledgehammer softly or even use it to rub it as if it were a polishing tool but truthfully each tool has a different role to play.

For carpentry this is simple. You might not even need your trade certificates to identify what does what...

BUT IN THE WORLD OF STRENGTH TRAINING THE TOOLS ARE UNKNOWN AND UNLABELLED.

Extreme Inner Range

Inner Range Concentric Only

Inner Range Dominant

Mid Range

Outer Range

Extreme Outer Range