By David Barr
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The neuromuscular adaptations
to strength are just amazing. You can take any 98 pound weakling
and give him a big boost to strength, and confidence, simply
through a normal strength training routine.
But every now and then, even
I get a little surprised. After more than a decade and a half
of training, I'm still learning about my body and how it responds
to the iron.
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Cool Effects
A little over 12 hour ago, I was performing
incline bench press without much thought -mostly because I'm pretty
brain dead during training. But after my post-workout shake, when
the neurons started firing again form the influx of glucose, I had
a realization. I don't know how exactly it works, but I literally
experienced a 350% strength gain on my incline bench within a month.
How is this possible you may ask?
Well, it's all from a new supplement that I developed and I promise
that if you use it you'll have the same gains!!!
Just kidding.
The story begins with a shoulder injury
-but don't worry, this is not your typical tale of woe. 12 months
ago I could barely lift my left arm over my head. Although I could
do so, it was very weak, painful, and I had a limited range of motion.
But it gets better. I'm happy to report that in the past 6 months
I've regained most of my range of motion and most of my strength.
This applies to most exercises… as long as the shoulder isn't
involved.
Then again, if you think about it,
how many upper body exercises don't involve the shoulder, even as
a stabilizer?
In spite of this "minor technicality",
my strength has increased tremendously as a result of muscle memory
and safe training. Although we usually consider muscle memory to
refer only to muscle size, it is important that the effects of the
nervous system are not overlooked. After all, this is where strength
gains predominantly occur, particularly after a layoff.
The Big Gain
Although everything has been progressing
safely (my primary goal), I've been avoiding the incline bench.
It's generally not my favorite exercise to being with, but I had
always felt that the risk to my shoulder is too great. After a little
training stagnation I decided to give it a try, and was surprised
at how incredibly weak I was. I had poor stability, horrible muscular
strength and endurance, and even a little shoulder pain to boot.
Fortunately the latter was a transient phenomenon, so I decided
to give it another try the following week.
As one might expect (even though I
didn't at the time), everything had already improved. I was significantly
stronger, the coordination was fine, and the muscular endurance
had dramatically improved. This, just 5 days after my first attempt.
Although on the surface this doesn't seem like a big deal, you have
to try to imagine the magnitude of physiological changes that had
occurred in that short time. It's a feat of biology that's truly
amazing.
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Putting this into perspective,
as the title suggests, last night I pressed 350% of my initial
incline attempt -without shoulder pain. Now you're never
going to experience this without muscle/neural memory, but
that's part of what's really amazing. The rapidity of response,
simply from having already experienced a high level of strength,
has to make you wonder how we can tap into that.
Think about it, if we could
have any semblance of this effect -really harnessing the
power of the nervous system- just imagine what we could
accomplish. And don't think this only applies to strength.
It applies to performance -both physical and mental.
This is exactly where I'm
going with my next book. You're not going to want to miss
it!
Raise your expectations. Raise
The Barr!
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About The Author
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