Lengthened Partials and Lengthened Biased Hypertrophy Movements

[acorn93]

Good video worth watching. Everybody here buying the hype?? I’m a little skeptical myself. I’m worried about increasing injury risk with how this information may be applied and somewhat inherently to the movements themselves. This could be mitigated with managing the loads but curious to hear other people weigh in.

[cole]

im not sure about any hype...its just a perspective on a very nuanced variable for training methodology. i think josh is smart as hell and has a more in depth knowledge about strength and growth than 99.9% of humans so i would certainly not discount antyhing he puts out there, but i also think this is one of those things that you tackle AFTER you have address the bigger, more fundamental aspects of training such as technique in the main movements, total training dose, proximity to failure, recovery, and consistency. i do not think lengthened partials will make or break your training career

[DanCR]

This is the best video that I’ve seen on the topic. RP also had a more nuanced take - as opposed to their recent output - out earlier today, yet still not as thoughtful as this.

Still wondering when all the science / evidence based folks will acknowledge that Joel Seedman was actively promoting the extra benefits of the stretch and even lengthened partials like a decade ago. Yes he’s a clown. Yes it’s peak broken clock. He did, though.

[acorn93]

@cole I say hype because I feel like so many people are promoting this now. But don’t get me wrong, the video was great and presented in an easy to understand format. I don’t doubt josh knows a lot. If josh gives it to a client I’m sure it’s more intelligently programmed. I was just saying I can easily see people going crazy with this and getting hurt doing it. I still think that there is probably an inherent risk with the load being hardest at the lengthened position.
@DanCR I haven’t watched the RP vid yet. Dr. Mike has some decent info. Did seedman really promote this? Lol I feel like he just goes out of his way to promote atypical training styles.

[DanCR]

Lol I feel like he just goes out of his way to promote atypical training styles.

He does, well past the point of dishonesty. He’s a charlatan through and through. It would be interesting if one day he dropped all the bullshit and addressed how he actually trains, because he’s always had an impressive physique.

Did seedman really promote this?

But yeah, he did. IIRC, though, he was promoting it for hypertrophy and strength, whereas from what I’ve seen it’s now viewed entirely as a hypertrophy trigger. I’ve not seen anyone suggesting that it’ll do anything for max strength.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

This is the best video that I’ve seen on the topic. RP also had a more nuanced take - as opposed to their recent output - out earlier today, yet still not as thoughtful as this.

Still wondering when all the science / evidence based folks will acknowledge that Joel Seedman was actively promoting the extra benefits of the stretch and even lengthened partials like a decade ago. Yes he’s a clown. Yes it’s peak broken clock. He did, though.

The thing is, the opinion of fitness people on almost every question is a periodic function, the period being around 5-10 years. So you can pretty much say anything and wait for a while and eventually people will agree with you, at least for a few years and then the cycle will start again.

[DanCR]

This is the best video that I’ve seen on the topic. RP also had a more nuanced take - as opposed to their recent output - out earlier today, yet still not as thoughtful as this.

Still wondering when all the science / evidence based folks will acknowledge that Joel Seedman was actively promoting the extra benefits of the stretch and even lengthened partials like a decade ago. Yes he’s a clown. Yes it’s peak broken clock. He did, though.

The thing is, the opinion of fitness people on almost every question is a periodic function, the period being around 5-10 years. So you can pretty much say anything and wait for a while and eventually people will agree with you, at least for a few years and then the cycle will start again.

Yes - hence my reference to a broken clock. For a limited time (pun intended) it's right.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

im not sure about any hype...its just a perspective on a very nuanced variable for training methodology. i think josh is smart as hell and has a more in depth knowledge about strength and growth than 99.9% of humans so i would certainly not discount antyhing he puts out there, but i also think this is one of those things that you tackle AFTER you have address the bigger, more fundamental aspects of training such as technique in the main movements, total training dose, proximity to failure, recovery, and consistency. i do not think lengthened partials will make or break your training career

Yeah exactly. I think it's one of those things that content creators like to talk about because discussing fundamentals is boring and they need to keep their audience entertained. Weight training is actually a very boring topic when you think about it.

[dw]

Here's my little contribution: I have found that paused movements seem to be more stimulative of hypertrophy when the pause is in the maximally stretched position than the opposite (so for example the bottom of a leg extension vs the top).

This was true for both leg extensions and the adductor machine. I'm going to start doing it with curls to see if it helps there.

ETA I should probably clarify by "stimulative of hypertrophy" I mean stimulative of strength in the hypertrophy rep range - i.e. progress.

[acorn93]

@dw I'm pretty sure there’s info out there to support your view and I think GVS touches on it in this video.

[DanCR]

GVS touches on it in this video.

Funny, I saw this pop up this morning and was gonna put it up in this thread after I watched and if it was worthwhile. You struck first. Like all of his stuff, I do think that it’s a solid take.

That said, it’s funny that Steve Holman’s “positions of flexion” BB program from the late 90s was based on all the stuff that GVS says here.

[DanCR]

RP with a new video out today with Eric Helms, regarding the alleged hypertrophy benefits of extreme stretching. Not a single mention that Dante Trudel was insistent on that in the 90s, sans any studies to say that he was right.

The stretching protocol was DoggCrapp's equivalent of power cleans in Starting Strength, i.e. the piece that no one ever did.

[mbasic]

How are they measuring the improved hypertrophy in the studies that support this idea?

[DanCR]

How are they measuring the improved hypertrophy in the studies that support this idea?

Legit am not sure that he even said.

[dw]

They're supposed to do it with muscle biopsies but tbh if a study were well designed I would be satisfied with just improved strength in something like the 10rm rep range.

[mbasic]

They're supposed to do it with muscle biopsies but tbh if a study were well designed I would be satisfied with just improved strength in something like the 10rm rep range.

A lot of these studies they use imagery or just measure the physical size of the muscles ... Also,a lot of shit recently published how certain types of training just produces a high amount of inflammation or localized swelling of the muscle, and that crap hangs around for up to a week in some cases.

and .... perhaps, you are just measuring "fluff", and not measuring actual muscle/contractile tissue gainz.

[TimK]

RP with a new video out today with Eric Helms, regarding the alleged hypertrophy benefits of extreme stretching. Not a single mention that Dante Trudel was insistent on that in the 90s, sans any studies to say that he was right.

Maybe because stretch mediated hypertrophy as shown in the studies requires sitting down for an hour every day with your calf forced into a painful stretch via an orthotic device… not exactly the same thing as a 30 second weighted stretch at the end of your set…

[TimK]

How are they measuring the improved hypertrophy in the studies that support this idea?

Ultrasound

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9174468/

[DanCR]

RP with a new video out today with Eric Helms, regarding the alleged hypertrophy benefits of extreme stretching. Not a single mention that Dante Trudel was insistent on that in the 90s, sans any studies to say that he was right.

Maybe because stretch mediated hypertrophy as shown in the studies requires sitting down for an hour every day with your calf forced into a painful stretch via an orthotic device… not exactly the same thing as a 30 second weighted stretch at the end of your set…

If you continued watching, they discussed another study that achieved the same (alleged) results in significantly less time, although, yes, also still significantly more time than Dante recommended. I don’t think we know the minimum to achieve the (alleged) results. In any event, I’d have mentioned the man and that he may have been onto something, but it’s not my YouTube channel.

[TimK]

RP with a new video out today with Eric Helms, regarding the alleged hypertrophy benefits of extreme stretching. Not a single mention that Dante Trudel was insistent on that in the 90s, sans any studies to say that he was right.

Maybe because stretch mediated hypertrophy as shown in the studies requires sitting down for an hour every day with your calf forced into a painful stretch via an orthotic device… not exactly the same thing as a 30 second weighted stretch at the end of your set…

If you continued watching, they discussed another study that achieved the same (alleged) results in significantly less time, although, yes, also still significantly more time than Dante recommended. I don’t think we know the minimum to achieve the (alleged) results. In any event, I’d have mentioned the man and that he may have been onto something, but it’s not my YouTube channel.

Yes, and if you continue watching even further he points out that that study was even more extreme in terms of the degree of stretch, basically strapping the subjects down in a torture device at a “10/10” pain level for 15 minutes straight, 4 days a week. Helms speculates that that increase in intensity may have been required to offset the shorter duration.

Regarding Dante “not having a single study” to back up his ideas, I’m not sure about that. The famous hyperplasia study where they stretched the wings of quail and saw huge increases in muscle size was published in 1993. I found an interview with Dante that included this:

How did you first develop DC?

After three-and-a-half years of obsessive-compulsive volume training, I started to read everything I could get my hands on concerning nutrition, supplements and training even abstracts and lab studies.

And then later in the interview:

What is extreme stretching, and what are you trying to accomplish with it?

Extreme stretching can have myriad benefits if done correctly: recovery, fascia size and potential hyperplasia, which is still only theory.

So it seems plausible that the quail study was his inspiration for the extreme stretching protocol, at least in part.