How to Strengthen Ligaments?

[Joshua Naterman]

I will. As you say, the devices sound quite magical. Testimonials from those who use ARPwaves are quite impressive. Having no hands-on experience as of right now, I can only quite the available literature and process it through what I know about muscle fiber recruitment and activation, which suggests that it does work exactly as advertised. I've seen videos of the changes in flexibility with 5 seconds of application, it's pretty crazy. I WILL find a place in a state close enough to drive to and get hands-on experience via a training session with them. That will be good for review purposes, information gathering, and personal comparison with the device I end up constructing.

[Cole Dano]

I've seen videos of the changes in flexibility with 5 seconds of application

Boy that would make my job easier, seriously , really interesting for my line of work.

and not so seriously - maybe its time to open a clinic doing that and Poliquin's BioSig.

[Joshua Naterman]

From what I've read, biosig is an excellent diagnosis method. According to Robb Wolf's review of it the actual treatment protocols, so to speak, are in some cases less than perfect but overall pretty decent with regards to results (although Poliquin likes heavy supplement usage and this makes biosig treatment protocols expensive in many cases). I do believe that the two would be good together, especially for a private training practice.

[Neal Winkler]

Sliz, I made all that stuff up. There is no such thing as yao kai or whatever. hahahahaaha

[Joshua Naterman]

I figured you were either screwing around or you got hacked!

The products I referred to really exist and appear to work! I do not know to what degree. I am less impressed with the liga-tend. You would seem to do better with a mix of gelatin protein, l-proline, l-glycine and a superior vitamin blend like methylated b vitamins, and do so for a similar cost per serving or so. I will be trying the great mender as soon as I have the money for it, it's pretty cheap at 10 bucks a bottle, with each bottle lasting around 10 days at "standard dosage."

[cccp22]

HAHAHAHAHA!!! Well, if you drop in unannounced I won't have much for anyone to eat besides curry/jerk chicken and kefir!

Seriously, that's pretty awesome.

After learning how so many things work and how various industries developed I actually get really upset at how we get sold such crap all the time. Most things can be made at home with fairly little effort for almost free. I mean... did you know everyone in Colonial times had hot water on demand? You know how they did it? Black iron water tanks on the roof. Yea, I'm serious. Why are we paying so much for electric/gas water heaters?!?!

Don't even get me started on the on-demand hot water heaters... prices are an outrage. I could make you one for about 100 dollars but they sell you these units for like 6000 bucks!!! It's a frikin' propane grill burner with an electrically controlled flow valve on the gas line and a temperature sensor a few feet upstream in the hot water line, if that. If you wanted to be cheap about it you could just vent your room and have a simple dial valve version right by your shower. How do I know? THEY HAVE THEM IN JAPAN!!!! OH MY GOD!!! They cost practically nothing and you get the water exactly how you like it instantly, like less than 10 seconds. American business makes me sick sometimes. Then there's small natural gas turbine generators. Did you know that businesses could save 30% or more on their electrical costs by generating on site with natural gas?!?! Cleaner than coal. That, all by itself, could completely offset 10-20% of total emissions from power plants in the US. I'm pretty close to being convinced that things are purposefully being kept as stupid as they are, because I'm pretty positive there are more people than just me that know about this stuff. We could get even SMARTER by putting a few small generators with parabolic mirrors and a closed turbine loop with a compressor, filled with coolant or ammonia. Both boil around 40 degrees, so even in winter this would work almost everywhere during the daytime, which is... YOU GUESSED IT!!! PRIME FRIKIN' CONSUMPTION TIME. ARGH. My head hurts when I think about this stuff. None of this is a crazy idea I came up with, it's being DONE!!! There's a hotel in Alaska that has 70+ individual suites, each a separate building. Know what they're made out of? ICE. How do they keep ice from melting in the summer, late spring, and early fall?! Ok, this is brilliant, so enjoy this: The owner is using geothermal power. But, instead of being an idiot and trying to boil water, which requires around 700 degrees of heat to generate power with, he used coolant. This meant he only needed to drill deep enough to get to around 200 degrees. Saved him 10's of thousands of dollars, he only spent like 2k on the "well." The pipe with the coolant goes down and back up. Then you know what it does? It goes into an expansion chamber with a turbine, where it instantly vaporizes and turns the turbine. FREE POWER. That one well powers three generating stations, and they provide power for the entire hotel complex. Lights, appliances, refridgeration. Each station fits in a small trailer and costs 10k. That, my friends, is genius. I'm just looking at what has been done and saying "HEY, WAKE UP!!! We can adapt this to our needs!!! You could make a small version of this that could fit in one of those outdoor sheds and make you hundreds per month from utility checks. They have to PAY YOU for power you generate that goes back into the grid. That meter works two ways. You use power, you pay. You MAKE power, they pay you. I just... don't understand. Believe me, once I have money I'm going to start promoting sale of these smaller units at a reasonable cost and my goal is to do such a good job that I get the power companies knocking on my door.

On topic, I will probably buy a regular galvanic stimulator, they're cheap. Under 200 for sure, I've looked and bookmarked a few favorites of mine. None compare to ARP wave because they essentially just rectify AC so the frequency is 120hz. Cheapos...

*************** On the same topic how much would an ARP cost?

Brandon Green

[Joshua Naterman]

To buy? 15000. That comes with 5 years of support and access to protocols. They are apparently well worth it for those who can pay. It's an installment plan, basically 400 per month for 4-5 years or so. I looked into it! To make, less than 100 dollars.

Also, for anyone thinking they're going to whip any kind of e-stim together themselves, make SURE you have researched all safety information. Of you stimulate the muscle too much in too short a period of time you will release a TON of calcium and you can die from that. Don't do anything that you do not FULLY understand. There is a reason that there are specific pulse widths and pulse timings that must not be exceeded. If you don't know what that means, you shouldn't even be thinking about making one.

[cccp22]

To buy? 15000. That comes with 5 years of support and access to protocols. They are apparently well worth it for those who can pay. It's an installment plan, basically 400 per month for 4-5 years or so. I looked into it! To make, less than 100 dollars.

Also, for anyone thinking they're going to whip any kind of e-stim together themselves, make SURE you have researched all safety information. Of you stimulate the muscle too much in too short a period of time you will release a TON of calcium and you can die from that. Don't do anything that you do not FULLY understand. There is a reason that there are specific pulse widths and pulse timings that must not be exceeded. If you don't know what that means, you shouldn't even be thinking about making one.

************ I was an EW in the Navy and an electronics technician outside of it(some electrical experience as well). I am thinking seriously of designing one.

Brandon Green

[Joshua Naterman]

Nice! You should have more knowledge in actual circuit design than I do. I was very good at that, but it was not my job and I don't have much hands on experience. I can etch traces and whatnot, but I've never tried anything like this... The hardest part will just be sketching the circuit, which honestly shouldn't be that bad.

The 555 timers should be more than good enough, I mean you're only looking at something like 100mA at most, so we're not talking about large load switching here. Besides, you could just use them as a relay if you needed to. Have a constant DC voltage on rheostat and just use the 555 timer to pulse it through an SCR or something at two different speeds. If you're looking for pinpoint accuracy on the frequency you'll probably want a crystal timer, but those aren't bad on the wallet either. I don't care about 100% perfect accuracy at first, if I'm 10hz off at 10khz and 10.5khz I don't care, you know? I personally think that running the currents through the timers directly is the way to go.

Just look at the ARPwave technical info (it's public domain O_o) and duplicate the pulse modulation!

[cccp22]

Nice! You should have more knowledge in actual circuit design than I do. I was very good at that, but it was not my job and I don't have much hands on experience. I can etch traces and whatnot, but I've never tried anything like this... The hardest part will just be sketching the circuit, which honestly shouldn't be that bad.

The 555 timers should be more than good enough, I mean you're only looking at something like 100mA at most, so we're not talking about large load switching here. Besides, you could just use them as a relay if you needed to. Have a constant DC voltage on rheostat and just use the 555 timer to pulse it through an SCR or something at two different speeds. If you're looking for pinpoint accuracy on the frequency you'll probably want a crystal timer, but those aren't bad on the wallet either. I don't care about 100% perfect accuracy at first, if I'm 10hz off at 10khz and 10.5khz I don't care, you know? I personally think that running the currents through the timers directly is the way to go.

Just look at the ARPwave technical info (it's public domain O_o) and duplicate the pulse modulation!

********** Thanks!

Brandon Green

[cccp22]

Tendons and ligaments respond best to extremely short duration, very high intensity loads. Basically, elastic stretch-and-release elements. Pitches, plyometric work, stuff like that. Of course you have to scale the work correctly, if you are working so hard that you cause strain instead of stress you will be headed right for tendonitis land!

You will need to make sure that the areas around your joints have excellent bloodflow, since tendons themselves have almost none. Galvanic stimulators like the ARPwave can be used to drastically enhance healing, but that is a very niche area of sports training/medicine and is not widely understood despite the fact that it is really simple. Basically they use DC electricity to enhance blood flow directly in the area, and you can actually sleep with them on. They are painless. You have to have a doctor's prescription to buy them.

Other methods like cryotherapy and hot-cold baths/showers work fairly well to promote healing, and so does high volume work with long TUT. The volume work, which is what we are doing on WODs like friday's where we did 15' cirque, 10 FL pulls and 5 Naners back to back, promotes vascularization, which means your body will literally grow new blood vessels in the trained areas! This does help the healing process and therefore tendon and ligament development and remodeling, but as far as training the tendons themselves you want very high rep, very high speed, very low intensity.

This is part of why your warm up should be full body even when you don't do work sets with your whole body. You NEED the blood to flow everywhere for proper healing. The more you move, the more you heal.

*********** If possible explain to me a very high rep,high speed, low intensity workout that would fit the bill?

Brandon Green

[Joshua Naterman]

Extremely fast calf raises, extremely fast biceps curls with just your arms or perhaps VERY light weights, ballistic lat pulldowns (will probably get you kicked out of the gym) or similar set up at home (probably better), anything on the impulse trainer, extremely fast ballistic full GHR or NLC (these won't be full range, just a series of bounces near the top/mid part of the ROM), anything else in that vein. A high quality vibration plate can also be used for this kind of thing, though that is somewhat different.

You have to be careful to not have too much load, the reason this works without causing injury is because the high forces are produced during amortization only. It is split second and should still be within tolerance of the tendon.

[cccp22]

Extremely fast calf raises, extremely fast biceps curls with just your arms or perhaps VERY light weights, ballistic lat pulldowns (will probably get you kicked out of the gym) or similar set up at home (probably better), anything on the impulse trainer, extremely fast ballistic full GHR or NLC (these won't be full range, just a series of bounces near the top/mid part of the ROM), anything else in that vein. A high quality vibration plate can also be used for this kind of thing, though that is somewhat different.

You have to be careful to not have too much load, the reason this works without causing injury is because the high forces are produced during amortization only. It is split second and should still be within tolerance of the tendon.

******** Thanks very much. Would fast push ups or "LOW" level bounces do the trick as well? what do think of LDISO's in this vein?

Again Thanks.

Brandon Green

[Joshua Naterman]

LDISO would be more for hyperplasia effects than anything else, though the high levels of lactate and growth hormone generated would enhance tendon healing. Don't get me wrong, they will certainly have SOME effect directly on tendons, but not to the degree that lower intensity volumetric ballistic training will.

Yea, the fast push ups would help to some degree. Constructing some kind of impulse training would be one of the best things you could do. GOOD vibration plates would also be outstanding. Seriously. The ones that wobble from the center are worthless. The whole plate has to move in the same direction simultaneously.

Low level bounces definitely. Starting off with 30-60s sets and building up from there would be good. It has to be low enough level for that to not cause injury. For push up-type training I would suggest 45 degree angled wall push ups at first, so that you can actually be really ballistic. Bands can work too, but that is hard to control in my opinion. I don't like them as much as I like free weights and bodyweight for this kind of training. Legs should be able to handle bodyweight no problem for most movements, but at first arms may need lighter dumbbells. The reason the bands aren't as good is that you have a pretty constant tension level. For tendon loading you need a dynamically changing tension level, which is why weights and bodyweight stuff work better in my opinion.

[cccp22]

LDISO would be more for hyperplasia effects than anything else, though the high levels of lactate and growth hormone generated would enhance tendon healing. Don't get me wrong, they will certainly have SOME effect directly on tendons, but not to the degree that lower intensity volumetric ballistic training will.

Yea, the fast push ups would help to some degree. Constructing some kind of impulse training would be one of the best things you could do. GOOD vibration plates would also be outstanding. Seriously. The ones that wobble from the center are worthless. The whole plate has to move in the same direction simultaneously.

Low level bounces definitely. Starting off with 30-60s sets and building up from there would be good. It has to be low enough level for that to not cause injury. For push up-type training I would suggest 45 degree angled wall push ups at first, so that you can actually be really ballistic. Bands can work too, but that is hard to control in my opinion. I don't like them as much as I like free weights and bodyweight for this kind of training. Legs should be able to handle bodyweight no problem for most movements, but at first arms may need lighter dumbbells. The reason the bands aren't as good is that you have a pretty constant tension level. For tendon loading you need a dynamically changing tension level, which is why weights and bodyweight stuff work better in my opinion.

********* Great i am going to get started on these immediately. Thank you once again.

Brandon Green

[cccp22]

I figured you were either screwing around or you got hacked!

The products I referred to really exist and appear to work! I do not know to what degree. I am less impressed with the liga-tend. You would seem to do better with a mix of gelatin protein, l-proline, l-glycine and a superior vitamin blend like methylated b vitamins, and do so for a similar cost per serving or so. I will be trying the great mender as soon as I have the money for it, it's pretty cheap at 10 bucks a bottle, with each bottle lasting around 10 days at "standard dosage."

******* Not to "cut to the chase". But what is the best joint/connective tissue formula for the buck in your opinion?

Thanks in advance.

Brandon Green

[Cole Dano]

Not trying to speak for Slizz here, but one thing i've found very helpful for my shoulder issues, which were tendon, ligament related, is MSM. Its also very inexpensive.

[Joshua Naterman]

A lot of people seem to be low on sulfides (or whatever the sulfer compound in cartilage is), and MSM has sulfer to spare. I have heard a lot of good things about the hyaluronic acid + MSM + glucosamine chondroitin blends.

[albrecht80]

Would Kettlebell-Snatches with a light bell (12kg?) count as fast, highrep exercise ? (you can easily do 100-200 in 5min)

What about some sports cream to increase bloodflow? (the kind of cream where it gets realy warm and burns like hell if you touch your eyes)

[Tarun Suri]

Russian Martial arts, Systema, incorporates a lot of of ligament training. I remember one such training was to lift one of your legs to 90 degrees, with knees bent. Then, making sure to minimize the rotation of the hips and other parts, spell the letters of the alphabet forward and backwards using your dangling leg, and using the smallest movements possible.

[Joshua Naterman]

They are largely incorrect in labeling that as ligament training. That's more activation of the internal pelvic floor and hip girdle. There's a whole fan of 7 small muscles in there on each side. There will be stress on the hip capsule, so I suppose you could rightly claim that this is ligament training to some degree, but by far the most important thing is the activation of the small muscles.

[Longshanks]

Do these electrical stimulators have to be the really expensive ones such as ARPwave or will any do such as the cheaper ones on amazon UK? What criteria should I be looking for in one for them to have tendon recovery capacity? There seem to be a lot of them pitched as exercise tools on amazon and ebay.

[Elijahman]

If anyones interested i used to do some strongman training and when i was researching i found this http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/drobson18.htm im just starting to train again and i love the effect gymnastic training has on the body, alot of old time strong men incorporated gymnastics training in their routines too, hope this is helpful, God bless!!!

[Joshua Naterman]

Do these electrical stimulators have to be the really expensive ones such as ARPwave or will any do such as the cheaper ones on amazon UK? What criteria should I be looking for in one for them to have tendon recovery capacity? There seem to be a lot of them pitched as exercise tools on amazon and ebay.

Lord no! That's a specialty device. It's cool, but you don't need that. All you need is e-stim. Tendons are different than muscles, but generally you'd use a stronger tens-type contraction so that blood is pumped through the area. DC, or galvanic stimulation, is really what you want for tendons though. I would suggest you ask a qualified therapist for information on how to use that appropriately, but with DC you can draw stem cells and leukocytes and blood and all sorts of neat stuff by using the correct polarity.

[cccp22]

A lot of people seem to be low on sulfides (or whatever the sulfer compound in cartilage is), and MSM has sulfer to spare. I have heard a lot of good things about the hyaluronic acid + MSM + glucosamine chondroitin blends.

************ Would this be in addition to a compound such as liga-tend or is it an either/or situation?

Brandon