Which athletes are the strongest?

[Coach Sommer]

Perhaps another way to consider the advantages of dynamic Gymnastic Strength Training™ is which body can withstand the most forces being applied directly against the body itself rather than applying the largest force against an outside object.

For example during the bottom of a giant swing on rings the body is exposed to 7-10x bodyweight; for a 150lb gymnast that is 1,050 to 1,500lbs of pressure (the variance here is due to different athletes sometimes utilizing sub-optimal technique). To gain a true appreciation for the tremendous forces that are enacted upon a gymnast's body consider that this is only one of many reps in a single workout.

I was present during another experiment at the Olympic Training Center where the forces involved during tumbling were measured with force plates on the floor and the athlete was wired up with various telemeters to look like the bionic man. It was found that during a round off backhandspring back layout on the floor the body was exposed to 14x bodyweight during the punch into the back layout. I was surprised by this degree of force as the back layout is such an elementary tumbling element.

This is why there was a rash of blown achilles during the 2011 cross fit games qualifiers (the high volume deadlift and box jump combination) and why the premature employment of chinese ("kipping") pull-ups destroys so many shoulders. It is quite simply impossible to utilize slow movements to generate enough force to sufficiently prepare the connective tissues for this type of plyometric exposure. It is also why dynamic strength is developed so slowly and carefully during the GB Seminars.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Joshua Naterman]

You guys are using the wrong terms, that is causing the confusion.

It's not velocity, it is acceleration. It is not the inertia, it is the rate of change from one inertial state to the other.

It is not "the higher the acceleration the lower the force" but the higher the acceleration the lower the MASS must be in order to generate this acceleration. This does not necessarily mean a lower peak force but rather a much shorter period of time during which this force is applied. There is, of course, something of a sweet spot and each person is different according to their muscle fiber type distribution. When you reach the limit of your fastest motor units your acceleration will start slowing down but if that slowdown allows you to move a mass that is proportionally larger than the percentage of acceleration you have lost the peak force will still increase.

When you are generating 12-13 m/s per second acceleration or higher, such as during a fastball, you have to consider the amount of time this acceleration is acting on the object and the mechanical disadvantage the throwing muscles are working under. The forces are immense. Much higher than could be sustained for long enough to complete a triceps pulldown or a wood chop with a strength training load without immediate injury. The force is simply not present long enough to cause plastic deformation of the tissues... that's the only reason a well-trained pitcher isn't blowing his elbow out every game.

By the same token, those huge forces that O-lifters generate are only being generated for 1/10 of a second. It can't be generated for 2-3 seconds, the muscles would rip off the bones.

Hormones like adrenaline allow us to temporarily push past these safety boundaries, which is why when someone displays superhuman strength in an emergency there is always a very high price to be paid. There are always strained (partially or fully torn) muscles because the huge applied forces lasted beyond the point of strain in the stress/strain curve of muscular tissue.

Every material has a stress/strain curve that tells you how long a force of a given magnitude can be applied to the material without causing strain (plastic deformation, aka permanent change in structure, aka damage). The higher the force, the shorter this period of time is.

The powerlifters far and away have the highest average forces through the movements. No question. They just don't reach the same peak. So in essence they have superior low velocity strength but not superior high velocity strength.

This can be hard to wrap your head around, don't feel bad. To me, approaching this kind of question from an engineering point of view is much more helpful than trying to figure it out with plain physics. Taking the concepts of stress, strain, and what force actually is and using them together to form the framework of the answer to this question is what lets this all make sense.

There is no one answer, it depends on what you define as strength. In the end, everything in athletics happens within the framework of time and thus everything in athletics (with regards to direct physical exertion) is a measure of power.

Powerlifters and O-lifters and gymnasts all operate within different time constraints, which means you have to start asking yourself what kinds of definitions you want strength to have. To me it's worth seeing the advantages and disadvantages each athlete has over the other.

[Cole Dano]

Josh the i was using the term velocity because that's what Zatsiorky's book uses. I was rather surprised by the conclusion to be honest, it was very new to me and i assumed it was more something to do with human physiology than physics. Unfortunately the book is not very clear so i'm looking not to argue but to understand what's going on.

Canthar's statement reads like a direct quote from the book. There is the comparison to force exerted on a heavy and light shot and the force exerted on the heavy shot is more but the velocity is less (maximum maximorum force). Going into it i would have thought the force is close to the same across the board and related to one's strength. But for the same person putting a heavy or light shot the force they exert is different. I expected that the greater acceleration developed would equal it out.

So at least in my case that's where my confusion lies.

I like Coach's idea, look at the forces exerted on the athlete. And that all makes sense to me, it's just that the above seems to contradict that, so i'm missing something.

[Nic Branson]

I was a Kraemer student so my education background is heavy with Zatsiorsky my apologies for the bit of confusion. Acceleration inherit to have Velocity, but Velocity only really becomes useful when acting on external objects. Stick with Slizz.

As for the Heavy vs. Light Shot, the increased mass means it takes more force to generate motion. That increased mass also means lower accelerative force on the shot. The light shot does allow for much greater acceleration but less total force is needed to generate that acceleration. What is needed is for the athlete to be able generate all their force in the very short time window before that shot is airborne.

Hopefully I am making some sense. Thanks for the discussion, I still have issues writing out explanations. My strength is in speaking much more then writing, good practice and help for me here.

[Cole Dano]

Thanks Canthar that does make sense, in fact it really is just common sense when explained like that.

[Nic Branson]

I think that is why it's hard to get, especially with the language in Zatsiorsky or Kurz's books for instance. The easier the concept typically the harder it is to really understand.

[Joshua Naterman]

I was a Kraemer student so my education background is heavy with Zatsiorsky my apologies for the bit of confusion. Acceleration inherit to have Velocity, but Velocity only really becomes useful when acting on external objects. Stick with Slizz.

As for the Heavy vs. Light Shot, the increased mass means it takes more force to generate motion. That increased mass also means lower accelerative force on the shot. The light shot does allow for much greater acceleration but less total force is needed to generate that acceleration. What is needed is for the athlete to be able generate all their force in the very short time window before that shot is airborne.

Hopefully I am making some sense. Thanks for the discussion, I still have issues writing out explanations. My strength is in speaking much more then writing, good practice and help for me here.

No man, that's pretty good!

What we all have to remember is that fast twitch and slow twitch have two meanings: Fatigue resistance (determined at the fiber level, but still affected heavily by the nervous system) and actual time to maximum force production in the fiber, which is organized by motor group and determined by the motor neuron connected to the motor group.

Motor group = all fibers "powered" by one neuron. It can't pick and choose which branches(and therefore which fibers within the group) it uses, they either all go BOOM 100% to the max or they just sit there and do nothing. That is what a motor group is, and that is why we have lots of different ones in each muscle.

Think about it this way: All of us on this thread are pushing a car. The car is in neutral. As the car speeds up to about 20 miles per hour or something like 9 meters per second, some of us can't run that fast and can not continue to push the car with everyone else. As the car hits 24mph or 10m/s only a few of us are fast enough to keep our hands on the car and continue applying force. We are pretty close to our limits, so we can only provide additional force until we A) let go or B) the car starts going so fast that even we can't keep up!

Those few people are the fastest motor groups in the muscles. Most of us do lots of work for a large part of the push, but as the movement speed increases the number of fibers that are able to actually help out goes down. This smaller portion of muscle is able, within certain mass limits, to generate a greater peak force than the slower fibers are but only for a very short period of time. This short period of time is a natural result of the extremely fast movement speed generated.

The mass times the maximum acceleration generated will give your peak force. It should be obvious that there is a certain "power band," much like with a car engine (which is not quite maximum no-load acceleration) where the absolute maximum tension within the muscle can be generated. For many external loads it seems to be from 25-50% of the absolute maximum 1 rep load of that particular muscle at that particular position, which varies from person to person based on their muscle fiber type distribution and actually makes a ton of sense when applied to movement.

If you notice, the acceleration doesn't pick up in an Olympic lift until the bar is well past the knees. It is in the very strongest range of motion (best mechanical advantage) and lasts for a fraction of a second. It can't happen with those loads at lower mechanical advantages (with more bent knees and closed hips) which is part of why you don't see this ability developed in power lifters. This is the part of the lift that O-lifters specialize in, not the rest. It is those fastest twitch motor units (and really those that exist in the "power band," not so much the absolute FASTEST few but rather how many exist in that sweet spot) that are most specifically trained in an O-lifter.

Something very similar happens in tumbling runs, especially on harder surfaces. Coach has said before that he felt that the harder surfaces that were more similar to wrestling mats seemed to make for more powerful tumblers when they moved to a spring floor (as compared to tumblers who exclusively practiced on the spring floor). We don't have any hard data to support this, but the inherent movements of the body necessary to handle the much higher deceleration of a hard surface would cause a lot of this strong range, "sweet spot" development which should in turn transfer over to the spring floor.

So, it is absolutely true that when generating the absolute maximum acceleration peak force is not at its absolute maximum in most people (perhaps all people) because at some point you have only 1 or 2 motor groups that can contract quickly enough to cause this kind of acceleration, but fairly close to it in the higher part of the acceleration curve you will find the highest peak forces. They will only exist for a short period of time and are usually a part of a rebounding motion.

This is a complicated topic with two or three different answers being "right" depending on how the question is framed.

[Joshua Naterman]

I think that is why it's hard to get, especially with the language in Zatsiorsky or Kurz's books for instance. The easier the concept typically the harder it is to really understand.

Yes. They are also translated, I believe. Verhovshansky's work in particular is harder to understand because of this.

The reason velocity is the wrong term is because it takes zero force and therefore zero energy to maintain a constant velocity (as long as there is no friction or air resistance, other outside forces etc). Velocity is just speed with a direction. Acceleration is just how much and how quickly that velocity is changing over a period of time. Acceleration is what requires work to be done, not velocity. Velocity is an inertial property of an object and acceleration is what changes it. That is why acceleration requires energy, and why when we talk about movements it is all about acceleration.

Does that make sense?

[Nic Branson]

Kurz and Verovshansky's are typically translated, Z's work as he is a professor in the US was written here for his most recent work.

Velocity is the term he was meaning to use, but IMO it makes the understanding a bit more complicated then needed in most cases. It's really being used to show motion and the "open" window in which the athlete can generate acceleration. My effort was to try an explanation in the terms he was reading.

[Joshua Naterman]

Ah, that makes sense.

[anhkun]

vague question? relative strength? raw strength? relative/raw power? but yeah this is my conclusion, olympic lifters wins in terms of raw power ironically not powerlifters, powerlifters raw strength and gymnast relative strength. Anyone know where strongmen fit in ahah?

[Blairbob]

Strongman probably trump in Strength-Endurance and Real World Strength.

Otherwise, Powerlifters win in pure strength, Olympic lifters rule in power, and gymnasts rule in upper body relative strength and I guess core strength in relation to their BW. Not that anybody really tests or competes in core strength.

As for all arounders with aerobic endurance and sprinting included, I might bet on Decathletes or a Football Safety/RunningBack. Not exactly sure about aerobic endurance of tailbacks as I have never looked into it.

[Nic Branson]

Strongmen will have great strength endurance and the day to day translation of using that strength is incredible. When I went from powerlifting to competitive strongman the pick things up and carry them, push this overhead, moving the tree that fell down strength difference was noticeable. Now that I am mainly training GB, kb work and all more for rehab/prehab work my ability to manipulate my body and strength in not always great positions has improved. My two cents there.